Concept of emotion

To clarify the concept of emotions, three definitions of various aspects of emotions can be distinguished:

1. Emotion is a feeling that is private and subjective. Humans can report an extraordinary range of states, which they can feel or experience. Some reports are accompanied by obvious signs of enjoyment or distress, but often these reports have no overt indicators. In many cases, the emotions we note in ourselves seem to be blends of different states.
2. Emotion is a state of psychological arousal an expression or display of distinctive somatic and autonomic responses. This emphasis suggests, that emotional states can be defined by particular constellations of bodily responses. Specifically, these responses involve autonomously innervated visceral organs, like the heart or stomach. This second aspect of emotion allows us to examine emotions in both animals and human beings.
3. Emotions are actions commonly "deemed", such as defending or attacking in response to a threat. This aspect of emotion is especially relevant to Darwin's point of view of the functional roles of emotion. He said that emotions had an important survival role because they generated actions to dangerous situations.

These are three generally accepted aspects of behavior, but some researchers add two others aspects: motivational state and cognitive processing.