What is the difference between feelings and emotions?

A lot of people use them interchangeably. Sometimes I do too.
But there are differences.

Feelings are senses detecting what you feel through your 11 inputs.
Hearing
Taste
Sight
Smell
Heat
Cool
Pain
Pleasure
Sense of balance (vestibular)
Pressure
Motion (kinesthetic)

Some people like the proverbial sixth sense which is the ability to discern psychic or vibes or ghosts. I don't subscribe to those as I put them under subliminal dynamics.

All of these allow you to determine what is going on out there as it feeds binary data into your nervous system.

Emotions on the other hand are what those feelings mean. They are are short lived and subjective. Our interpretation of the intensity and particulars then have an impact on us. These too fall into categories and have both combinations and harmonics.. Different theorist identify different energy conduits of emotions, which generally include happy, sad, mad, fear, with a few others listing about a dozen. Some argue that emotion is the primary motivational system.

Here are a few examples.

Plutchik uses his psychoevolutionary model

Bruce E. Morton uses the Hexadyad primary emotion model from the University of Hawaii

         1. certainty-expectancy vs.   confusion-surprise
         2. confidence                 vs.   fear
         3. pleasure                    vs.   disgust
         4. gratitude                    vs.   anger
         5. elation                       vs.   grief
         6. satisfaction                vs.   desire

Gray theorizes that there are three basic emotions rooted in separated brain circuits;

Behavioral approach system (joy),
Flight or fight system (fear/anger)
Behavioral inhibition system (anxiety).

Carrol Izzard sees 10 emotions:

anger,
fear,
distress,
joy,
disgust,
surprise,
shame,
guilt,
interest
contempt.

Andrew Hong has this one.

A treatment center uses this as a quick indicator.

Sally Bradford produced this one.

My preference is to start with Plutchik's model which comprises eight, then modify what each does because I include intensity values along with spiritual dynamics which Plutchik doesn't. The chart then shows increasing energy and how to modify each drive with a spiritual awareness.
The basic conduits (categories) of energy are the following 8.

Mike Leary

Affiliation          (Belonging)

Gratification      (Contentedness)

Anticipation       (pleasurable expectation)

Surprise             (startled)

Disgust              (Sickened, get rid of)

Anger                (Injustice)

Fear                  (Survival)

Sadness            (Loss)

Written 26 Dec, 2012.

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Ethan Hein, Armchair neuroscientist

11 upvotes by Quora User, Benjamin Green, Fred Bannerman, (more)

The neuroscientist Antonio Damasio defines an emotion as an involuntary bodily response, a more complex version of a reflex, like when you're in a dangerous situation and your pulse increases, blood flows away from your digestive system etc. A feeling is the process of your becoming aware of the emotion. I recommend his book The Feeling Of What Happens for a dense but reasonably accessible take on this theory. http://www.amazon.com/Feeling-Wh...

Written 29 Apr, 2011.

3 upvotes by Thomas Jones, Murtaza Aliakbar, and Shao Kaidi.

That is a good question. I would argue that feelings consist of one or more different emotions. The feeling to love a certain human being or a brand consists of different mix of emotions and also different intensity.

Written 29 Apr, 2011.

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Vlad Malik, BA in Linguistics, UX Designer... (more)

3 upvotes by Jenny Yoeng, Marie-Claude Lessard, and Shridhar Chandak.

While the words mean more or less the same thing, you can see that they stem from different metaphors:

"Feeling" has the meaning "emotion" from around 14th century. The root of the word, which has to do with "touch", is very old and appears in other languages, like Greek.

"Emotion" is a Latin-origin word that got into English via French. Its meaning has more to do with "moving, agitating".

It's not that "feeling" and "emotion" refer to different aspects of the human psyche. It's just that all words are used differently in different contexts, even if they mean more or less the same thing.

For instance, if you asked about someone's EMOTIONS you'd ask "How are you FEELING?".

If I say "I am overcome with a deep FEELING of sadness", I refer to sadness as a feeling. Although I can say "sadness is an emotion", it would be weird to say "I am overcome with the emotion of sadness". There is no particular reason for this. That's just how the language developed. In some contexts you say "feeling", in others you say "emotion".

It depends on the audience, personal style, and formality as well. In court people say "inquire" although normally they might say "ask". This is very common in language. There is a lot of redundancy but also a lot of nuance, which allows a great range of .

In English, there is a lot of this because it's a mix of French and Germanic origin words. French-origin words tend to be more academic, higher-register words. There is usually a Germanic equivalent that is a synonym. For example: wish/desire, freedom/liberty, thoughtful/pensive, acquire/get, etc. They mean the same thing, so each has acquired a slight nuance that distinguishes when you'd use one or the other.

Languages also change. It was once normal to say "I just bought a new automobile". The meaning of the word today is the same. If you said it, people would still understand you. But it's not the right word anymore. In 100 years, how people use "feeling" and "emotion" will change.

Sometimes in a particular domain words are formally defined, which makes them "technical terms". For instance, "system" means something very specific in biology and something very different in computer science. The word "feeling" is not formalized. As for emotion, the American Psychological Association's definition is still vague:

"A complex pattern of changes, including physiological arousal, feelings, cognitive processes, and behavioral reactions, made in response to a situation perceived to be personally significant."

Notice the use of the word "feelings" in the definition. The APA has no definition for "feeling". This is an example of a French-origin word having a more academic usage than the more colloquial Germanic word. In he future, someone might define "feeling" for the psychiatric field. Then feeling would become a term when used in that context and carry a specific meaning.

To conclude, the answer to your question is (1) what the words "feeling" and "emotion" refer to is the same general aspect of the human condition, (2) what specifically each word refers to depends on the nuance of each word which depends on context, (3) which word you choose to use and when is the product of hundreds of years of the English language being passed down and evolving from generation to generation.

Anonymous

1 upvote by Ijan Corleone.

From a professional counseling point of view
emotions are a mix of feelings with thoughts that create a slightly different emotions.
Feelings are the core feeling that can have thoughts and other feelings added to them to create further emotions.
For example, fear is a base feeling, but when you add cognitive thoughts of an impending danger it becomes apprehension, or when you add an unknown quantity of what will happen next it becomes anxiety.

Daniel Demidov, Math Student

1 upvote by Vipula Agarwal.

As you some, there are diverse answers to this question.

One of them is that our emotional system looks like that:
Moods =>   Feelings   =>   Emotions

And the other is as follows:
Moods   =>   Emotions   => Feelings

There are big confusions regarding what is the accurate definitions of both. And a contributing fact to this confusion is the fact that the dictionaries refer both terms to each other (i.e. A feeling is an abstract process of thought that invokes emotions).

But you do seem to have some sort of consistencies if you call them in other names:
Moods =>   Step 1 (Emotion/Feeling) => Step 2 (Feeling/Emotion)

Step 1 usually refers to the abstract more general value system that you get towards a person or an object, giving it sentimental value and defines your relationship with that object/person. This step usually involves and circles around your own self, and what is important to you.

Step 2 usually refers to the immediate response in the environment, caused by reactive nature. - If something happens it affects you.
There are 6 cross-cultural core elements to Emotions: Surprise, Anger, Sadness, Happiness, Fear and Disgust.

This confusion mainly rises probably because when you describe things and you use the sense of touch it is "a feeling" (between my fingers... etc.). And when you describe your general sense, you also use the verb "to feel" (I feel bad because... etc.). And also we don't use the word "emotion" too much.

I would like to also refer the word "emoticons" that should also be connected to the word "emotion". An immediate response to external stimuli.

Written 21 Nov, 2012.

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