The word emotion comes from the Latin word “Emovere” meaning “to move out”, or “to excite”. In a common usage, emotion means subjective feelings Psychologists frequently use another word to mean the same thing i.e. affect. Hence, emotion and effect are two terms which are often used interchangeably.
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Keeping the above points into account we can define emotion as an activating and motivating state of an organism. An emotional state is a state of homeostatic imbalance because it motivates an organism to seek homeostatic balance. In other words, emotion can be defined as a “subjective feeling state, often accompanied by facial and bodily expressions and having arousing and motivating properties”.
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Expression and perception of emotion can be and has been studied in following two ways:
(a) Voice.
(b) Bodily Movements and Facial Expressions.
Voice:
The voice is one channel of emotional expression. Screams denote fear or excitement, groans denote pain or unhappiness, sobs denote sorrow, and laughter denotes enjoyment. A tremor or break in the voice may mean great sorrow. A loud, high-pitched sharply voice usually means anger. Of course, what is actually being said is also important due to the emotion being experienced by other people.
Bodily Movements and Facial Expression:
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Movements of the body are also used as cues in interpreting other people’s emotions. Important among these non-verbal bodily cues are facial expressions. Charles Darwin demonstrated that there is an innate or inborn basis for facial expression. Izard and associates have also shown that facial expression of primary emotions are innate.
Emotion can be defined as an involuntary, aroused (or excited) slate of the organism as a whole.