Is an emotion a feeling

The notion of felt-feeling corresponds to “emotional awareness”. William James' theory is an example of emotional awareness theory, according to which the perception of one's own bodily states is the foundation of emotional awareness. At the same time, Wilhelm Wundt proposed another theory of emotional awareness by distinguishing three dimensions: pleasant-unpleasant, calm-arousal and relaxation-tension.

Since then, research has mainly focused on two dimensions: "feeling good or bad" (valence dimension) and feeling "full of energy or exhausted" (activation dimension). A recent evolution of this approach affirms that the integration of these two dimensions, called core affect, constitutes the fundamental element of affective awareness.

From this perspective, a specific emotion (eg fear or anger) will emerge depending on how this core affect is conceptualized. Note that the notion of a unified activation dimension (arousal) is debated. Indeed, activation is sometimes studied in phenomenological terms, sometimes in terms of the electrical activity of the brain, or sometimes in terms of the activity of the sympathetic nervous system.

The notion of a valence dimension as a continuum is also the subject of much controversy. For example, rather than a continuum, there would be two independent systems in the brain, one dedicated to positive valence, the other to negative valence. This would make it possible to assess at the same time the positive and negative values ​​of situations towards which one is ambivalent.

Measuring feelings often involves questioning individuals either in terms of discrete emotions (eg, “Right now, are you nostalgic?”) Or in terms of valence (eg on a continuous scale from "Very unpleasant" to "very pleasant").