Differentiating between emotion and feeling is somewhat complicated for some people, since they are words that have very similar meanings and that many people incorrectly use them as if they were synonyms.
The reason for their similarity is that a few years ago they really meant the same thing, this occurring until advances in terms of psychology have managed to discover much more about the human brain and its emotional states, finding that emotions and feelings were not synonyms but two different states from each other.
The bad thing about using these words as synonyms is that it could make you look bad in front of highly educated people who do know the difference between them. Also, it never hurts to start speaking correctly and it never hurts to acquire new knowledge and skills related to linguistics.
It really is very easy to know the difference between emotion and feeling, since you only need to know a little about the existing differences and with a few small ones you will never be confused again and you will always say the words in the correct way.
If you want to know the difference between emotion and feeling, you are in the right place, since from doncomos.com I am going to teach you what is the difference between the meaning of both words and when they should be used correctly.
What do you need to differentiate emotion and feeling?
- A minimum of reading comprehension.
Instructions to differentiate emotion and feeling
- Definition of emotion: The first thing before naming the differences between emotion and feeling is to say what each one means, since it is what I always do in all my differences articles because I consider that it is the best way to know about a correctly form the differences, because if we do not know what a word means, we are hardly going to be able to know the differences it has with others. First we are going to define the word emotion, since it is a more primitive stimulus than feelings. We define emotion as a punctual state in the human being due to an external consequence in a temporary way. For example, when a relative has died, at that moment we have an emotion of sadness and discomfort, since due to these stimuli of sadness, the human body has secreted certain hormones such as cortisol, which makes us feel that way. The same would happen in happy feelings, such as when we release dopamine when doing sports and it causes us to have an emotion of joy.
- Definition of feeling: Once we have defined the word emotion, we must continue with the word emotions, since we need to know both meanings to be able to differentiate the words from one another. We define feeling as a state of mind of long duration caused by exposure to a certain emotion. For example, the feeling of depression is a long-term feeling that is usually caused by several sad stimuli for some time that cause continuous sad emotions, which end up leading to constant depression. The feeling of love could be caused by some kind of continuous stimulation of good feelings with a person you like of the opposite sex, which leads to the fact that in the end you end up falling in love with that person of the opposite sex.
- Differences between emotion and feeling: Once we know the definition of both the word feeling and the word emotion, it is time to differentiate both words, since once we know what they mean, it is much easier to know it in the proper way. the differences between them, something that would be impossible without knowing the meaning of both the word emotion and the word feeling. The first difference is that emotions are a short, intense and short-term emotion and the feelings are long, of variable intensity and generally long-term. The second difference is that emotions cannot be controlled because they are unconscious and feelings can be controlled, since they come from the continuous stimulation of emotions, which we can interpret in a certain way or another according to our knowledge (for example, a A rookie in seduction interprets in a more emotional way when a girl greets him on the street, since he sees it as signs of attraction, while an expert in seduction is capable of knowing that these signs are not real and does not give them importance). Finally, the last difference is that feelings depend on emotions and emotions depend on our body’s reactions, which means that there can be emotions without feelings but there can be no feelings without emotions.
Tips to differentiate emotion and feeling
- How not to be wrong: When you want to distinguish which is one and which is another, think about whether you can control it or not. For example, if you see a girl that you like and you feel butterflies in your stomach at first sight, they are emotions, but if it is a girl that you did not like before but that you have ended up liking because she treats you well and because she is with you every day They are feelings.