What Are Emotions and Why Do We Have Them?

Part 1 of the Understanding your child's emotions series.

A child bursts into tears because a biscuit broke in half.

Another refuses to enter a classroom despite previously looking forward to the day.

A third becomes furious when a game ends unexpectedly.

To adults, reactions such as these can sometimes appear disproportionate to the situation. Yet emotions are not random interruptions to behaviour. They are among the most important tools humans possess for navigating the world.

Understanding emotions begins with a simple but difficult question:

What exactly is an emotion?

Psychologists still cannot agree on a single definition.

For many, emotions are products of evolution that helped our ancestors survive. Others argue that emotions emerge from a combination of bodily sensations, learning, language and experience.

What most psychologists do agree on is that emotions involve different processes, such as:

• Changes in the body

• Thoughts and interpretations

• Subjective feelings

• Behavioural urges

• Expressions

For example, fear might involve:

• a racing heart

• attention becoming focused

• a feeling of danger

• an urge to move away

• visible changes in posture or facial expression

An emotion is more than a feeling.

Why Humans Have Emotions

The functionalist view is that emotions evolved because they helped humans survive and adapt. It is a compelling theory.

• Fear encourages caution.

• Disgust helps people avoid contamination.

• Sadness can encourage support and connection.

• Joy strengthens social bonds and motivates behaviour that is beneficial.

• Anger often appears when goals are blocked or situations seem unfair.

In this sense, emotions act like information systems. They draw attention to situations that may require action.

Children, in particular, experience emotions as powerful signals long before they have developed the skills required to manage them effectively.

Emotions as Signals, Not Instructions

One popular analogy is to think of emotions as similar to a smoke alarm.

• A smoke alarm exists to get attention.

• It signals that something may require investigation.

• However, a smoke alarm is not always correct.

• Sometimes it alerts people to genuine danger.

• Sometimes it reacts to burnt toast.

Emotions are often said to operate in a similar way.

Yet the emotion itself does not automatically tell us what is true. Anxiety may indicate uncertainty, although uncertainty is not always dangerous. Frustration may undermine performance. A child may feel excluded when nobody intended this. A child may feel incapable despite possessing the skills needed to succeed.

The feeling is real.

The interpretation behind it may or may not be accurate.

Learning to recognise this distinction is an important part of emotional development, and not just for children.

Why Children Often Experience Emotions So Intensely

Adults sometimes expect children to behave as though they possess adult levels of emotional control. Developmental psychology suggests otherwise. The brain systems involved in planning, impulse control, decision-making and emotional regulation continue developing throughout childhood, adolescence, and even beyond.

This means children often experience strong emotions before they possess the skills required to manage those emotions independently.

Research suggests that children rely heavily on co-regulation. In simple terms, they borrow regulation from calm adults until they gradually develop the ability to regulate themselves.  

This explains why emotional overwhelm is often not a sign of defiance or poor behaviour, but a mismatch between emotional intensity and available coping skills.

Are Emotions Universal?

For much of the twentieth century, many psychologists believed that a small number of emotions were universal.

Researchers such as Darwin and later Paul Ekman argued that some emotions - happiness, sadness, fear, anger, surprise and disgust - were biologically inherited and recognisable across cultures. This view remains influential, with many psychologists still supporting it. Yet this assumption is increasingly being challenged. Even with those so-called universal emotions, there appears to be substantial cultural variation in how they are expressed, interpreted and understood. Variation is the norm when it comes to emotional expression, emotional vocabulary, emotional experience and the social rules surrounding emotions. Yet there do appear to be general tendencies.

Humans seem to share common emotional capacities, while culture and experience play an important role in shaping how emotions are understood and expressed.

A Modern Perspective: Constructed Emotion

One contemporary theorist is the neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett.

Barrett argues that emotions are not fixed packages hidden in the brain waiting to be triggered. Instead, the brain constantly uses past experience, bodily sensations, context and prediction to construct emotional experiences in the moment.

From this perspective, emotions are not simply reactions.

They are the brain's best predictions about what bodily sensations mean in a particular situation. This does not mean emotions are imaginary. It means emotions may be more flexible, learned and context-dependent than many traditional theories assumed.

What Lisa Feldman Barrett and Paul Ekman broadly agree on is that there is value in being able to name and label emotions. Having a rich emotional vocabulary can help with emotional understanding and emotion regulation, and this process can begin in childhood.  

Helping children develop emotional vocabulary, emotional awareness and varied life experiences may actually influence how they experience emotions themselves.

What Does This Mean for Adults Supporting Children?

It is helpful to move away from seeing emotions as problems to eliminate.  

The question becomes: What might this emotion be communicating?  

Curiosity often opens doors that criticism closes.

Key Takeaway 

Emotions are not obstacles to emotional development.

They are at the very heart of it.

The goal is not to remove difficult emotions.

The goal is to understand what they are trying to tell us.

References (further reading)

Bandura, A. (1977). Social Learning Theory.

Barrett, K. C., & Campos, J. J. (1987). Perspectives on Emotional Development.

Barrett, L. F. (2017). How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain.

Darwin, C. (1872). The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals.

Ekman, P., & Friesen, W. V. (1971). Constants Across Cultures in the Face and Emotion.

Frijda, N. H. (2006). The Laws of Emotion.

Gottman, J., Katz, L., & Hooven, C. (1997). Meta-Emotion: How Families Communicate Emotionally.

Russell, J. A. (1980). A Circumplex Model of Affect.

Schachter, S., & Singer, J. (1962). Cognitive, Social and Physiological Determinants of Emotional State.

Watson, J. B., & Rayner, R. (1920). Conditioned Emotional Reactions.