How Are You Feeling Today? According to historic research there are six basic emotions: anger, fear, surprise, disgust, happiness and sadness but new research suggests that there are at least 27 distinct emotions—and they are intimately connected with each other. In contrast to the notion that each emotional state is an island, the study found that “there are smooth gradients of emotion between, say, awe and peacefulness, horror and sadness, and amusement and adoration. In general, people can be very bad at recognizing the emotions of themselves and others, which in turn leads to a lot of misunderstandings and missteps. In some ways, professional and personal interactions would be a lot easier if everyone used a map like the one above to identify how they are feeling. …see more