Confusion: Widely Emerging Emotion

Joy, sadness, anger, fear, surprise and disgust are the most common emotions that are expressed by the humans all over the world. However, emotions like elevation, gratitude, pride and confusion have become their 21st century companions.

Most of these emotions are exhibited with the same dramatic and characteristic facial expressions and thus could share the title of other emotions that have come to the fore in a more subtle world.
Jonathan Haidt, University of Virginia and his student, Jennifer Silvers, worked on the possibility of elevation as a possible inclusion.

"If you ask people to remember their most cherished experiences of their whole life, elevatory moments are likely to feature in their top five," said Haidt.Gratitude makes us feel more connected and in romantic relationships. Pride can be sub categorized as hubristic pride and authentic pride. One is associated with aggression and overconfidence, while the other motivates achievement, hard work and altruistic behaviour.

Dacher Keltner from University of California researched on confusion as a basic emotion describing it as the feeling that the "environment is giving insufficient or contradictory information."

It is our brain's way of telling us that the way we are thinking about things is not working and could serve to bring new knowledge and encourage social relationships, making it, the perfect 21st century emotion.