Mixed emotions are the experience of having two or more emotions at the same time that are in conflict or contradictory. An assortment of mixed feelings is commonly reported in human life and there are today numerous psychological studies published on the topic. Some people are aware of feeling pleasure and remorse at the same time when eating a bar of chocolate, professional athletes have described mixed emotions with disappointing wins and relief with losses, and while losing a family member is a time of sorrow, there might be gladness as well if their family member is no longer suffering in extreme pain. A person can have mixed emotions about major life transitions such as to be happy to move to another country to pursue an educational or job opportunity but sad to leave their hometown, family and friends. Euphoric relief may accompany the painful end of a relationship with someone you once loved. A person might be fearful at having to undergo a medical procedure but the fear is intermingled a happiness as well because the procedure, if successful, will save their life.
This last example is taken from the eighteenth-century Scottish historian and philosopher David Hume in his first book, A Treatise of Human Nature. This book has three parts that were printed in two instalments in 1739 and 1740 when the author was just twenty-eight years old. In the second book, ‘Of the Passions’, Hume describes mixed emotions as combinations of contrary ‘direct’ passions. Passions themselves are ‘impressions’ or sensational feelings of varying degrees of intensity that we have related to all things pleasurable and painful. Human and animal kind alike share in the passions including feeling the contrary ones at the same time. Hume gives a central role to the passions in his philosophy. This is because he thinks that passions motivate humans to act, reason, and even form morals and politics. Direct passions are feelings that arise in people straightaway when confronted with something like an object or situation that is pleasurable or painful. There are other sorts of passions too, such as natural instincts and indirect passions, but this need not concern us here.
There are six direct passions that are grouped into opposites: desire and aversion, joy and grief, and hope and fear. The passions of desire and aversion arise immediately whenever we just think about things as good or bad in our minds. We call good or bad just those objects or events which cause pleasant or painful things. For example, if I think about a bad thing such as losing a loved one, then I will feel aversion to that event happening. If I consider a good thing such as a fun night out with a friend, then I desire that event to happen. When a good event is certain or probable, the feeling of joy emerges, but if the bad event is certain or probable then grief or sorrow arise. There is joy felt when in the present company of a loved one or grief is felt when confronted with the loss of someone much-loved.
The passions of hope and fear are a mix of joy and sorrow when we think of the uncertainty of these goods and evils. The degree of fear and hope felt depends on the degree of uncertainty we assign to the event considered. If I judge it to be likely that in the near future I will lose a loved one, then fear may increase, and when it seems pretty certain I will be reunited with a loved one soon, then the feeling of hope may intensify. There are a number of variants of hope and fear that depend on the person and their surroundings. For example, the varieties of fear include terror, consternation (or dismay), astonishment and anxiety. These different degrees of fear may be brought about by differences in the situation of the individual person and the object or event in question as well as that person's thoughts about the object and their own sorts of reflections about it. All of these factors will impact the specific sort of sensation one feels.
Hume's interest in the contrary passions is to observe and explain the conditions which tend to give rise to them. This approach to the passions is inspired by the scientific method pioneered by the English scientist Sir Isaac Newton in his 1687 iconic work, Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica or the Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. Hume takes on a few features of Newton's approach to how the physical world works and applies them to a study of how the human mind works. Some of the features in the method include an adequate description of the relevant phenomena based on careful observation and experience, the discovery of principles that are universal or general, and the aim to simplify matters as much as possible by positing only as few of these principles as really are needed to explain things. In the case of the passions, Hume's science of human nature aims at an accurate description of the experimental circumstances which produces the passions and finds the fewest, and most general, principles that guide the way the passions naturally work.
Hume provides four cases that lay out the circumstances when contrary passions tend to be present. We observe that sometimes,
(1) One passion dominates over the other passion,
(2) The mind alternates between each of the passions quickly,
(3) The passions destroy each other, and
(4) Both passions unite in the mind to form a third passion.
Let's take each case in turn.
In the first case, suppose that two contrary passions, say joy and sorrow, are presented in one object or situation at the same time. In some circumstances, one passion, say joy, dominates over the sadness felt. Hume calls the subordinate passion (sadness) a ‘movement’ that converts into a predominant ‘movement’ or passion (joy). This kind of emotional conversion can happen when we interact with certain works of art. For example, we greatly enjoy activities such as reading or watching tragedies and horror films, even though they tend to elicit unpleasant feelings in us like sadness, terror or fear. In a short essay called ‘On Tragedy’ written in 1757, Hume says that tragic events depicted in scenes of persons and actions are pleasurable because the painful emotional states such as fear or sadness are converted into pleasurable ones due to the artistic skill used to depict the events. There may be a variety of pleasant aspects in a work of art that convert the unpleasant emotions into something enjoyable (the elements of the artistic skill on display or the imitation of human action which we naturally enjoy, etc.), but the enjoyment we experience is a distinctive single sense of pleasure. Hume says that in ordinary human life the opposite thing may happen: that there may be a conversion of a subordinate movement to a predominant movement, meaning that the subordinate passion, say sadness, may rise up and take over the joy which once dominated. For example, excessive jealousy may destroy love.
The second case of contrary passions is explained by the presentation of two completely unrelated objects or events of the passions to a person, say one object that brings them sorrow and one object that brings joy. Hume's example in this case is someone who feels grief over the loss of a lawsuit and the joy of a recent birth of a new baby. In this situation the person does not mix these passions, even if the imagination turns very quickly from the one event to the other event. The person considers each of these objects separately and goes between feelings of grief and joy without combining these emotions together. Hume likens the case to that of two opposite liquors which are in separate bottles and hence cannot interact at all.
The third case is when both passions are destroyed. In this case, there may be a single event or object of a mixed nature in that it contains something that is harmful but yet potentially beneficial if the circumstances were different. Here there is a conflict between the two passions that is mutually destructive and leaves the mind neutral or indifferent. For example, one might recognize the many benefits of eating spinach but may avoid doing so because it is harmful for one's own body or when shopping for clothes the pleasure I feel at finding that perfect dress or pair of shoes dissipates immediately when I see the price tag that is well beyond what I can afford, as if I would harm my own family's well-being if I paid for that! In such cases there is no passionate interest in the pursuit of the item. Hume describes this effect of mixed passions as the neutralization which results when an alkali is combined with an acid: upon interaction the two destroy each other.
The final case of mixed passions is the one about a medical procedure described in the first paragraph of this essay. In this case the person is uncertain if the event will result in pleasure or pain. For example, there is joy that the medical procedure might alleviate a troublesome ailment but there is pain in the procedure and the risk that the procedure might result in serious bodily harm. The contrary passions, joy at cure and grief at pain and harm, will both be present. The feeling of joy and hope when considering the pleasurable prospects of cure clashes with the feeling of grief or fear when turning the view to the painful prospects of harm. When these contrary passions like fear and joy unite, this brings about a third complex passion. Hume says this passion is like a bottled mixture of oil and vinegar. The mixture combines in a single bottled unit but the mixture itself will never fully incorporate. How the intermingling between the passions occurs and their intensity depends on the ideas we have of the prospects between different outcomes. These ideas are related by probability, so we must determine how likely it is the object will happen or not happen. In such cases, the mind goes back and forth from thinking about the likelihood of one outcome to thinking about the likelihood of the other outcome.
Hume compares the results of his proofs about the mixed passions to prism experiments in optics pioneered by Newton in natural science. In a dark room Newton refracted white light with a prism and saw the seven colours of the rainbow: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. Newton's observations of a ray of sun that passes through a prism further show the varying compositions of colours. He posited that red, yellow and blue are the primary colours from which derive all of the other colours. The secondary colours of violet, indigo, orange and green are mixtures of the primary colours. The combination of yellow and blue makes green; red and yellow together make orange. If you add or take away a quantity of either colour, then you find more or less of each colour. To illustrate, Newton developed a diagram of a colour wheel. The colour wheel is a chart that depicts the visible spectrum of colours and the interrelations between them on a wheel.
Like colours, emotions may mix with each other at different intensity levels to form new emotions. This is shown in Hume's experiments about the passions of fear and hope as mixtures of grief and joy. From his observations of human life, Hume describes how the many shades of fear and hope are blended according to the degree of uncertainty we assign to the event considered: we are more or less fearful or hopeful when we are more or less certain of the presence of some evil or good object or event. To increase the probability of the bad event or object by degrees means that fear likewise increases by degrees until it may reach terror with hope diminishing all the while, whereas raising the probability of a good event happening raises hope and the degree of fear felt subsides.
Into the twenty-first century interest in the topic of mixed emotions alongside the comparison with colours has continued. The American psychologist Robert Plutchik thinks that mixed emotions are the result of blending a small number of more basic primary emotions. These primary emotions are shared across all human and animal species with differences in how these emotions are expressed among species but with common elements that can be identified. There are eight basic or primary emotions – anger, anticipation, joy, trust, fear, surprise, sadness and disgust. Each emotion has an opposite: joy opposes sadness, fear opposes anger, anticipation opposes surprise, and disgust is the opposite of trust. These emotions all vary in degrees of greater or lesser intensity, so fear might go from timidity to terror. Anger at its lowest level of intensity is annoyance. At its highest level of intensity, anger turns into rage.
Plutchik describes his theory of primary emotions as ‘psycho-evolutionary’. He thinks the primary emotions are evolutionary products that serve as biologically necessary responses to assist us when dealing with the events of life. These emotions then have been adapted to equip us with automatic reactions in the struggle to survive in our own particular life situation because they tend to lead to actions of high survival. Fear protects us, for instance in some cases by invoking the flight-or-fight response, and that may help us to avoid dangerous situations. Anticipation aids in the exploration of the events of life by raising our interest and preparing our body for new objects and situations in our environments.
All other emotions are mixtures of these basic emotions. To illuminate these mixtures, Plutchik developed in 1980 a visual two-dimensional colour wheel of emotion that can also be represented as a three-dimensional cone-shaped model. The eight primary emotions are arranged by colours in the middle of the wheel: violet is disgust, anger is red, anticipation is orange, yellow is joy, yellow-green is trust, green is fear, green-blue is surprise and blue is sadness. These emotions intensify or weaken along with the graded shades of colours as they move from inside to outside the centre of the wheel. The darker the shade, the more intense the emotion. The more intense emotions are grouped in the inner layer of the wheel and the less intense are on the outer layer of the wheel. For example, anger at the lowest level of intensity is annoyance and at its highest level of intensity, anger becomes rage represented by shades of red from lightest to darkest at the core. Or, a low-key feeling of boredom can intensify to disgust and then turn to loathing, represented by shades of light to dark violet.
There are three types of mixed emotions made up of the primary emotions. These are the primary, secondary and tertiary dyads. The primary dyads are emotions that mix two of the adjacent emotions on the wheel. In combination joy and trust form love, trust and fear form submission, fear and surprise form awe, surprise and sadness form disapproval, sadness and disgust form remorse, disgust and anger form contempt, anger and anticipation form aggressiveness, and anticipation and joy form optimism. The secondary dyads are emotions that blend two adjacent primary emotions but are separated from one emotion, so are once removed from one another on the wheel. They include joy and fear combining to make guilt, trust and surprise make curiosity, fear and sadness make despair, surprise and disgust make horror, sadness and anger make envy, disgust and anticipation make cynicism, anger and joy make pride, anticipation and trust make acceptance. The tertiary dyads are emotions that mix two adjacent primary emotions but are separated from two emotions or twice removed from one another on the wheel. Joy and surprise unite to make delight, trust and sadness make sentimentality, fear and disgust make shame, surprise and anger make outrage, sadness and anticipation makes pessimism, disgust and joy make pensiveness, anger and trust make domination, anticipation and fear make anxiety.
Plutchik extends the Newtonian colour wheel to the array of emotions that human and animal species may feel during the course of their lives. Just as by continuing to mix colours in different quantities together creates a range of possible hues, so too the blending of two or more different emotions raises a vast amount of different emotions with different intensities of each emotion. Plutchik's research indicated that there are over 30,000 emotions humans can experience. To examine the many complexities of emotion, the wheel of emotion is a useful place to start. This is because of the attempt to simplify matters by breaking down complicated emotions into more basic primary emotions. In this way, Plutchik's contribution to the study of emotion aligns with Hume's method to find the fewest, most general ways that the mind operates as needed to explain the ever-occurring multiplicity and diversity that is evident in the passions.
