Why anger is a primary emotion?

What are primary emotions?

Primary emotions are said to be the emotions that surface quickly following a cue or stimulus. They can come without warning because of an event. For example, you are outside, and a wasp starts to fly around you. Your initial emotion would be fear which may cause you to fly, fight, or freeze. Thoughts of primary emotions believe that they are building blocks for other more complex emotions.

What emotions are primary?

There have been several in the field that has researched primary emotions.  The most current one was developed in the 20^th century by Paul Ekman, which narrows those emotions down to six basic ones.  They are sadness, surprise, happiness, anger, disgust, and fear.  These are all said to be innate, automatic, and quick and can be traced back to primitive roots.  All the primary emotions can be said to aid in survival as well as universal.

Why is anger a primary emotion?

There has been some debate about whether anger is a primary or secondary emotion.  It appears it can fit into both categories depending on the stimulus/event that the emotion occurs in.  Anger is a survival emotion.  If one did not get angry, survival might not have occurred for the individual.  The ability to fight was necessary for humans at an early age when they needed to hunt for food and basic needs.  Anger can also be used to hide other more vulnerable feelings such as fear, anxiety, shame, guilt, etc.  When we think of anger as a primary emotion, we can think of an example of driving down the road, and a car cuts in front of you, causing you to break.  The first reaction for many of us would be anger.  We may feel in our bodies our heart rate starts to increase and our breathing may become swallowed.  We may feel tense in our shoulders or even make our hand into a fist. We may start shouting at the person who cut us off or say some unkind words.  Anger, in this case, is a primary emotion as it happens automatically in response to the stimulus that occurred.  Regardless of the root of the anger, and if it is a primary or secondary emotion, it needs to be processed and handled to help lead a healthy life.