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"This post originally appeared on the Buffer blog and has been republished with permission.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nEvery day it seems like we feel hundreds of different emotions \u2013 each nuanced and specific to the physical and\u00A0social situations\u00A0we find ourselves in.\r\n\r\nAccording to science, it\u2019s not that complicated by a long shot. A new study says we\u2019re really only capable of\u00A0four \u201Cbasic\u201D emotions: happy, sad, afraid/surprised, and angry/disgusted.\r\n\r\nBut much like the\u00A0\u201Cmother sauces\u201D of cooking\u00A0allow you to make pretty much any kind of food under the sun, these four \u201Cmother emotions\u201D meld together in myriad ways in our brains to create our layered emotional stews.\r\n\r\nRobert Plutchik\u2019s famous\u00A0\u201Cwheel of emotions\u201D\u00A0shows just some of the well known emotional layers.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nIn this post we\u2019ll take a close look at each of the four emotions, how they form in the brain and the way they can\u00A0motivate us\u00A0to surprising actions.\r\nHappiness makes us want to share\r\nPsychoanalyst\u00A0Donald Winnicott\u00A0discovered that our first emotional action in life is to respond to our mother\u2019s smile with a smile of our own. Obviously, joy and\u00A0happiness\u00A0are hard-wired into all of us.\r\n\r\nThe\u00A0left pre-frontal cortex\u00A0of the brain is where happiness traits like optimism and resilience live. A study done at the\u00A0Laboratory for Affective Neuroscience\u00A0watched Buddhist Monks and found that the\u00A0left prefrontal lobe of their brains lit up\u00A0as they entered a blissful\u00A0state of meditation.\r\n\r\nOther than making us \u2026\u00A0well, happy\u00A0\u2026 joy can also be a driver of action. Winnicott\u2019s discovery of a baby\u2019s\u00A0\u201Csocial smile\u201D\u00A0also tells us that joy increases when it is shared.\r\n\r\nNo wonder, then, that happiness is the\u00A0main driver for social media sharing. Emotions layered with and related to\u00A0happiness\u00A0make up the majority of this list of the top drivers of viral content as\u00A0studied by Fractl.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nHere\u2019s what Fractl\u2019s study of top emotional drivers looks like\u00A0overlaid on the emotion wheel:\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nJonah Berger, professor of marketing at the University of Pennsylvania\u2019s Wharton School and author of\u00A0Contagious: Why Things Catch On, studied nearly 7,000 articles in\u00A0The New York Times\u00A0to determine what was special about those on the most-emailed list.\u00A0He found that an article was\u00A0more likely to become viral the more positive it was.\r\n\r\nGoogle\u2019s Abigail Posner\u00A0describes this urge as an \u201Cenergy exchange:\u201D\r\n\u201CWhen we see or create an image that enlivens us, we send it to others to give them a bit of energy and effervescence. Every gift holds the spirit of the gifter. Also, every image reminds us and others that we\u2019re alive, happy and full of energy (even if we may not\u00A0always feel that way). And when we \u2018like\u2019 or comment on a picture or video sent to us, we\u2019re sending a gift of sorts back to the sender. We\u2019re affirming them. But, most profoundly, this \u2018gift\u2019 of sharing contributes to an energy exchange that amplifies our own pleasure \u2013 and is something we\u2019re hardwired to do.\u201D\r\nSadness helps us connect and empathize\r\nPerhaps fitting if one looks at sadness as the other side of happiness, the emotions of sadness and sorrow light up many of the same regions of the brain as happiness.\r\n\r\nBut when the brain feels sadness, it also produces particular neurochemicals. A\u00A0study by Paul Zak\u00A0looked at two interesting ones in particular.\r\n\r\nZak has study participants watch a short, sad story about a boy with cancer.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nAs they experienced the story, the participants produced cortisol, known as the\u00A0\u201Cstress hormone\u201D; and oxytocin, a hormone that promotes connection and empathy. Later, those who produced the most oxytocin were the most likely to give money to others they couldn\u2019t see.\r\n\r\nZak posits that oxytocin\u2019s ability to help us create understanding and empathy may also make us more generous and trusting. In a\u00A0different study, participants under the influence of oxytocin gave more money to charity than those not exposed to the chemical.\r\n\r\n\u201COur results show why puppies and babies are in toilet paper commercials,\u201D\u00A0Zak said. \u201CThis research suggests that advertisers use images that cause our brains to release oxytocin to build trust in a product or brand, and hence increase sales.\u201D\r\nFear/surprise make us desperate for something to cling to\r\nAlthough those who are prone to anxiety, fear and depression also exhibit a higher ratio of activity in the right prefrontal cortex, the emotion of fear is mostly controlled by a small, almond-shaped structure in the brain called the\u00A0amygdala\u00A0(seen below).\r\n\r\nThe amygdala helps us determine the significance of any scary event and decides how we respond (fight or flight). But fear can also cause another response that might be interesting to marketers in particular.\r\n\r\nA study\u00A0published in the\u00A0Journal of Consumer Research demonstrated that\u00A0consumers who experienced fear\u00A0while watching a film felt a greater affiliation with a present brand than those who watched films evoking other emotions, like happiness, sadness or excitement.\r\n\r\nThe theory is that when we\u2019re scared, we need to share the experience with others \u2013 and if no one else is around, even a non-human brand will do. Fear can stimulate people to report greater brand attachment.\r\n\r\n\u201CPeople cope with fear by bonding with other people. When watching a scary movie they look at each other and say \u2018Oh my god!\u2019 and their connection is enhanced,\u201D\u00A0says study author Lea Dunn. \u201CBut, in the absence of friends, our study shows consumers will create heightened emotional attachment with a brand that happens to be on hand.\u201D\r\nAnger/disgust make us more stubborn\r\nThe\u00A0hypothalamus\u00A0is responsible for anger, along with a lot of other base level needs like hunger, thirst, response to pain and sexual satisfaction.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nAnd while anger can lead to other emotions like aggression, it can also create a curious form of stubbornness online, as\u00A0a recent University of Wisconsin study discovered.\r\n\r\nIn it, participants were asked to read a blog post containing a balanced discussion of the risks and benefits of nanotechnology. The body of the post was the same for everyone, but one group got civil comments below the article while another got rude comments that involved name-calling and more anger-inducing language.\r\n\r\nThe rude comments made participants dig in on their stance: Those who thought nanotechnology risks were low became more sure of themselves when exposed to the rude comments, while those who believed otherwise moved further in that direction.\r\n\r\nEven more interesting is what happened to those who previously didn\u2019t feel one way or another about nanotechnology. The civil group had no change of opinion.\r\nThose exposed to rude comments, however, ended up with a\u00A0much more polarized understanding\u00A0of the risks connected with the technology.\r\n\r\nSimply including an ad hominem attack in a reader comment was enough to make study participants think the downside of the reported technology was greater than they\u2019d previously thought.\r\nSo negativity has a real and lasting effect \u2013 and it\u2019s evident in how content gets shared, too. In the previously mentioned New York Times\u00A0viral content\u00A0study, some negative emotions are positively associated with virality \u2013\u00A0most specifically, anger.\r\n\r\n\r\nWhy emotions are important in marketing\r\nWhat does all this teach us as social media sharers and marketers? That emotions are critical \u2013 maybe even more than previously thought \u2013 to marketing.\r\n\r\nIn an analysis of the\u00A0IPA dataBANK, which contains 1,400 case studies of successful advertising campaigns, campaigns with purely emotional content performed\u00A0about twice as well\u00A0(31% vs. 16%) as those with only rational content (and did a little better than those that mixed emotional and rational content).\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nThat makes sense based on what scientists know about the brain now \u2013 that people feel first, and think second. The emotional brain processes sensory information in\u00A0one fifth of the time our cognitive brain\u00A0takes to assimilate the same input.\r\n\r\nAnd since emotions remain tied to base evolutionary processes that have kept humans safe for centuries, like detecting anger or fear, they\u2019re so primal that we\u2019ll always be wired to pay attention to them \u2013 often with surprisingly powerful results.\r\n\r\nLike this one: In a twist on the customer survey, Generac, a standby generator manufacturer, asked some of their customers to draw their experience with the generators.\r\n\r\nAs\u00A0reported in the Harvard Business review:\r\nThey saw men drawing their generators as superheroes protecting their family, and women drawing the fear of being without one like sinking on the Titanic. This exercise led them to change their marketing from technical specs to testimonials of real consumers telling their stories of how Generac saved their lives and homes. It has helped their business double in the last 2 years to $1.2 billion.\r\nEmotion \u2013 the feeling of overcoming a primal fear \u2013 was the driver that moved their customers.\r\n\r\nThat\u2019s why Google\u2019s Abigail Posner says we can\u2019t underestimate\u00A0the importance of understanding the science of emotion in marketing:\r\n\u201CUnderstand the emotional appeal and key drivers behind the discovery, viewing, sharing and creation of online video, photography and visual content\u2026.In the language of the visual web, when we share a video or an image, we\u2019re not just sharing the object, but we\u2019re sharing in the emotional response it creates.\u201D"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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