Textbooks often list six basic emotions: happiness, sadness, fear, anger, disgust and surprise. In 2017, Alan Cowen and Dacher Keltner had 853 people watch 2,185 short video clips and report what they felt. They found 27 distinct categories, including admiration, awe, nostalgia, awkwardness and horror. And the categories aren't sealed boxes: feelings blend into one another along smooth gradients, more like a color palette than a list.
Remembering is not replaying a recording — it is rebuilding. Each time you recall a memory, it becomes temporarily malleable and can be altered before being stored again. That is why two people can sincerely remember the same event… differently.
In 2003, Johnson and Goldstein compared European countries. Where you must tick a box to become a donor, consent rates ranged from 4% to 28%. Where you're a donor by default unless you opt out, they topped 85%. People aren't more generous on one side; most simply stick with whatever option was chosen for them.