Is guilt an emotion?

When unequivocal examples of emotion adjectives occur in the linguistic context of “being” (e.g. being angry) they can be seen to refer to emotions as readily as when they occur in the linguistic context of “feeling” (e.g. feeling angry). This is not true of poor 'or non-examples of emotion words. A psycholinguistic analysis of this phenomenon is proposed, in the light of which it is suggested that words such as “abandoned” and “guilty” do not refer to emotions. The possibility that the word “guilty” has a distinct emotional sense meaning “feeling guilty” is discussed, and the implications of this proposal for theories of emotions are examined. Also discussed are the implications of the inclusion of poor or non-examples of emotions in lists of “basic” emotions. Data are presented indicating that many of the states that emotion theorists have included as emotions, and in some cases as “basic” emotions, are not generally rated as such, and that they fail to exhibit the patterns using the feel-be test that characterise unequivocal examples. It is suggested that a problem in delimiting the domain of theories of emotions may reside in a confusion between emotions on the one hand, and their typical causes and concomitants on the other.