Which one of the following is an emotion?

Concept

An emotion is a subjective, felt affective state accompanied by physiological arousal and expressive behaviour, distinct from a cognitive process (which governs how information is registered, stored, retrieved, or selectively attended to) and distinct from a stimulus (an external or internal input that can trigger a response). Widely recognised emotions include states such as joy/amusement, fear, anger, sadness, disgust and surprise, though the exact list varies across psychological theories.

Application

In this item: a stimulus is the trigger for a response, not the felt reaction itself. Memory is the cognitive process of encoding, storing and retrieving information -- a mental faculty, not a feeling. Attention is the cognitive process of selectively concentrating on one part of experience while filtering out the rest -- again a mental faculty, not a feeling. Amusement, however, is a genuine affective/feeling state: a pleasurable emotional reaction, typically to something enjoyable or humorous -- this matches the definition of an emotion exactly.

Cross-check

• Stimulus describes an input/trigger, not a felt state.

• Memory describes a cognitive storage-and-retrieval process, not a felt state.

• Attention describes a cognitive focusing process, not a felt state.

• Only the option that names a genuine subjective feeling qualifies as an emotion.

Amusement is therefore the emotion among the options -- it names a genuine felt state, unlike the other three which describe cognitive processes or a trigger.