Contempt

Contempt is an attitude towards individuals, social groups and eventually ideologies, which involves disgust and anger while generally triggering maladaptive behaviours. However other authors define contempt as a negative emotion. Paul Ekman categorises contempt as the seventh basic emotion, along with anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness and surprise. Robert C. Solomon places contempt on the same continuum as resentment and anger, and he argues that the differences between the three are that resentment is anger directed towards a higher-status individual; anger is directed towards an equal-status individual; and contempt is anger directed towards a lower-status individual.