What does emotionality mean?
Emotionality is the quality or degree of being emotional — the extent to which a person experiences feelings intensely and expresses them outwardly. It functions primarily as an abstract noun describing a trait rather than a single momentary feeling: one might speak of someone's natural emotionality, an actor's heightened emotionality on stage, or the elevated emotionality observed in a clinical patient. The word belongs chiefly to formal registers and appears most often in psychology and psychiatry, where emotionality is treated as a measurable dimension of temperament, alongside traits like sociability and impulsivity. It also surfaces in literary and artistic criticism to describe work charged with visible feeling. Emotionality is generally neutral in connotation, though context can lend it either warmth (as praise for expressiveness) or mild criticism (as a suggestion of volatility). It derives from "emotional," itself rooted in the Latin verb emovere, meaning to stir up or move out.
nounThe quality or state of being emotional; the degree to which a person displays, expresses, or is influenced by strong feelings.
- The quality or condition of being emotional; the tendency to experience and express strong feelings.
- In psychology: the observable intensity and frequency of an individual's emotional responses, often treated as a measurable personality dimension.
"Her natural emotionality made her a compelling performer, though it sometimes overwhelmed her composure on set."
"The actor's raw emotionality gave the performance an authenticity that critics praised."
"Researchers measured the children's emotionality as part of a longitudinal study of temperament."
"Emotionality" entered English in the 1800s just as scientists were beginning to argue that feelings could be measured — and psychologists have been quantifying it ever since.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of emotionality
Emotionality was formed within English from "emotional" plus the noun-forming suffix "-ity," following a productive pattern that produced words such as finality and morality. Its root traces back through French émotion to the Latin verb emovere, "to move out, stir up," from e- (out) and movere (to move). The word became established in English during the nineteenth century, coinciding with the rise of scientific psychology and its interest in classifying and measuring human feeling. Cognates sharing the same Latin root include motion, motive, and promote.
How emotionality is actually used
The word is largely neutral to slightly formal in register, common in psychology, psychiatry, and literary criticism. In everyday speech, phrases like "being so emotional" are more usual than "emotionality." In clinical contexts, elevated emotionality may be described more precisely (e.g., "emotional lability").
Easily confused with emotionality
Emotionality is a neutral trait of being emotional, while emotionalism often carries a negative connotation of excessive or indulgent display of feeling.