An emotional make-up
/æn ɪˈmoʊʃənəl ˈmeɪkʌp/
noun phraseB2
Definition
An emotional make-up means the combination of feelings and emotional qualities that form a person's character. It shows how someone usually feels, reacts to situations, and controls their emotions. This phrase helps explain why people behave differently emotionally.
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⚡ See It in Action
The typical emotional qualities of a person
- •Her emotional make-up makes her very caring and sensitive.
- •Different emotional make-ups mean people handle stress in different ways.
- •His emotional make-up caused him to stay calm during the crisis.
The combination of feelings that influence personality and reactions
- •Understanding your emotional make-up helps you manage your emotions better.
- •Emotional make-up can change a little with life experience but mostly stays the same.
🧲 Make It Stick
- ✓Think of "emotional make-up" like "personality," but it focuses only on feelings and emotions, not actions or thoughts.
- ✓Picture a colorful painting where each color is a different feeling; together, they create the full picture of how someone feels inside.
- ✓It’s the feeling you notice when someone smiles easily or gets upset quickly—this shows their emotional make-up.
- ✓Sounds like "make-up" (the things people put on their face) → imagine emotions as colors that "make up" or create the inside of a person.
- ✓Think about characters in stories who react very differently to the same event because of their emotional make-up.
- ✓NOT like "mood" (which is a temporary feeling), emotional make-up is more stable and long-lasting.
- ✓NOT like "behavior" (what people do), emotional make-up is about what people feel inside.
- ✓NOT like "temper" (quick anger), emotional make-up includes all emotions, not just anger.
🔄 Try Other Words
- •Emotional nature: the natural way someone feels and reacts emotionally (Use when talking about basic emotional traits)
- •Emotional character: the set of emotional qualities a person has (Use when emphasizing personality side)
- •Temperament: natural emotional style or mood (Use when focusing on inherited or natural emotional tendencies)
- •Emotional profile: a description of someone's emotions and reactions (Use in psychological or formal contexts)
🔍 Unboxing
- •"emotional" = related to feelings or emotions
- •"make-up" = the way parts come together to form a whole
- •Phrase origin: "make-up" used for how things are formed or arranged, here applied to emotions
- •The phrase combines two common words to describe the inner emotional structure of a person
- •Used in psychology and everyday language to explain emotional differences between people
💭 Reflect & Connect
•How does your own emotional make-up affect the way you respond to happy or sad news?
•Can a person’s emotional make-up change over time, or is it mostly fixed? How might life experiences influence it?
Fill in the blanks with the correct word:
1.People with a calm emotional make-up usually ___ stress better than those who get upset easily.
2.An emotional make-up that includes a lot of patience helps someone ___ difficult situations without anger.
3.Unlike a temporary mood, an emotional make-up is ___ and affects many parts of life.
4.When someone says “It’s just your emotional make-up,” they mean it is how you ___ inside, not just how you act outside.
5.Some jobs require a strong emotional make-up to handle ___ feelings every day.
6.You can learn to understand your emotional make-up by noticing how you ___ to different events.
7.Emotional make-up is different from behavior because it focuses on ___ rather than actions.