The very first emotions appear during infancy, mostly from 1 - 7 months or so. They seem to be universal. That is, people all around the world have these emotions and express them in visibly similar ways. We can recognize facial expressions of fear or joy in people from all different cultures and ethnic backgrounds. We call these the “primary emotions.”
Primary emotions don’t need to have social input to be learned or expressed. In fact, infants born blind smile and grimace and produce other facial displays, even though they have never seen someone else smile . . .