do you go with the NeuroScience belief?:

The seat of emotion in the human brain is referred to as the amygdala(pronounced a-mig-da-la). It is a small mass near the center of the brain shaped something like a chestnut. It is responsible for our'base' emotions. By 'base' emotions I mean fear, excitement, passion,and so on. However, the complexity of our emotions are not well understood. For instance, fear is a general response; heart rateincreses, oxygen consumption increases, beta-endorphines are oftenreleased to reduce fatigue and pain - this is called the 'fight-or-flight' response. The body prepares to run or do battle. This response can be triggered by an arousal, such as a 600 pound angrymeat eating gorilla foaming at the mouth (rabid) charging to attackyou - would probably generate such a response in your body. However, some people experience these symptoms for no apparent reason - wecall that a panic attack, and it is a condition that is generatedfor unknown reasons in the amygdala. We do know, however, that certain traits go along with people who experience panic attacks,or the worse form, general anxiety disorder, which is something likea 6 month long panic attack. These people exhibit a decrease in alpha production in the brain. Alpha waves are medium-slow waves that the brain produces a lot of as you are just falling to sleep.Healthy brains produce a certain amount of alpha waves while youare awake. An uptight brain produces very little. Often, anxietyis treated by 'teaching' a person's brain how to produce alpha waves.This is called biofeedback, or sometimes by other processes such ascranial electrical stimulation, photic driving, or binuaral sound.These other three methods also teach the brain how to produce theright amount of alpha (or other brain wave types). It is interestingto point out that the 'Do-do' bird got its name from sailors who would grab the birds (they were quite large) and kill them withouta struggle, for food, of course. But the Do-do bird had no 'fight-or-flight' response becasue it had no natural predators on the islandswhere it evolved. Thus, the species had no need for using its amygdala in this way and had no fear. Since they had no fear they never ran from the sailors - who ate every last one until the speciesis now extinct...Passion is a basic emotion also seated in the amygdala. Passion isnecessary for reproduction. Our DNA just loves to replicate, thus,the amygdala makes boys chase girls and girls taunt boys so that our DNA can carry on. It is, after all, the DNA that lives forever,merely changing its 'body-coat' every generation.

Most of it seems pretty chemical to me, but I guess we build upon these things as we grow and learn.