"primitive emotions" is a correct and usable phrase in written English.
You can use it when referring to a certain type of emotion that is considered to be instinctive and basic. For example, "The painting elicited deep, primitive emotions in viewers."
But the fact that sport can unleash primitive emotions is not a reason to condemn it.
"There are primitive emotions and instincts that drive people to it.
They also show primitive emotions, the earliest forerunners to our own experiences of pain and pleasure, moving away from noxious stimuli and towards food sources.
The show's long-range carbon arc burns between the extreme simplicity of primitive emotions and the extreme technical sophistication with which they are expressed.
They prey on those primitive emotions for the sake of softening us up, enraging us, leaving us open to jolt after gratifying jolt -- payback.
In a diary entry in the 1940s, she wrote of her belief that drink was essential for the artist because it made her "see the truth, the simplicity, and the primitive emotions once more".
Sweet Fortune's Minion, set in a merchant bank in the 80s, won Beryl's admiration for its "thrusting satire", while It Is My Only Suit, about a waif left to fend for himself in an unnamed city "somewhere in Europe", moved her to "uncontrollable depths of primitive emotion".
The politics of hope plays to a less primitive emotion.
While he referred to the fear of cancer as a "primitive" emotion, Wakefield here, as always, reminded medical professionals and other educators that everyday people had rational reasons for dreading cancer.
This interplay appeals to primitive, atavistic emotions that, in themselves, transcend cultural differences.
Dr. Karp notes that in terms of brain development, a toddler is primitive, an emotion-driven, instinctive creature that has yet to develop the thinking skills that define modern humans.
