Emotions and goals: Assessing relations between values and emotions

Whereas most current theories on emotions posit a central position to goals, direct tests of associations between emotions and goals have been sparse. We investigated such relations by comparing ratings of value importance and frequency of emotional experiences in daily life. The results confirmed our general expectation that associations would be found between values and emotions related to corresponding goals. We argue that data like these are fundamental to further development of emotion theory.     

Going with your gut: How William James' theory of emotions brings insights to risk perception and decision making research

The basic premise of William James' theory of emotions – that bodily changes lead to emotional feelings – ignited debate about the relative importance of bodily processes and cognitive appraisals in determining emotions. Similarly, theories of risk perception have been expanding to include emotional and physiological processes along with cognitive processes. Taking a closer look at The Principles of Psychology, this article examines how James' propositions support and extend current research on risk perception and decision making. Specifically, James (1) described emotional feelings and their related cognitions in ways similar to current dual processing models; (2) defended the proposition that emotions and their expressions serve useful and adaptive functions; (3) suggested that anticipating an emotion can trigger that emotion due to associations learned from past experiences; and (4) highlighted individual differences in emotional experiences that map on well with individual differences in risk-related decision making.     

Basic emotions,rationality, and folk theory

Abstract

Answering the question of whether there are basic emotions requires considering the functions of emotions. We propose that just a few emotions are basic and that they have functions in managing action. When no fully rational solution is available for a problem of action, a basic emotion functions to prompt us in a direction that is better than a random choice. We contrast this kind of theory with a componential approach which we argue is either a version of the theory of basic emotions or else leads to the doctrine that emotions are mistaken tenets of folk psychology. We defend the psychological reality of the folk theory of emotions, and we argue that universal basic emotions make it possible to understand people from distant cultures, and to translate emotional terminology from one language to another. Finally, we show how theories of basic emotions can be tested, and indicate the kinds of empirical result that can bear on the issue.     

Dreams,emotions, and social sharing of dreams

Current life emotional experiences have been demonstrated to elicit a process called social sharing of emotion, consisting of repetitive talking about these experiences in conversations with relevant others. Like many diurnal experiences, dreams are generally loaded with emotional elements, and empirical evidence has suggested that individuals share their dreams with others mainly belonging to the circle of intimates. The present study examined whether the intensity of the emotion experienced in a dream predicts the extent to which this dream is socially shared. The prediction was tested independently for positively valenced and negatively valenced dreams, on two samples of respondents, i.e., Belgians and Italians. Other potential predictors of sharing were considered, including a number of cognitive appraisals and cognitive consequences of emotion. Results confirmed that emotion intensity is the main predictor of social sharing for both negative and positive dreams. In addition, the analysis of dream contents accounted for a high level of emotional intensity associated with respondents’ dreaming. Implications for theory and functions fulfilled by emotion with regard to social interactions are discussed.     

Same situation--different emotions: how appraisals shape our emotions

Appraisal theories of emotion hold that it is the way a person interprets a situation--rather than the situation itself--that gives rise to one emotion rather than another emotion (or no emotion at all). Unfortunately, most prior tests of this foundational hypothesis have simultaneously varied situations and appraisals, making an evaluation of this assumption difficult. In the present study, participants responded to a standardized laboratory situation with a variety of different emotions. Appraisals predicted the intensity of individual emotions across participants. In addition, subgroups of participants with similar emotional response profiles made comparable appraisals. Together, these findings suggest that appraisals may be necessary and sufficient to determine different emotional reactions toward a particular situation.     

Basic emotions: Theory and measurement

Abstract

There have been new conceptualisations and new evidence bearing on the question of whether or not some emotions are basic. There has been innovation in work on cognitive appraisals of emotions, in cross-cultural research, and in developmental psychology. We introduce some of these ideas, and in introducing the contributors to this volume, we lay out four considerations that affect understanding of whether or not some emotions are basic. These considerations are the separability of components of emotion, the differences of definitions, and indicators used by different theorists of basic emotions, questions about whether some emotions are derived from others, and mappings between elicitors, accompaniments, and consequences of emotions.     

Resilient individuals use positive emotions to bounce back from negative emotional experiences

Theory indicates that resilient individuals "bounce back" from stressful experiences quickly and effectively. Few studies, however, have provided empirical evidence for this theory. The broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions (B. L. Fredrickson, 1998, 2001) is used as a framework for understanding psychological resilience. The authors used a multimethod approach in 3 studies to predict that resilient people use positive emotions to rebound from, and find positive meaning in, stressful encounters. Mediational analyses revealed that the experience of positive emotions contributed, in part, to participants' abilities to achieve efficient emotion regulation, demonstrated by accelerated cardiovascular recovery from negative emotional arousal (Studies 1 and 2) and by finding positive meaning in negative circumstances (Study 3). Implications for research on resilience and positive emotions are discussed.     

Intentionality in Intuitive Versus Analytic Processing: Insights From Social Cognitive Neuroscience

A new preliminary model of emotional disorders, derived from basic tenets of emotion theory and new developments in cognitive science, is presented. It is suggested that tightly organized basic emotions stored in memory fire inappropriately on occasion. In individuals who are vulnerable both biologically and psychologically, these emotions may become the focus of anxiety or dysthymia in that the emotions themselves are experienced as uncontrollable and threatening with adequate coping being difficult or impossible. Early experiences with lack of control over one's environment as well as biological vulnerabilities may well determine whether or not one becomes anxious/dysthymic over the experience of basic emotions in an inappropriate context. This model is illustrated in the context of panic disorder and then extended to depression (sadness/distress), stress (anger), and mania (excitement).     

Expressive development and basic emotions

Abstract

One important emotion theory currently postulates an innate tie between specific infant facial expressions and a set of discrete basic emotions. The arguments and evidence relevant to this assertion are reviewed. New data are presented from a naturalistic study of one infant's early expressive development and a judgement study of infant facial, vocal, and body activity. These data challenge the innate tie hypothesis. Based on dynamical systems systems theory, an alternate conceptual framework is presented that may allow us to usefully retain the concept of basic emotions while accommodating the data on infant expressive development.     

Epistemic emotions: Cognitive underpinnings and relations with metacognitive feelings

The aim of this paper is to review research on epistemic emotions in learning. The emphasis is not only on the cognitive states that give rise to epistemic emotions but also on the dynamics of epistemic emotions in complex learning situations. The interrelations between epistemic emotions and their interactions with affective states and metacognitive experiences are also explored. The position put forth is that epistemic emotions are triggered by cognitive states involving discrepancy, or conflict, between active schemas and incoming information, or gap in one's knowledge. However, each of the epistemic emotions has its specific triggering conditions that differentiate it from the others. Changing conditions during a cognitive endeavor impact the intensity as well as the interrelations between epistemic emotions. Also, there are relations between epistemic emotions and metacognitive experiences such as feeling of difficulty or confidence, albeit not so strong. The implications for future research are discussed.     

The role of working memory in decoding emotions

Decoding facial expressions of emotion is an important aspect of social communication that is often impaired following psychiatric or neurological illness. However, little is known of the cognitive components involved in perceiving emotional expressions. Three dual task studies explored the role of verbal working memory in decoding emotions. Concurrent working memory load substantially interfered with choosing which emotional label described a facial expression (Experiment 1). A key factor in the magnitude of interference was the number of emotion labels from which to choose (Experiment 2). In contrast the ability to decide that two faces represented the same emotion in a discrimination task was relatively unaffected by concurrent working memory load (Experiment 3). Different methods of assessing emotion perception make substantially different demands on working memory. Implications for clinical disorders which affect both working memory and emotion perception are considered.     

Preserved re-experience of discrete emotions: Amnesia and executive function

Amnesic patients can re-experience emotions elicited by forgotten events, suggesting that brain systems for episodic and emotional memory are independent. However, the range of such emotional memories remains under-investigated (most studies employing just positive–negative emotion dyads), and executive function may also play a role in the re-experience of emotions. This is the first investigation of the intensity of the emotional re-experience of a range of discrete emotions (anger, fear, sadness, and happiness) for a group of amnesic patients. Twenty Korsakoff syndrome (KS) patients and 20 neurologically normal controls listened to four novel emotional vignettes selectively eliciting the four basic emotions. Emotional experience was measured using pen-and-paper Visual Analogue Mood Scales and episodic memory using verbal recollections. After 30 min, the recollection of stories was severely impaired for the patient group, but the emotional re-experience was no different from that of controls. Notably, there was no relationship between episodic recall and the intensity of the four emotions, such that even profoundly amnesic patients reported moderate levels of the target emotion. Exploratory analyses revealed negative correlations between the intensity of basic emotions and executive functions (e.g., cognitive flexibility and response inhibition) for controls but not patients. The results suggest that discrete emotions can be re-experienced independently of episodic memory, and that the re-experience of certain discrete emotions appears to be dampened by executive control. KS patients with absent or mild cognitive symptoms should benefit from emotion-regulation interventions aimed at reducing the recognized affective burden associated with their episodic memory deficit.     

Memory for emotions

It is argued that memory reproduces emotional data as well as cognitive information. Retrieval of feelings may be cue-dependent, emotionally mediated or coincidental. Infantile emotions can be presumed to vary strongly due to the lack of control, and, poorly labelled, they could produce powerful, but un-identifiable memories, possible components in various adult experiences. In later childhood there is greater independence, and moderately positive memories from this period have possibly fewer “withdrawal effects.” Though an event may be linked with certain remembered feelings at the time of impact, it can later be recombined with other echoes. Remembered emotions can be rewarding, and if they are found to be lacking, substitutes will often be sought, or repressed feelings may surface. These theoretical considerations are applied to the phenomena of anger, depression, and anxiety, each involving (reproduced) feeling-states influencing cognitive processing. “Turning down” the memory channel, or the timely retrieval of positive feelings could increase tolerance in this respect. Human attraction is also briefly analysed.     

Norms for 10,491 Spanish words for five discrete emotions: Happiness,disgust, anger,fear, and sadness

The discrete emotion theory proposes that affective experiences can be reduced to a limited set of universal “basic” emotions, most commonly identified as happiness, sadness, anger, fear, and disgust. Here we present norms for 10,491 Spanish words for those five discrete emotions collected from a total of 2,010 native speakers, making it the largest set of norms for discrete emotions in any language to date. When used in conjunction with the norms from Hinojosa, Martínez-García et al. (Behavior Research Methods, 48, 272–284, 2016) and Ferré, Guasch, Martínez-García, Fraga, & Hinojosa (Behavior Research Methods, 49, 1082-1094, 2017), researchers now have access to ratings of discrete emotions for 13,633 Spanish words. Our norms show a high degree of inter-rater reliability and correlate highly with those from Ferré et al. (2017). Our exploration of the relationship between the five discrete emotions and relevant lexical and emotional variables confirmed findings of previous studies conducted with smaller datasets. The availability of such large set of norms will greatly facilitate the study of emotion, language and related fields. The norms are available as supplementary materials to this article.     

The secret life of emotions

The possibility of unconsciously evoked emotions is often denied because awareness of an emotion's cause is considered to be precisely what produces the emotion. However, we argue that because emotional responding is important for successful living, both global and specific emotional responses can be induced without awareness. The present research used quick and super-quick subliminal priming techniques, and cognitive, feelings, and behavioral measures, to test this hypothesis. Our results show that both global moods and specific emotions can be evoked without conscious awareness of their cause.     

Classifying emotion: a developmental account

The aim of this paper is to propose a systematic classification of emotions which can also characterize their nature. The first challenge we address is the submission of clear criteria for a theory of emotions that determine which mental phenomena are emotions and which are not. We suggest that emotions as a subclass of mental states are determined by their functional roles. The second and main challenge is the presentation of a classification and theory of emotions that can account for all existing varieties. We argue that we must classify emotions according to four developmental stages: 1. pre-emotions as unfocussed expressive emotion states, 2. basic emotions, 3. primary cognitive emotions, and 4. secondary cognitive emotions. We suggest four types of basic emotions (fear, anger, joy and sadness) which are systematically differentiated into a diversity of more complex emotions during emotional development. The classification distinguishes between basic and non-basic emotions and our multi-factorial account considers cognitive, experiential, physiological and behavioral parameters as relevant for constituting an emotion. However, each emotion type is constituted by a typical pattern according to which some features may be more significant than others. Emotions differ strongly where these patterns of features are concerned, while their essential functional roles are the same. We argue that emotions form a unified ontological category that is coherent and can be well defined by their characteristic functional roles. Our account of emotions is supported by data from developmental psychology, neurobiology, evolutionary biology and sociology.     

Semantic primitives for emotions: A Reply to Ortony and Clore

Abstract

We respond to four criticisms by Ortony and Clore (1989) of our semantic analysis of English emotion terms (Johnson-Laird & Oatley, 1989). We clarify how our theory enables people to speak of certain emotions that they experience without knowing their cause. We explain why emotions are best regarded as mental states with distinctive phenomenal tones—not “just” feelings, and how emotion terms can relate to terms denoting moods. Finally, we discuss an issue that distinguishes our theory from other contemporary cognitive theories: We claim that there is a small number of discriminably different basic emotions, and that the semantics of English emotion terms is comprehensible if these basic states are taken as unanalysable primitives.     

情绪对延迟折扣的影响：现状、机制与展望

延迟折扣研究领域日益重视情绪的影响作用。本文基于三类研究取向对情绪与延迟折扣关系研究进行了回顾。情绪效价和唤醒度均影响延迟折扣,但是研究结果并不一致;具体情绪类型不同,其对延迟折扣影响也存在差异。除此之外,本文就情绪信息理论、情绪动机维度理论和评估倾向理论如何解释延迟折扣进行了详细阐述。未来的研究需要进一步深入考察情绪影响延迟折扣的认知神经机制,从而为延迟折扣的负性情绪效应的干预提供可靠的科学依据。     

The world of emotions is not two-dimensional

For more than half a century, emotion researchers have attempted to establish the dimensional space that most economically accounts for similarities and differences in emotional experience. Today, many researchers focus exclusively on two-dimensional models involving valence and arousal. Adopting a theoretically based approach, we show for three languages that four dimensions are needed to satisfactorily represent similarities and differences in the meaning of emotion words. In order of importance, these dimensions are evaluation-pleasantness, potency-control, activation-arousal, and unpredictability. They were identified on the basis of the applicability of 144 features representing the six components of emotions: (a) appraisals of events, (b) psychophysiological changes, (c) motor expressions, (d) action tendencies, (e) subjective experiences, and (f) emotion regulation.     

Basic emotions elicited by odors and pictures

The sense of olfaction is often reported to have a special relationship with emotional processing. Memories triggered by olfactory cues often have a very emotional load. On the other hand, basic negative or positive emotional states should be sufficient to cover the most significant functions of the olfactory system including ingestion, hazard avoidance, and social communication. Thus, we investigated whether different basic emotions can be evoked in healthy people through the sense of olfaction. We asked 119 participants which odor evokes one of the six basic emotions (happiness, disgust, anger, anxiety, sadness, and surprise); another 97 participants were asked about pictures evoking those emotions. The results showed that almost every participant could name an olfactory elicitor for happiness or disgust. Olfactory elicitors of anxiety were reported less frequently, but they were still reported by three-quarters of the participants. However, for sadness and anger only about half of the participants reported an olfactory elicitor, whereas significantly more named a visual cue. Olfactory emotion elicitors were mainly related to the classes of culture, plants, and food, and visual emotion elicitors were largely related to humans. This data supports the hypothesis that in the vast majority of people, few differentiated emotions can be elicited through the olfactory channel. These emotions are happiness, disgust, and anxiety.