From appraisal to emotion: Differences among unpleasant feelings

Recent research has indicated strong relations between people's appraisals of their circumstances and their emotional states. The present study examined these relations across a range of unpleasant situations in which subjects experienced complex emotional blends. Subjects recalled unpleasant experiences from their pasts that were associated with particular appraisals and described their appraisals and emotions during these experiences. Situations defined by particular appraisals along the human agency or situational control dimensions were reliably associated with different levels of anger, sadness, and guilt, as predicted. However, predicted differences in emotion were not observed for situations selected for appraisals along the certainty or attention dimensions. Most subjects reported experiencing blends of two or more emotions, and correlation/regression analyses indicated that even in the context of these blends, patterns of appraisal similar to those observed previously (Smith & Ellsworth, 1985, 1987) characterized the experience of the individual emotions. The regressions further indicated that appraisals along some dimensions were more important to the experience of particular emotions than were appraisals along other dimensions. Thesecentral appraisals are compared with the adaptive functions their associated emotions are believed to serve, and the implications of these findings are discussed.This research was supported in part by a Stanford University graduate fellowship and in part by a National Institute of Mental Health training grant to Craig Smith. Part of the writing was done while Phoebe Ellsworth was a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, supported by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and by the James McKeen Cattell Fund.     

Eyewitness accuracy and confidence: within- versus between-subjects correlations

Previous researchers using between-subjects comparisons have found eyewitness confidence and accuracy to be only negligibly correlated. In this study, we examined the predictive power of confidence in within-subject terms. Ninety-six subjects answered, and made confidence ratings for, a series of questions about a crime they witnessed. The average between-subjects and within-subject accuracy-confidence correlations were comparably low: r = .14 (p less than .001) and r = .17 (p less than .001), respectively. Confidence is neither a useful predictor of the accuracy of a particular witness nor of the accuracy of particular statements made by the same witness. Another possible predictor of accuracy, response latency, correlated only negligibly with accuracy (r = -.09 within subjects), but more strongly with confidence (r = -.27 within subjects). This pattern was obtained for both between-subjects and within-subject comparisons. The theoretical and practical implications of these results are discussed.     

The role of facial response in the experience of emotion.

Facial expression and emotional stimuli were varied orthogonally in a 3 x 4 factorial design in order to test whether facial expression is necessary or sufficient to influence emotional experience. Subjects watched a film eliciting fear, sadness, or no emotion, while holding their facial muscles in the position characteristic of fear or sadness, or in an effortful but nonemotional grimace; those in a fourth group received no facial instructions. The subjects believed that the study concerned subliminal perception and that the facial positions were necessary to prevent physiological recording artifacts. The films had powerful effects on reported emotions, the facial expressions none. Correlations between facial expression and reported emotion were zero. Sad and fearful subjects showed distinctive patterns of physiological arousal. Facial expression also tended to affect physiological responses in a manner consistent with an effort hypothesis.     

Situational differences in dialectical emotions: Boundary conditions in a cultural comparison of North Americans and East Asians

Past research generally suggests that East Asians tolerate opposing feelings or dialectical emotions more than North Americans. We tested the idea that North Americans would have fewer opposing emotions than East Asians in positive, but not in negative or mixed situations. Forty-seven European American, 40 Chinese, and 121 Japanese students reported the emotions that a protagonist of standardised positive, negative, and mixed situations would feel. Emotions were coded into three valence categories: pleasant, unpleasant, and neither-pleasant-nor-unpleasant. As predicted, cultural differences in opposing emotion associations were found in positive situations only. Moreover, East Asians reported more neither-pleasant-nor-unpleasant feelings, especially in mixed situations, possibly reflecting a deferral of valence appraisal due to expected change.     

Functional analyses and treatment of precursor behavior

Functional analysis has been demonstrated to be an effective method to identify environmental variables that maintain problem behavior. However, there are cases when conducting functional analyses of severe problem behavior may be contraindicated. The current study applied functional analysis procedures to a class of behavior that preceded severe problem behavior (precursor behavior) and evaluated treatments based on the outcomes of the functional analyses of precursor behavior. Responding for all participants was differentiated during the functional analyses, and individualized treatments eliminated precursor behavior. These results suggest that functional analysis of precursor behavior may offer an alternative, indirect method to assess the operant function of severe problem behavior.     

Patterns of cognitive appraisal in emotion

There has long been interest in describing emotional experience in terms of underlying dimensions, but traditionally only two dimensions, pleasantness and arousal, have been reliably found. The reasons for these findings are reviewed, and integrating this review with two recent theories of emotions (Roseman, 1984; Scherer, 1982), we propose eight cognitive appraisal dimensions to differentiate emotional experience. In an investigation of this model, subjects recalled past experiences associated with each of 15 emotions, and rated them along the proposed dimensions. Six orthogonal dimensions, pleasantness, anticipated effort, certainty, attentional activity, self-other responsibility/control, and situational control, were recovered, and the emotions varied systematically along each of these dimensions, indicating a strong relation between the appraisal of one's circumstances and one's emotional state. The patterns of appraisal for the different emotions, and the role of each of the dimensions in differentiating emotional experience are discussed.     

What does it mean to be angry at yourself? Categories, appraisals, and the problem of language

According to appraisal theorists, anger involves a negative event, usually blocking a goal, caused by another person. Critics argue that other-agency is unnecessary, since people can be angry at themselves, and thus that appraisal theory is wrong about anger. In two studies, we compared anger, self-anger, shame, and guilt, and found that self-anger shared some appraisals, action tendencies, and associated emotions with anger, others with shame and guilt. Self-anger was not simply anger with a different agency appraisal. Anger, shame, and guilt almost always involved other people, but almost half of the occurrences of self-anger were solitary. We discuss the incompatibility of appraisal theories with any strict categorical view of emotions, and the inadequacy of emotion words to capture emotional experience.