On connotative meaning of emotional terms to the blind: a contribution to the study of the phenomenology of emotion.

The present study was aimed toward ascertaining whether the hypothesis that emotional experience is universal and relatively independent of learning is tenable. Two groups of Ss, 25 totally and congenitally blind children and 35 normal college adults (representing groups with widely different life experiences) rated the emotions PRIDE, SADNESS, and ANGER on 15 scales of the semantic differential. The latter were used as the index of emotional states on the assumption that these verbal ratings may be considered as reflecting the inner phenomenological experiences. In accord with the hypothesis there was a high degree of correspondence between the ratings of the two groups, which, it is contended, may be seen as reflecting highly similar emotional experiences. Of 59 t tests comparing the mean ratings of the groups, only three--a chance number--differed significantly, with the differences being of degree only, i.e., both lay on the same side of the mean.