Some general laws of human emotion: Interrelationships between intensities of desire, expectation, and emotional feeling

Two experiments were performed to determine how desires and expectations interact to influence the intensities of emotional feelings. The first experiment required participants to respond to their imagined intensities of desire and expectation in two hypothetical situations, (1) anticipating different probabilities of receiving money (2) anticipating the possibility of different durations of continuous rain combined with different probabilities of rain occurring. Participants responded by producing line lengths to desire and feeling, a form of cross-modality matching. Feeling intensity but not desire intensity increased as a negatively accelerating power function of expectation for the positive approach goal of receiving money (F =KE^0.5) and both desire and feeling were negatively accelerating power functions of the hypothetical amount of money presented (F=K$⁴; D=K$⁴). Feeling intensity but not desire intensity increased as a positively accelerating function of expectation for the negative avoidance goal of anticipating different amounts of rain (F=KE^1.9) and both desire and feeling were negatively accelerating functions of amount of rain (F=KR^0.9; D=KR_0.9). The second experiment required participants to make visual analogue scale responses to desire, expectation, and emotional feeling intensities in ordinary life situations. Similar to Experiment 1, feeling intensity but not desire intensity increased as a negatively accelerating function of expectation for positive approach goals (F=KE^0.6) and as a positively accelerating function of expectation for negative avoidance goals (F=KE^2.0). Functional interrelationships found in both experiments were fit to the general equations F=K₁D+K₂DE^0.5 for positive approach goals and F=K₁D+K₂DE^2.0 for negative avoidance goals. Both equations have the same general form and indicate that desire and expectation have a multiplicative interaction with respect to their influence on emotional feeling intensity. Both functions