According to appraisal theory, emotions result from an individual's meaning analysis of the implications of his/her circumstances for personal well-being, and individual differences in emotion arise when individuals appraise similar situations differently. Relational models of appraisal attempt to describe the situational and dispositional antecedents of appraisals, and should allow one to predict such individual differences. In this article, we review three examples of our efforts toward developing relational appraisal models. In two, we start with a particular appraisal component, motivational relevance (...) and problem-focused coping potential (Smith & Lazarus, 1990), respectively, and describe and test the relational model proposed for that component. In the third, as a precursor to developing a true relational model, we examine another appraisal component, emotion-focused coping potential, from a more dispositional perspective. We conclude by considering both the potential value of relational appraisal models, and future directions in the development of these models. (shrink)

How does personality influence the relationship between appraisals and emotions? Recent research suggests individual differences in appraisal structures: people may differ in an emotion's appraisal pattern. We explored individual differences in interest's appraisal structure, assessed as the within-person covariance of appraisals with interest. People viewed images of abstract visual art and provided ratings of interest and of interest's appraisals (novelty–complexity and coping potential) for each picture. A multilevel mixture model found two between-person classes that reflected distinct within-person appraisal styles. For (...) people in the larger class (68%), the novelty–complexity appraisal had a stronger effect on interest; for people in the smaller class (32%), the coping potential appraisal had a stronger effect. People in the larger class were significantly higher in appetitive traits related to novelty seeking (e.g., sensation seeking, openness to experience, and trait curiosity), suggesting that the appraisal classes have substantive meaning. We conclude by discussing the value of within-person mixture models for the study of personality and appraisal. (shrink)

Emotion is conceptualised as an emergent, dynamic process based on an individual's subjective appraisal of significant events. It is argued that theoretical models of emotion need to propose an architecture that reflects the essential nature and functions of emotion as a psychobiological and cultural adaptation mechanism. One proposal for such a model and its underlying dynamic architecture, the component process model, is briefly sketched and compared with some of its major competitors. Recent empirical evidence in support of the model is (...) reviewed. Special emphasis is given to the dynamic aspect of emotion processes, in particular the sequence of appraisal checks and the synchronisation of response systems, as well as the capacity of the model to predict individual differences in emotional responding. (shrink)

As an alternative to using the concepts of emotion, fear, anger, and the like as scientific tools, this article advocates an approach based on the concepts of core affect and psychological construction, expanding the domain of inquiry beyond “emotion”. Core affect is a neurophysiological state that underlies simply feeling good or bad, drowsy or energised. Psychological construction is not one process but an umbrella term for the various processes that produce: (a) a particular emotional episode's “components” (such as facial movement, (...) vocal tone, peripheral nervous system change, appraisal, attribution, behaviour, subjective experience, and emotion regulation); (b) associations among the components; and (c) the categorisation of the pattern of components as a specific emotion. (shrink)

Emotions change over time. A comprehensive understanding of emotions will require that their temporal nature be observed and analysed. By observing emotion over time, one can disentangle and simultaneously analyse temporal variability within individuals and between-individual variability using a two-step process approach. First, within-person temporal patterns (e.g., covariation, lead–lag relation, periodicity, etc.) are assessed for each subject. Second, between-person analyses are conducted on the within-person patterns. These two steps can be done simultaneously with hierarchical linear models (HLM) or in two (...) actual steps with the process approach. HLM is limited to the intra-individual analysis of linear patterns (e.g., slope, intercept), whereas the process approach can be used to examine non-linear aspects of intra-individual change, such as multivariate patterns, within-subject skew, or phase relations between oscillating processes. In this paper we provide a description of the process approach and present several examples of, as well as suggestions for, intra-individual analysis applied to emotion and individual differences. (shrink)

Highly divergent accounts exist of the nature of emotional feelings. Following Lambie and Marcel (2002), that divergence is traced back to actual differences in experience that result from variations in the involvement and direction of attention during emotions. The dimensions of variation include first versus second order experience, world- versus self-focus, appraisal or action-readiness focus, and attention mode (synthetic-analytic, immersed-detached). It is argued that the most characteristic form during actual emotional events consists of the more or less immersed and synthetic (...) perception of an emotionally meaningful world or of oneself as emotionally meaningful. Meaning consists of perceived qualities that represent appraisal and action readiness. Although information from one's body is central for all emotion experience, it is not central in all emotion experience. Feeling of the body in a particular state represents detached analytic self-focused awareness only.Emotion experience not only represents a perspective on emotional reactions but also contributes to the constitution of those reactions, notably with respect to attention shifts, action initiation and action guidance, and emotion regulation. It is a major factor in constituting a representation of “self” and in establishing social coherence. (shrink)

There is remarkable variety in emotional life. Not all mental states referred to by the same word (e.g., “fear”) look alike, feel alike, or have the same neurophysiological signature. Variability has been observed within individuals over time, across individuals from the same culture, and of course across cultures. In this paper, I outline an approach to understanding the richness and diversity of emotional life. This model, called the conceptual act model, is not only well suited to explaining individual differences in (...) the frequency and quality of emotion, but it also suggests the counter-intuitive view that the variety in emotional life extends past the boundaries of events that are conventionally called “emotion” to other classes of psychological events that people call by different names, such as “cognitions”. As a result, the conceptual act model is a unifying account of the broad variety of mental states that constitute the human mind. (shrink)

Building on the author's earlier work, this paper argues that language is a key issue in understanding human emotions and that treating English emotion terms as valid analytical tools continues to be a roadblock in the study of emotions. Further, it shows how the methodology developed by the author and colleagues, known as NSM (from Natural Semantic Metalanguage), allows us to break free of the “shackles” (Barrett, 2006) of English psychological terms and explore human emotions from a culture-independent perspective. The (...) use of NSM makes it possible to study human emotions from a genuinely cross-linguistic and cross-cultural, as well as a psychological, perspective and thus “opens up new possibilities for the scientific understanding of subjectivity and psychological experience” (Goddard, 2007). (shrink)

A full understanding of emotions and emotion characteristics can only be reached when their dynamic nature is taken into account. As such, a primary objective of the present study is to describe and account for variability in temporal profiles of experienced emotional intensity. Participants were asked to make detailed drawings of intensity profiles of recently experienced episodes of anger, sadness, joy and affection. Functional data analysis revealed three features that together accounted for 84% of the total variability: (i) steepness at (...) onset; (ii) skewness; and (iii) the number of peaks. Emotions differed with regard to the first two features, with the rise at onset being steeper for sadness and joy and affection being the most negatively skewed emotion under study. Individual differences regarding each of the three features were found, however, they did not strongly generalise across emotions. (shrink)

In a diary study we examined the relation between anger appraisals on the one hand, and the occurrence and intensity of anger experiences in frustrating situations on the other hand. The appraisals of frustration, other presence, other-accountability, and hostile intention are shown to be jointly sufficient for the occurrence of anger experience. Absence of one or more of these appraisals further results in a smaller proportion of anger occurrences, in lower anger intensities, and in both within- and between-person differences in (...) anger occurrence. These results are interpreted in terms of anger experience as a categorical phenomenon for which the jointly sufficient set of appraisals acts as a cognitive point of reference. Willingness to go for anger categorisations in appraisal patterns that deviate from this cognitive point of reference is, at least in part, subject to dispositional individual differences. (shrink)

What are 'emotions'? This book offers a balanced survey of facts and theory.

Linking the process of rational decision making to emotions, an award-winning scientist who has done extensive research with brain-damaged patients notes the dependence of thought processes on feelings and the body's survival-oriented regulators. 50,000 first printing.