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. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cognitive appraisals and emotions predict cortisol and immune responses: A meta-analysis of acute laboratory social stressors and emotion inductions.

Models of stress and health suggest that emotions mediate the effects of stress on health; yet meta-analytic reviews have not confirmed these relationships. Categorizations of emotions along broad dimensions such as valence (e.g., positive and negative affect) may obscure important information about the effects of specific emotions on physiology. Within the context of the integrated specificity model, we present a novel theoretical framework that posits that specific emotional responses associated with specific types of environmental demands influence cortisol and immune outcomes in a manner that would have likely promoted the survival of our ancestors. We analyzed experiments from 66 journal articles that directly manipulated social stress or emotions and measured subsequent cortisol or immune responses. Judges rated experiments for the extent to which participants would experience theoretically relevant cognition and affect clustered around five categories: (a) cognitive appraisals, (b) basic emotions, (c) rumination and worry, (d) social threat, and (e) global mood states. As expected, global mood states were unassociated with the effect sizes, whereas exemplars from the other categories were generally associated with effect sizes in the expected manner. The present research suggests that coping strategies that alter appraisals and emotional responses may improve long-term health outcomes. This might be especially relevant for stressors that are acute or imminent, threaten one’s social status, or require extended effort. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Love, marriage, and divorce: Newlyweds' stress hormones foreshadow relationship changes.

Neuroendocrine function, assessed in 90 couples during their first year of marriage (Time 1), was related to marital dissolution and satisfaction 10 years later. Compared to those who remained married, epinephrine levels of divorced couples were 34% higher during a Time 1 conflict discussion, 22% higher throughout the day, and both epinephrine and norepinephrine were 16% higher at night. Among couples who were still married, Time 1 conflict ACTH levels were twice as high among women whose marriages were troubled 10 years later than among women whose marriages were untroubled. Couples whose marriages were troubled at follow-up produced 34% more norepinephrine during conflict, 24% more norepinephrine during the daytime, and 17% more during nighttime hours at Time 1 than the untroubled. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The dynamics of threat and challenge appraisals prior to stressful achievement events.

Research on cognitive appraisal of stressful achievement events has emphasized threat appraisals and anxiety. The present research also focused on challenge and positive emotion. Study 1 used hypothetical scenarios of stressful events. Study 2 explored temporal patterns of appraisal and emotion prior to an exam. Compared with threat appraisals, trait and state challenge appraisals were associated with more confident coping expectancies, lower perceptions of threat, higher positive emotion, and more beneficial perceptions of the effects of appraisal and emotion on performance. Beneficial perceptions of state appraisals were associated with higher exam performance. These findings were interpreted in the context of theoretical perspective on the cognitive appraisal of stressful events and the adaptive functions of challenge and positive emotion. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Confusion and interest: The role of knowledge emotions in aesthetic experience.

What makes something confusing? Confusion is a common response to challenging, abstract, and complex works, but it has received little attention in psychology. On the basis of appraisal theories of emotion, I suggest that confusion and interest have different positions in a 2-dimensional appraisal space: Interesting things stem from appraisals of high novelty and high comprehensibility, and confusing things stem from appraisals of high novelty and low comprehensibility. Two studies—a multilevel correlational study and an experiment that manipulated comprehensibility—found support for this appraisal model. Confusion and interest are thus close relatives in the family of knowledge emotions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

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. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Getting from situations to emotions: Appraisal and other routes.

Comments on the original article by S. Siemer and R. Reisenzein (see record 2007-02169-001) regarding the process of emotion inference. When processing situational information, people can reach emotional conclusions without explicitly registering corresponding appraisals. Does this mean that appraisal cues must be guiding inference in less obvious ways? If one assumes that the emotional meaning of any situation depends on the protagonist's relation to what is happening, then emotion inference can never entirely bypass relational information. However, not all relational information is specifically appraisal-based. Further, actual emotion causation, like emotion inference, can involve explicit or implicit appraisals or even no appraisals at all. Indeed, humans do not first learn to associate emotions with situations by extracting appraisal information. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The relationship between voluntary employer changes and perceived job stress in Taiwan.

Although the career strategy of voluntary employer changes has been recognized, it remains unclear whether those adopting such a strategy pay a price of higher job stress or experience a benefit of lower job stress. Two competing hypotheses of the relationship between voluntary employer changes and perceived job stress were proposed. Data from a survey of master's of business administration degree holders in Taiwan supported the hypothesis of a negative relationship. Those with more voluntary employer changes perceive lower job stress. This finding expands the knowledge of the link between behavioral characteristics and job stress. The situations for this finding are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Emotions and appraisals: Can you have one without the other?

In his commentary on M. Siemer and R. Reisenzein (2007; see record 2007-02169-001), B. Parkinson (2007; see record 2007-02169-002) raised a number of important questions concerning the process of emotion inference and the scope of appraisal theories. Siemer and Reisenzein first examine the alternative explanations of their findings proposed by Parkinson and then look at the alternative "situated" view of emotions proposed by him. The main conclusion is that the issues raised by Parkinson can be dealt with by (suitable extensions of) appraisal theory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Anger, disgust, and the negative aesthetic emotions: Expanding an appraisal model of aesthetic experience.

Negative aesthetic emotions, such as disgust and anger, are central to understanding why people reject, deface, and censor art. Psychological theories of aesthetic preferences have little to say about negative aesthetic emotions, however, and the major theories associated with Berlyne and Martindale cannot in principle explain emotions like anger and disgust. The present research uses a recent appraisal model of aesthetic emotions to illuminate negative responses to art. People viewed a set of pictures, which included offensive and controversial works. The predictions were based on the appraisal profiles of anger and disgust. As expected, anger was associated with appraising a picture as incongruent with one's values and as intentionally offensive, and disgust was associated with appraising a picture as incongruent with one's values and as unpleasant. Implications for competing theories of aesthetic emotions are considered. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Sequential unfolding of novelty and pleasantness appraisals of odors: Evidence from facial electromyography and autonomic reactions.

We investigated the effects of odors on appraisal processes and consequent emotional responses. The main goal was to test whether an odor is detected as novel or familiar before it is evaluated as pleasant or unpleasant. Participants performed a recognition task in which they were presented with pairs of unpleasant or pleasant odors (sample and target odors). Within a pair, the sample and target were either identical or different to assess participants’ novelty detection; unpleasant and pleasant target odors were contrasted to examine participants’ appraisal of intrinsic pleasantness. We measured facial expressions using electromyography and physiological reactions using electrocardiogram and electrodermal activity in response to odors. The earliest effects on facial muscles and heart rate occurred in response to novelty detection. Later effects on facial muscles and heart rate were related to pleasantness evaluation. This study is the first to demonstrate the existence of a sequence of appraisal checks for odors eliciting emotional reaction. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Longitudinal analysis of the relationship between changes in smoking and changes in drinking in a community sample: The Winnipeg Health and Drinking Survey.

Smoking cigarettes and drinking alcohol are positively correlated in cross-sectional studies of the general population. However, it is unclear whether changes in quantity of drinking over time are related to changes in amount of smoking over time. This investigation examined, with structural equation modeling, the relationship of changes in drinking to changes in smoking over 2 years among 344 adults who reported cigarette smoking and alcohol use at baseline in 1989-1990 or at follow-up in 1991-1992 or both. Surprisingly, no significant relationships were found between changes in smoking and changes in drinking. This lack of effect suggests that changes in the quantity or intensity of drinking and of smoking are not related in any important way in nonclinical populations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Looking past pleasure: Anger, confusion, disgust, pride, surprise, and other unusual aesthetic emotions.

Psychological aesthetics, for the most part, is concerned with people's feelings of pleasure in response to art. The study of mild positive feelings will always be important to psychological aesthetics, but the range of aesthetic feelings is much wider than liking, preference, and pleasure. This article provides an overview of some unusual aesthetic emotions: knowledge emotions (interest, confusion, and surprise), hostile emotions (anger, disgust, and contempt), and self-conscious emotions (pride, shame, and embarrassment). Appraisal theories of emotion can describe how these emotions differ and when they come about. An expanded view of aesthetic experience creates intriguing and fertile directions for future research. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Discrete emotions predict changes in cognition, judgment, experience, behavior, and physiology: A meta-analysis of experimental emotion elicitations.

Our purpose in the present meta-analysis was to examine the extent to which discrete emotions elicit changes in cognition, judgment, experience, behavior, and physiology; whether these changes are correlated as would be expected if emotions organize responses across these systems; and which factors moderate the magnitude of these effects. Studies (687; 4,946 effects, 49,473 participants) were included that elicited the discrete emotions of happiness, sadness, anger, and anxiety as independent variables with adults. Consistent with discrete emotion theory, there were (a) moderate differences among discrete emotions; (b) differences among discrete negative emotions; and (c) correlated changes in behavior, experience, and physiology (cognition and judgment were mostly not correlated with other changes). Valence, valence–arousal, and approach–avoidance models of emotion were not as clearly supported. There was evidence that these factors are likely important components of emotion but that they could not fully account for the pattern of results. Most emotion elicitations were effective, although the efficacy varied with the emotions being compared. Picture presentations were overall the most effective elicitor of discrete emotions. Stronger effects of emotion elicitations were associated with happiness versus negative emotions, self-reported experience, a greater proportion of women (for elicitations of happiness and sadness), omission of a cover story, and participants alone versus in groups. Conclusions are limited by the inclusion of only some discrete emotions, exclusion of studies that did not elicit discrete emotions, few available effect sizes for some contrasts and moderators, and the methodological rigor of included studies. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

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. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Calibrating the sociometer: The relationship between interpersonal appraisals and the state self-esteem.

Four experiments examined the functional relationship between interpersonal appraisal and subjective feelings about oneself. Participants imagined receiving one of several positive or negative reactions from another person (Experiments 1, 2, and 3) or actually received interpersonal evaluations (Experiment 4), then completed measures relevant to state self-esteem. All 4 studies showed that subjective feelings were a curvilinear, ogival function of others' appraisals. Although trait self-esteem correlated with state reactions as a main effect, it did not moderate participants' reactions to interpersonal feedback. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Toddlers' context-varying emotions, maternal responses to emotions, and internalizing behaviors.

Relations of toddlers' observed negative affect in high- and low-threat contexts to maternal perceptions of their toddlers' internalizing problems and to mothers' responses to emotions (RTE) for fear and sadness were examined. Child-driven, parent-driven, and reciprocal transactional models across 1 year were directly compared. Two-year-old toddlers (N = 106) participated in lab-based activities to elicit distress, and their negative affect was coded. Mothers completed measures of their child's internalizing behaviors and their responses to their toddler's fear and sadness at ages 2 and 3. At age 2, only negative affect in low-threat contexts was associated with greater internalizing problems. Mothers' punishing and minimizing RTE at age 2 predicted an increase in internalizing problems across 1 year. Age 2 internalizing problems predicted an increase in mother's use of supportive RTE over time. Results highlight the importance of considering the context of toddlers' negative affective displays and supported a reciprocal conceptualization of toddlers' internalizing behaviors and mothers' RTE. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Emotion dysregulation in the intergenerational transmission of romantic relationship conflict.

The role of emotion dysregulation in the intergenerational transmission of romantic relationship conflict was examined using multimethod and multiagent prospective longitudinal data across 21 years for 190 men and their mothers and fathers. As predicted, an individual’s emotion dysregulation was a key mediator in the transmission of relationship conflict, along with poor parenting skills. Parents’ emotion dysregulation was directly related to their son’s emotion dysregulation, which was in turn associated with the son’s later relationship conflict. Additionally, parents’ emotion dysregulation was significantly related to their poor discipline skills, which were linked to the son’s emotion dysregulation and eventual relationship conflict. Findings highlight emotion dysregulation as a significant mechanism explaining the continuity of romantic relationship conflict across generations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cognitive appraisals and posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms in informal caregivers of stroke survivors.

Objective: To examine associations between cognitive appraisals (i.e., negative appraisals about the self, negative appraisals about the world, and self-blame) and the severity of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms in informal caregivers (i.e., family relatives or close associates) of stroke survivors. Method: A cross-sectional study was conducted in which informal caregivers (N = 51) of recent stroke survivors completed the Posttraumatic Diagnostic Scale and the Posttraumatic Cognitions Inventory. Results: PTSD symptom severity correlated significantly with the Posttraumatic Cognitions Inventory Self, World, and Self-Blame subscales and with time since stroke and age (negative relationship). Cognitive appraisals explained 58% of the variance in PTSD symptom severity. Conclusion: The associations found between negative cognitive appraisals and the severity of PTSD symptoms are consistent with current cognitive models of PTSD and the recommended use of trauma-related cognitive–behavioral therapy for individuals with PTSD. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)