The aim of this study was to test a model specifying the relations between appraisals and affects. A theory of the appraisal—affect relation is proposed in terms of general feeling rules differentiating between affects. A taxonomy of ten appraisals is presented, each defined by a specific profile of scores on four appraisal variables: desirability, controllability, responsibility, and the kind of value being at stake in an event. The appraisals are related to nine affect dimensions, resulting from earlier taxonomic research on the structure of affect (Hoekstra, 1986). All predictions following from the theory were tested in two independent samples by structural analysis. The model showed a good fit in both data sets.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
ArnoldM. B. (1970). ‘ Perennial problems in the field of emotions’. In: Arnold, M. B. (Ed), Feelings and Emotions, Academic Press, New York, pp.169–186.
2.
BeckA. T. (1976). Cognitive Therapy and the Emotional Disorders, International Universities Press, New York.
3.
BentlerP. M. (1980). ‘Multivariate analysis with latent variables: Causing modeling’, Annual Review of Psychology, 31,419–456.
4.
BowerG. H. (1981). ‘Mood and memory’, American Psychologist, 36:129–148.
5.
BrandstätterH. (1983). ‘Emotional responses to other persons in everyday life situations’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 45:871–883.
6.
CantorN.MischelW.SchwartzJ. C. (1982). ‘A prototype analysis of psychological situations’, Cognitive Psychology, 14:45–77.
7.
CostaP. T.McCraeR. R. (1980). ‘Influence of extraversion and neuroticism on subjective well‐being: Happy and unhappy people’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 38:668–678.
8.
DalyE. M.LanceeJ. W.PolivyJ. (1983). ‘A conical model for the taxonomy of emotional experience’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 45:443–457.
9.
EllisA. (1971). Growth Through Reason, Science and Behavior Books, Palo Alto, CA.
10.
Fiedler, K. and Forgas, J. P. (Eds) (1988). Affect, Cognition and Social Behavior, Hogrefe, Toronto.
11.
FolkmanS.LazarusR. S. (1985). ‘If it changes it must be a process: Study of emotion and coping during three stages of a college examination’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 48:150–170.
12.
ForgasJ. P. (1983). ‘Episode cognition and personality: A multidimensional analysis’, Journal of Personality, 51:34–48.
13.
FrijdaN. H. (1986). The Emotions, Cambridge University Press, London.
14.
GraesserA. C.RobertsonS. P.AndersonP. A. (1981). ‘Incorporating inferences in narrative representations: A study of how and why’, Cognitive Psychology, 13:1–26.
15.
HansenR. D. (1980). ‘Commonsense attribution’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 39:996–1009.
16.
HochschildA. R. (1980). ‘Emotion work, feeling rules, and social structure’, American Journal of Sociology, 85:551–575.HoekstraH. A. (1986). 'Cognition and affect in the appraisal of events', unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Groningen, The Netherlands.
17.
IsenA. M. (1984). ‘ Toward understanding the role of affect in cognition’. In: Wyer, R. S. and Srull, T. K. (Eds), Handbook of Social Cognition, Vol. 3, Erlbaum, Hillsdale, NJ, pp.179–236.
18.
JöreskogK. G.SörbomD. (1981). ' LISREL IV. A general computer program for estimation of linear structural equation systems by maximum likelihood methods', Department of Statistics, Uppsala, Sweden.
19.
KemperT. D. (1978). A Social Interactional Theory of Emotions, Wiley, New York.
20.
KennyD. A. (1979). Correlation and Causality, Wiley, New York.
21.
KieslerD. J. (1983). ‘The 1982 interpersonal circle: A taxonomy for complementarity in human transactions,’ Psychological Review, 90:185–214.
22.
KingG. A.SorrentinoR. M. (1983). ‘Psychological dimensions of goal‐oriented interpersonal situations’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 44:140–162.
23.
LazarusR. S. (1966). Psychological Stress and the Coping Process, McGraw‐Hill, New York.
24.
LazarusR. S. (1982). ‘Thoughts on the relations between emotion and cognition’, American Psychologist, 37:1019–1024.
25.
LazarusR. S. (1984). ‘On the primacy of cognition’, American Psychologist, 39:124–129.
26.
LazarusR. S.KannerA.FolkmanS. (1980). ‘ Emotions: A cognitive phenomenological analysis’. In: Plutchik, R. and Kellerman, H. (Eds), Theories of Emotion, Academic Press, New York, pp.189–217.
27.
Magnusson, D. (Ed) (1981). Toward a Psychology of Situations: An Interactional Perspective, Erlbaum, Hillsdale, NJ.
28.
MagnussonD. (1984). ‘ Persons in situations: Some comments on a current issue’. In: Bonarius, H. , Van Heck, G. and Smid, N. (Eds), Personality Psychology in Europe: Theoretical and Empirical Developments, Vol. I, Swets & Zeitlinger, Lisse, pp.129–148.
29.
MandlerG. (1975). Mind and Emotion, Wiley, New York.
30.
Perlmuter, L. C. and Monty, R. A. (Eds) (1979). Choice and Perceived Control, Erlbaum, Hillsdale, NJ.
31.
PervinL. A. (1978). ‘Definitions, measurements and classifications of stimuli, situations, and environments,’ Human Ecology, 6:71–105.
32.
PlutchikR. (1980). Emotion: A Psychoevolutionary Synthesis, Harper and Row, New York.
33.
RosemanI. (1984). ‘ Cognitive determinants of emotions: A structural theory’. In: Shaver, P. (Ed), Review of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 5,Emotions, Relationships and Health, Sage, Beverley Hills, CA, pp.11–36.
34.
RotterJ. B. (1966). ‘Generalized expectancies for internal versus external control of reinforcement’, Psychological Monographs, 80: No.1(Whole No. 609).
35.
RussellJ. A. (1980). ‘A circumplex model of affect’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 39:1161–1178.
36.
SchererK. R. (1982). ‘Emotion as process: Function, origin and regulation’, Social Science Information, 21:555–570.
37.
SmithC. A.EllsworthP. C. (1985). ‘Patterns of cognitive appraisal in emotion’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 48:813–838.
38.
TankD. W.HopfieldJ. J. (1987). ‘Collective computation in neuronlike circuits’, Scientific American, 257:62–70.
39.
Ten BergeJ. M. F. (1986). ‘Rotation to perfect congruence and the cross‐validation of component weights across populations’, Multivariate Behavioral Research, 21:41–64,262–266.
40.
WeinerB. (1985). ‘An attributional theory of achievement motivation and emotion’, Psychological Review, 92:548–573.
41.
WigginsJ. S. (1979). ‘A psychological taxonomy of trait‐descriptive terms: The interpersonal domain,’ Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 37:395–412.
42.
WildeG. J. S. (1970). Neurotische Labiliteit Gemeten Volgens de Vragenlijstmethode [Neurotic Lability Measured by Questionnaires], Van Rossen, Amsterdam.
43.
WongP. T. P.WeinerB. (1981). ‘When people ask “Why” questions, and the heuristics of attributional search’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 40:650–663.
44.
WortmanC. B. (1976). ‘ Causal attribution and personal control’. In: Harvey, J. H. , Ickes, W. J. and Kidd, R. F. (Eds), New Directions in Attribution Research, Vol. I, Erlbaum, Hillsdale, NJ, pp.23–52.
45.
ZajoncR. B. (1980). ‘Feeling and thinking; Preferences need no inferences’, American Psychologist, 35:151–175.
46.
ZajoncR. B. (1984). ‘On the primacy of affect’, American Psychologist, 39:117–123.
