Making Sense of the Social World and Influencing It by Using a Naïve Attribution Theory of Emotions

An Attribution Theory of Motivation and Emotion

People are endowed with the motivation to understand their environment. This allows for the mastering of situations to achieve desired goals (Fiske, 2004). A fundamental aspect of this attempt to make sense of and control one’s world relates to the causes of specific outcomes and situations (Försterling, 2001; Heider, 1958; Kelley, 1967, 1971; Weiner, 1985; Wong & Weiner, 1981). As described in detail in Weiner (2014), an individual’s causal understanding typically does not stop at merely figuring out what causes events or situations, but also leads to a set of reactions that include inferences, emotions, and behaviors. Furthermore, individuals are not simply passive objects in the attribution process; rather, they hold a naïve grasp of the connections between perceived causes, inferences, emotions, and behaviors and often may use this knowledge to control the process (Weiner, 1987).

To a large extent, understanding the attribution process results from the fact that people are actually reflective witnesses of themselves as well as others when attempting to make sense of an observation (Weiner, 1992). In other words, folk attribution theory is at least partly the result of self-observations of concrete cases of thought–emotion sequences. Accordingly, people’s naïve theories of the links between cognitions, emotions, and actions are often, and in many respects, consistent with attribution theory as formulated by psychologists (see Weiner, 2014). In fact, the tradition of attribution research has always acknowledged the important role that knowledge shared by ordinary people can have on the construction of scientific theories (Försterling, 2001; Heider, 1958; Weiner, 1985).

Weiner’s (1985, 1986) attribution theory of motivation and emotion presumes that the link between the perceived cause of a given outcome (see Box 1 in Figure 1 which presents a schematic representation of the theory) or event and its emotional (Box 4) and behavioral consequences (Box 5) are indirect rather than direct, mediated in part by the perceived characteristics or dimensions of the cause (Box 2).

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Figure 1.

Schematic representation of the attributional theory of motivation and emotion.

As detailed in Weiner (2014), at the heart of this theory lays the idea that all causes can be characterized according to three basic properties or dimensions: locus, controllability, and stability (for a fuller description of the structure of perceived causality and its implications, see Weiner, 2014).

On some occasions, emotions are directly related to these causal characteristics. This is the case with regard to emotions such as pride and self-esteem, which are connected directly to causal locus. On other occasions, however, emotions are mediated by further inferences (Box 3). An example is anger, which is directly caused by a belief about responsibility, which in turn is caused by a belief about controllability. And, in still, other instances, emotions also can result from other attribution-based inferences such as beliefs about blame, intentions, and future expectations (Weiner, 1985, 1986, 1995) or judgments of deservingness (Feather, 1999). These and related inferences can be deduced from the emotion to which they are connected, as exemplified in the following pages.

The Naïve Attribution Psychologist

Weiner’s (1985, 1986) attribution theory of motivation and emotion can be regarded as a variant of the appraisal theory of emotion (Weiner, 2014). Appraisal theories of emotion contend that emotions are elicited and differentiated through a series of appraisals of internal or external stimulus events based on the perceived nature of the event (e.g., Frijda, 1986; Scherer, 1987). Individuals are generally aware of the appraisals that underlie a given emotion and can reconstruct the appraisals that caused another person’s emotion in a specific situation from that person’s emotion (Robinson & Clore, 2002), as well as use this reconstructed information to make inferences about the person expressing the emotion and/or about the situation that gave rise to this affective response (de Melo, Carnevale, Read, & Gratch, 2014; Hareli & Hess, 2010; Horberg et al., 2013). This is also true of the link between causal attributions and emotions. As suggested before, people have at least approximate knowledge about the attribution–emotion–action sequences captured by the attribution theory of motivation and emotion (Weiner, 1987) and use this knowledge (Graham & Weiner, 1986; Weiner & Handel, 1985).

Yet, people’s naïve psychological knowledge is unlikely to be in perfect correspondence with psychological theorizing. First, individuals are unlikely to be fully aware of the entire set of constructs and the full pattern of relations as described by the psychological theory. Similarly, individuals may not be fully aware of the properties of causes and how these result in specific consequences. For example, people are unlikely to be aware of connections existing between perceptions of what caused another’s behavior, inferred controllability, judgments of responsibility, and anger (Weiner, 1995, 2014).

In addition, the claim that individuals are aware of the general workings of the attribution process does not mean that they have an unbiased view of what took place in a concrete case. In fact, Weiner’s theory (Weiner, 1985, 1986) takes into consideration biases in the inference process, particularly regarding the validity of the inferred causes. More generally, individuals tend to be biased in inferring what caused their emotions, and are not able to accurately predict their behaviors when they are engaged in an attempt to understand what caused their current emotion (Wilson & Dunn, 2004). Even so, having at least an approximately correct folk psychological theory allows actors to infer numerous factors in the chain of the attribution process. For example, knowing how someone reacted emotionally in a given situation can provide information for inferences about various aspects of the process, such as what the other perceived to have caused the situation and what behavior was anticipated to then occur as a result.

In addition, people can use their understanding of attribution principles to influence the thoughts of others and as a consequence also their emotions and behaviors. For example, by providing an external cause for their undesirable behavior (e.g., ascribing a traffic jam as the cause of coming late for a meeting), the excuse-giver is trying to alleviate the other’s anger.

In this review, I focus on emotions as a source of information for drawing inferences about the person exhibiting the emotion. In addition I discuss examples of how by providing causal information to others one can influence the thoughts of these others and as a consequence their emotions and actions. This choice is made because most of the research and discussion of the naïve use of attribution theory centers around the role of a naïve understanding of what gives rise to emotions (e.g., Brescoll & Uhlmann, 2008; Hareli & Hess, 2008a, 2008b; Hareli, Sharabi, Cossette, & Hess, 2011; Hareli & Weiner, 2002; Tiedens, 2001; Weiner, 1987; Weiner & Handel, 1985).

Emotions as a Source of Inferences

As already mentioned, individuals are aware of the typical thoughts, such as causal beliefs, that give rise to specific emotions. Accordingly, emotions can serve as signals of such thoughts (Weiner, Russell, & Lerman, 1979). Indeed, the emotions of others are often used as cues for making inferences about the person exhibiting the emotion and/or about the eliciting situation (e.g., Hareli & Hess, 2010, 2012; Horberg et al., 2013; van Kleef, 2009, 2010). Information about others’ emotions serving as a basis for such inferences can be based on different sources such as nonverbal expressions of emotions; actions typical of specific emotions; or verbal communications about how a given person felt in a specific situation. For the sake of brevity I will use the notion of expressions of emotions across the article but one needs to keep in mind that this is not the only mean by which such information becomes available to an observer (see e.g., Hareli & Rafaeli, 2008; Siemer & Reisenzein, 2007). Because a great deal of research on causal attributions has been conducted in the context of achievement motivation, this is also the context in which the naïve use of attributional information has been most studied. In an early line of research on this topic, Weiner and his colleagues (1982, 1979) examined whether participants can infer causal beliefs from another’s emotional reaction to success or failure. For example, when participants were informed that the achiever felt surprised, astonished, and thankful after success, they inferred that the achiever ascribed the positive outcome to good luck. In a similar manner, when failure was described as being followed by feelings of bitterness, fury, and revenge, participants understood that the achiever attributed the failure to the difficulty of the task and the actions of others. That is, attribution of the achievement was guided by the knowledge that these reactions are associated with external causes related to others.

In additional research, Weiner et al. (1982) demonstrated similar effects when emotions were expressed by a teacher, rather than the achiever. That is, knowing the teacher’s emotional reactions, observers were able to decipher what, in the teacher’s opinion, brought about a student’s achievement. This research documented that children at the age of 5 already share, at least to some extent, a naïve theory of attribution and can use it to infer causal thoughts of others from emotional communications and interactions. According to this research, observers inferred that a teacher responding with anger to a student’s failure thinks that the achiever has not expended sufficient effort. In contrast, a failure responded to with pity by the teacher was taken to indicate that the teacher thought the student had low ability. Finally, when the teacher responded with guilt, observers inferred that the teacher accepted responsibility for this failure. Graham (1984) subsequently showed that such inferences also occur in real-life settings and not only in studies using vignette scenarios, as in the research reviewed here.

Taken together, these studies document that participants use their knowledge about links between specific emotional states and specific causes to infer causal thoughts from emotions. Furthermore, the naïve beliefs of the lay person about these links correspond largely to what attribution theory postulates (Weiner, 1987). For example, the knowledge that anger in response to an undesirable outcome is typically caused by actions controlled by another (as hypothesized by attribution theory) is what presumably underlies naïve observers’ inferences that an angry teacher holds the student responsible for the outcome. This implies that the teacher believes the student could have acted differently, which in this context means that insufficient effort was expended on the part of the student. Pity, by contrast, is believed to be a reaction to an undesirable outcome not controllable by the student. Accordingly, pity in response to failure often reveals lack of competence, an uncontrollable cause.

This line of research reveals that one important inference based on the emotions of others concerns competence or ability (see also Weiner, 2005). Frequently, however, observers do not stop at this inference, but use their causal beliefs to make additional inferences. An example of such an inference chain is provided in research by Tiedens, Ellsworth, and Mesquita (2000), who showed that inferences of competence based on an achiever’s emotions also inform perceptions about the achiever’s social status. Guided by the hypothesis that social status indicates competence, Tiedens et al. (2000) demonstrated that this belief influences attributions of responsibility for positive and negative outcomes and expectations regarding emotional reactions. Specifically, given a negative outcome, a high-status person is expected to hold another individual of lower status responsible, and to express anger. In addition, low-status people are also expected to believe that high-status individuals regard them as responsible for failure; thus they experience guilt. This isconsistent with the findings of Parkinson (1999), whichdocumented that people often experience guilt when blamed by others, even if they do not actually think they are responsible for the failure. This is taken by Parkinson (1999) as anexample of what he terms “unreasonable guilt” just because such instances “violate” the typical connection between perceived responsibility and guilt. It is possible that in the type of situation mentioned before, low-status people feel guilty even when high-status individuals unjustly regard them responsible for an undesirable state of affairs because they do not perceive themselves as powerful enough to deny this responsibility.

Because low-status people are hypothesized to perceive the failure event as being caused by external circumstances, they also anticipated feeling sad.

In the case of success, the high-status person is believed to take personal responsibility and to experience pride. The low-status person is also hypothesized to perceive the high-status person as responsible and hence express appreciation.

In sum, individuals infer social status and competence from emotional expression. In other words, observers conclude that a person reacting with anger to failure is of higher status and more competent than a person reacting with sadness and guilt to the same event. In the case of success, the proud individual is regarded as having higher status and being more competent than one who is appreciative. In accordance with these findings, Tiedens (2001) found that higher status is endowed to a candidate for a political position who expressed anger in a speech, as opposed to one who exhibited sadness or guilt. This effect was mediated by perceptions of competence, which were determined by the candidate’s emotions (Tiedens, 2001).

Other research provides clues concerning what can be learned from emotions that reflect on competence. Such is the case with pride, which is used by observers to infer the personality and ideology of others. Based upon the idea that pride reflects internal qualities such as competence, Horberg et al. (2013) hypothesized and found that a person who expresses pride will be regarded as believing that resources should be allocated according to merit, which is in the service of self-interest, rather than according to the rule of equality (two rules of distributive justice).

In sum, this line of research demonstrates that observers use their naïve understanding of what specific emotions signify in terms of causal attributions and other appraisals to make a complex set of inferences about the emotion expresser. However, it is also the case that what emotions reflect is not always taken at face value, that is, taken to accompany certain attributions and appraisals. Rather, additional information provided by the situation and the expresser also plays a role (i.e., serves as a moderator) in this process.

For example, the findings reported by Tiedens (2001) were not true for women who reported that they responded to failure with anger (Brescoll & Uhlmann, 2008). It appears that the anger of women was attributed internally to their character, rather than externally to someone who had caused the failure, as was the case for men. As a consequence, these anger-expressing women were also not perceived as competent. In addition, at times anger is not perceived as a sign of competence even in men (Hareli, Berkovitch, Livnat, & David, 2013). For example, Hareli et al. (2013) found that anger expressed by a doctor toward a patient can also signal that he feels professionally devalued; hence, he is not perceived as more competent than a doctor expressing emotional neutrality. In sum, this body of research shows that emotions are complex signals and may provide a myriad of messages about the person who expressed the emotion and the situation. Some of these inferences override the effect that attributional information alone would have. It is for future research to sort out this complex set of findings.

Attribution Information as a Means to Influence Others’ Emotions and Shape Their Impressions

Being endowed with a naïve attribution theory of emotions—which incorporates an understanding of what gives rise to specific emotions—enables individuals not only to infer different things about the person whose emotions are witnessed, but also to influence such emotions (Weiner, 1987). By providing others with information about what caused a given outcome or what is the cause of a given situation, one can influence the thoughts and consequently the emotions of others. A typical example of such a situation is when people provide excuses for undesirable events. Furthermore, people’s attempts to manage other people’s impressions of them are also likely to be shaped by such information. An example of such a use of attribution information comes from early research by Folkes (1982). This research examined the characteristic reasons that rejecters of invitations for a romantic date provide to the rejected person. This research demonstrated that both the reasons provided for actual rejections of a date, and the reasons that people reported they would be willing to communicate, tended to be in accord with reasons that could minimize the insult to the rejected person. In addition, these reasons also tended to minimize a bad impression of the rejecters and unpleasant feelings on their part. Reasons that had these effects typically were impersonal, that is, they were tailored so as to minimize the blame of the rejecting person for the rejection, and to maintain an optimistic picture of the future of the relationship. This was achieved mainly by providing reasons that were not related to the rejected person (i.e., external), were not amenable to the rejecter’s actions (i.e., uncontrollable), and could change over time (i.e., unstable). One example of such a reason was that the rejecter had to study for finals. Reasons external to the rejected people are less likely to insult them because of their impersonal nature. Reasons beyond personal control also reduce the chances that the rejecter will be blamed for the rejection; this is likely to minimize anger toward the rejecter. Finally, an unstable reason signals less certainty about future outcomes, and hence more uncertainty about future rejection. This leaves some hope for a possible relationship. Thus, for example, having to study for exams does not reflect anything about the rejected person; the rejecter cannot be blamed for it, and it is temporary. The likelihood to reveal the true reason to the rejected person was also related to the chance that this reason would hurt the other person. Thus, for example, if the reason for the rejection was external, then it was more likely to be reported than if it was internal.

Despite the fact that the results of this study show that rejecters choose explanations for the rejection that are expected to lead to more desirable emotions and impressions, the study did not provide direct evidence that concerns for the other’s feelings, as well as for one’s own feelings and impression in the eyes of others, govern this choice of reasons. Rather, this choice could have been governed by social conventions, that is, the kind of explanations people are expected to provide (Folkes, 1982). In an attempt to fill this gap, Weiner and Handel (1985) examined the types of explanations (i.e., excuses) that children aged 5–12 were willing to provide for rejecting a friend’s invitation to play, and for not showing up for a meeting with a classmate in order to work on a class project. In this research, the expectation of hurt feelings in the other person and anger, as a function of the reason for the social rejection and the breaking of the social contract, were also measured. In line with the results of the previous research, children across all ages reported that they were more likely to provide a reason external to the target than an internal one. Moreover, they understood that providing an internal reason for the undesirable behavior is more insulting than an external reason. Children of all ages also understood that providing a controllable reason for the situation would elicit more anger in the other than uncontrollable reasons. In correspondence with this understanding, children thought there was a smaller chance that they would report a controllable cause than an uncontrollable one, and this was more apparent in older children (ages 8–12). Thus, this research also shows that when people provide excuses for undesirable situations to others, they attempt to minimize hurting others and making them experience emotions that may damage their relationship with them, such as anger. The choice of the appropriate explanation is informed by understanding the link between causality and emotions, as described by Weiner’s (1986) attribution theory of motivation and emotion. This understanding seems to emerge at a fairly early age.

As implied by this research, the accounts that people provide for undesirable situations are, in particular, influenced by people’s naïve psychological theory of attribution. Indeed, research conducted by Weiner and his colleagues (Weiner, Amirkhan, Folkes, & Verette, 1987) examined the kinds of excuses that people provide to others when they break a social contract, such as when they fail to show up for a meeting. Results indicated that people tended to provide reasons that were external, uncontrollable, and unintentional, even if they were not the real reasons. For example, many people used the excuse that their car broke down. By contrast, people tended to withhold internal, controllable, intentional, and unintentional reasons. The research further documented that—when believed—the explanations, regardless of whether they were true or false, mitigated the anger of the other person.

The understanding of what may hurt another is not restricted to attempts to avoid such a possibility. Rather, it can also be used to do just that, namely, hurt the other. Two studies by Hareli and Hess (2008a, 2008b) showed that attribution principles suggested by Weiner’s (1986) theory can explain emotional reactions to others’ feedback about what, in their opinion, caused an achiever’s failure (Hareli & Hess, 2008a) and success (Hareli & Hess, 2008b). This set of studies showed that attributing one’s failure to an internal, uncontrollable, and stable cause (e.g., lack of ability) is most hurtful. This was also the feedback that elicited the highest degree of anger towards the provider of the feedback. On the other hand, in the case of feedback for success, controllable, unstable causes were most hurtful (e.g., help from others or having invested an exceptional amount of hard work). In line with attribution theory, this suggests that an explanation that ascribes success to something that is either external to the achievers or internal but uncharacteristic of them, rather than to the achievers’ own stable characteristics (ability or being a hard worker) are perceived as hurtful. However, neither of these studies tested the actual use of hurtful feedback by others nor their willingness to use such messages; instead, they directly assessed the naïve understanding of the mechanism that derives the emotional consequences of such messages. However, as claimed before, knowing which messages should not be used to avoid insult and anger also implies an understanding of what can bring about such effects.

A naïve understanding of attribution principles may be used to influence not only the anger or hurt feelings of others, but also additional emotions. In an article analyzing the naïve use of a folk attribution theory, Hareli and Weiner (2002) suggested that individuals may use attribution information to bolster others’ esteem. For example, a teacher may attribute an achiever’s success to ability or hard work, in order to make the achiever feel good about this achievement and increase future motivation. Likewise, attributing a failure to an objective difficulty of the task can also serve the goal of protecting the achiever’s self-esteem and maintaining motivation in the face of failure. However, not only observers of achievers can shape their emotions by providing them with explanations concerning what, in their opinion, brought about the achievement. Rather, the achievers themselves can shape the emotions of others and manage their impressions of them in a similar manner. Hareli and Weiner (2000) documented that achievers who attribute their success to an internal, uncontrollable, and stable cause (e.g., high ability), which is also a highly desirable property to have, seem most arrogant and least modest in comparison with achievers who attribute their success to any other cause (e.g., hard work or an easy task). Such achievers are also less admired than achievers who attribute their success to hard work, for example. By implication, achievers may attribute their success to hard work or any other cause that seems modest in order to be perceived as such by others. Such attributions also tend to elicit admiration towards the achiever. In contrast, by attributing their success to ability, achievers can cause envy in others (Hareli & Weiner, 2002).

Hareli and Weiner (2002) suggested additional emotions and inferences that an achiever may elicit in others by providing them with explanations about what brought about their achievement (success or failure). For example, attributing failure to low ability or an objective difficulty is expected to elicit sympathy in others. The identity of the other is also of importance. For example, attribution of success to high effort is expected to elicit admiration and pride from a teacher, whereas the attribution of failure to low effort may elicit teacher’s feelings of anger and dislike towards students. This is not true, however, if the target of the explanation is one’s peer. At least among adolescents, hard work is not considered desirable; hence, they are less likely to explain their success to peers by attributing it to hard work (Juvonen, 2000). Accordingly, explaining failure to friends by attributing it to lack of effort may elicit liking and hence, such an explanation may be used with this goal in mind. In contrast, attributing success to hard work may elicit dislike. However, precisely because lack of effort is considered to be more desirable among peers, attributing success to this reason may be perceived as deceitful. The same impression may be made on a teacher when students attribute their failure to lack of ability (Hareli & Weiner, 2002). Thus, a potentially rich array of different emotions may be manipulated by attributional information. To what extent this is actually done by people and under which circumstances remains, by and large, an open question.

The Use of a Naïve Attribution Theory of Emotions – Concluding Comments

In sum, it appears that individuals use their naïve understanding of the linkages between causal attributions and emotions to navigate their social world. Research has mainly documented two such uses: (a) inferences drawn from others’ emotions and (b) influencing others’ emotions. Whereas the study of influencing others’ emotions by using attribution or, more generally, appraisal-related information is scarce and neglected, a growing body of research in recent years has studied the use of naïve knowledge about the cognition–emotion linkages in drawing inferences from emotions. This line of research goes beyond the inference of attributions from emotions uncovered by earlier research, as reviewed before. This progress is marked both by considering the naïve use of a larger set of emotions, as well as by considering a greater variety of inferences drawn from them. Likewise, this research has begun to reveal the way in which context information may intervene in this process (for a review, see Hareli & Rafaeli, 2008; van Kleef, 2009, 2010). However, some of the links between attributions and emotions as discussed by Weiner (2014) such as those that exist in the context of gratitude, Schadenfreude, or hopelessness still wait for research examining if and how their naïve understanding is used.

I have suggested that both drawing inferences from others’ emotions and influencing their emotions are based on an explicit understanding of the linkages between appraisals and emotions and that people use this knowledge to draw inferences and to influence other’s emotions (de Melo et al., 2014; Hareli & Hess, 2010; Weiner, 1987). However, the fact that people reach relatively consensual conclusions from witnessing others’ emotions or make a characteristic use of certain explanations to shape others’ emotions cannot be taken as evidence that people actually hold an explicit understanding of the attributions and/or appraisal–emotion linkages and/or make use of it. At least in some cases, other mechanisms not implying such an explicit understanding can explain these phenomena. For example, Parkinson (2011) has suggested that conclusions drawn from others’ emotions need not always be the result of explicit interpretations of the kind of appraisals or thoughts that brought about the emotions of the other. Rather, other processes that do not involve such explicit understanding can be responsible for this process. One such possibility is that the emotions of the other elicit similar emotions in the observer, which then gives rise to the associated appraisals. In other words, persons infer from their own emotions, which mimic these of others, how they appraised the situation. Another possibility is that people hold a set of associations between specific emotions and inferences (see also Siemer & Reisenzein, 2007), and use theseassociations automatically when they make sense of others’ emotions or when attempting to influence them. Both alternatives are plausible; yet, I believe that they do not preclude the fact that people do hold, at least to some extent, a naïve grasp of the principles suggested by attribution theory of motivation and emotion, as well as by other appraisal theories and make some use of it. Some of the research reviewed here suggests indeed that the inferences people draw from others’ emotions, as well as their use of them to influence others’ emotions, is linked to the perception of relevant attributions or appraisals associated with the emotions in question (de Melo et al., 2014; Hareli & Hess, 2010; Tiedens, 2001; Weiner & Handel, 1985). A question for future research relates to when an explicit analysis of the emotion–attribution linkages is employed or when a rather more automatic and less elaborate process is used. One important factor that determines which mechanism is employed is the context in which the interaction with another takes place. When the situation is typical and familiar, probably a less elaborate process is involved. By contrast, when the situation is more vague and/or complex and less familiar, it is reasonable to assume that a more effortful and elaborate process is at work.

More generally, context is an important factor determining the social perception of emotions, as this process hardly ever occurs in a vacuum, but rather within a given context (Hareli & Hess, 2012; van Kleef, 2009). How context intervenes in the naïve use of the attribution theory of emotions remains a relatively unanswered question. Research by Brescoll and Uhlmann (2008) has already demonstrated that people do not equally apply their understanding of the attribution–emotion linkage to others, regardless of who these others are. When and how this naïve knowledge is employed is an important question for future research.

As documented in this article, the foundations for uncovering the naïve use of understanding the cognition (i.e., attribution, appraisal)–emotion linkages were laid by the work of Weiner and colleagues, as part of their research plan in the context of causal attribution. It took more than 20 years for this line of research to spread and be further developed. This is partly because of the preoccupation of emotion research with understanding what exactly the role of cognition in emotion is (Lazarus, 1999; Zajonc, 1980), and what appraisal research teaches us about the actual appraisal–emotion linkage (Frijda, 1993; Parkinson, 1997, 1999; Parkinson & Manstead, 1993). One thing is clear from appraisal research: people hold a rather consensual theory about appraisal–emotion linkages (Scherer, 1999). Their naïve knowledge of these linkages does not exist for the sake of appraisal research and those conducting it. This knowledge probably exists for a different reason, and one reasonable possibility is that it is used to make sense of other peoples’ emotions and influence them, as suggested by the attribution theory of emotion. The attribution theory of motivation and emotion (Weiner, 1985, 1986), mainly due to its roots, has never been too bothered by the possibility that people naïvely share the knowledge that it provides, and for a good reason. Hence, it has been quicker to reveal how people actually make use of it. Present research follows this line of thought and continues to document the informative richness of emotions and people’s use of this valuable information in their lives.