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Measuring emotions in an
intergroup context and
beyond
Dr Roger Giner-Sorolla
Department of Psychology
Presentation given at the Research Methods Festival, July 2008,
Oxford, UK
Emotion research is interdisciplinary

ISRE organization has members from
psychology, sociology, anthropology,
humanities, history …

“Affective revolutions” in economics,
computing, law, art education …

Emotions are interesting and important
Only one small question
What is an emotion?
“Emotion” is a language/culture
category (Wierzbicka)
Other cultures (e.g., Ifaluk, studied by Lutz)
divide mental phenomena in different
ways
Even across the Channel … “emotion” vs.
“sentiment” not observed in English
How does Western English-speaking
culture characterize emotion?
Depends … lay or scientific definition?
Compact OED
Emotion • noun 1 a strong feeling, such as joy or anger. 2
instinctive feeling as distinguished from reasoning or
knowledge.
Psychology: over 50 definitions of emotion …
4 legs,
has fur,
has tail …
What is a cat?
What is an emotion?
Like a cat, different modules or traits
 Unlike a cat, no scientific consensus on
which is the defining set of traits

What is not an emotion?

Even here there is controversy between
lay and different scientific definitions
Emotion vs. attitude/evaluation

Emotions have specificity beyond positive
or negative valence (fear vs. shame vs.
anger vs. sadness)
Emotion vs. mood

One scientific view: Emotions are
responses to specific situations, unlike
moods which are diffuse

BUT: Emotional feelings are not always
identified with their source; can have
carry-over effects; can be associated with
objects (even irrationally)
Emotion vs. belief
Emotions are not propositional, although
they can be expressed in propositional
language – “I am angry”; “This place is
disgusting”
 Beliefs can influence emotions (appraisal
view); emotions can also influence beliefs
(e.g. intuitive prosecutor research)

Emotion vs. motivation

View 1: Emotion is motivation
Emotion -> behaviour
(Lazarus; Scherer; Frijda’s action
tendencies)

View 2: Emotion is a report on motivation
Motive -> Behaviour -> success/failure -> emotion
(Buck; Carver & Scheier)
Specific emotion vs. core affect
Russell &
Barrett’s model
Is everything
else besides
core affect just
language?
What is an emotion? Traits

Feelings: subjective experience

Language: terms describing subjective
experience (or the other things below!)
Emotion concepts (tied to language or not?)
Facial expressions
Physiological changes: central nervous system,
peripheral nervous system
Effects on thought, judgment, behaviour
Dependency on perception, interpretation of
environment





Impossible to measure directly
Methods of emotion measurement
Verbal self-report
 Pictorial self-report
 Interjections?
 Facial expression coding
 Physiological measures
 Neurological measures
 Implicit measures

Methods of emotion manipulation
Imagined scenarios
 Recalled scenarios
 Emotion priming: words, faces…
 Environmental aspects
 Social induction
 Social contagion
 Physiological induction

Pitfalls of emotion measurement and
manipulation
Language and emotion terms
 Ambiguities in physiology
 Context and referents
 Emotion concept vs. emotion feeling
 Emotion experience vs. emotion
communication
 Confounds in emotion manipulation
 Limits of emotion manipulation

Traps of language

Specific languages
 English:

“anger”; “disgust”
Implicit assumptions in language
 English:
“irritable”; “disgusting”
Intergroup emotions: an example

Anger, fear, and action tendencies