Appraisals as causes of emotions

There is some disagreement among emotion researchers about what appraisals cause what emotions. To contribute to the literature, in this study, we tested hypotheses from a prominent appraisal theory of emotions (Roseman, 2011) to investigate the emotions of frustration, disgust, anger, contempt, guilt, and shame. We also compared Roseman’s appraisal (2011) hypotheses to Tracy and Robins’ appraisal (2006) hypotheses for guilt and shame. We manipulated the appraisals of agency and problem type (Roseman, 2011) to create vignettes and therefore obtain causal data. Participants were asked to compare emotions, rate emotions individually, and rate different appraisals based on the vignettes. We also investigated whether the problem type appraisal differentiates frustration from disgust, anger from contempt, and guilt from shame. We found causal evidence that problem type contributes to differentiating frustration vs. disgust (in both samples), and guilt vs. shame (in one sample). Anger (in both samples) and contempt (in one sample) were found to be caused by other person agency, and guilt and shame by self agency (in both samples). The combinations of the agency and problem type appraisals caused the predicted emotions for anger, guilt, and shame in both samples and for frustration, disgust, and contempt in one sample. We also found significant results for guilt and shame differing on problem type (Roseman, 2011) but not in controllability (Tracy & Robins, 2006). Overall, we found some support for the emotion system model (Roseman, 2011) and also compared two theories of appraisals for guilt and shame. These findings contribute to the better understanding of appraisals as causes of emotions. Problem type as being a determinant for guilt vs. shame also has implications for psychopathology, such as depression, as shame is more dysfunctional than guilt.M.A.Includes bibliographical reference