We investigated whether sadness elicited by two different situations—loss of someone (loss) and failure to achieve a goal (failure)—had different physiological responses. Seventy-four participants were randomly assigned to one of three conditions (loss, failure, and neutral). Physiological responses were recorded during an imagery task that was designed to evoke sadness. The results of characteristics in the subjective ratings indicated that loss-evoked sadness was only associated with expressive words relating to tears. For the results of physiological measures, skin conductance levels (SCLs) increased during the imagery task across all conditions and differed between conditions during the post-task. For the loss condition, restoration to baseline level took longer, while in the failure the SCL decreased sharply back to baseline. Furthermore, tear ratings correlated with blood pressures in the loss condition, while sadness intensity correlated with blood pressures in the failure condition. These results suggest that sadness includes at least two subtypes that produce different responses in subjective ratings and physiological measures.

This study examined physiological changes in response to the feelings of sadness induced by two different situations. A previous study (Shirai & Suzuki, 2016) indicated that sadness induced by the loss of someone is different from sadness induced by the failure to achieve a goal. In the present study, each participant was asked to imagine one of three situations: loss, failure to achieve a goal, or daily. Heart rate, systolic and diastolic blood pressure, skin conductance level, and high frequency component of heart rate variability were assessed during this imagery task. Concerning the physiological measures, DBP increased only in the loss situation during the task. These findings suggest that the sadness elicited by two different situations is the slight different in terms of physiological measures. However, a clear difference was not found in the physiological measures elicited in these sadness situations. Further explorations are needed to clarify sadness differences within these same emotional categories.

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