Emotion, Meaning, and Appraisal Theory

McEachrane, Michael

doi:10.1177/0959354308101418

Cited by 35 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 30 publications

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“…If a person thinks that today is Thursday, the person is also likely to think that tomorrow is Friday. This is not an empirical, but a semantic relationship -the one follows from the other (Semin, 1989;Smedslund, 1994;McEachrane, 2009). Ideas about weekdays may be blatantly obvious, but fuzzier examples of weaker relationships exist.…”

Section: Semantically Determined Relationshipsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Culture Blind Leadership Research: How Semantically Determined Survey Data May Fail to Detect Cultural Differences

Arnulf

Larsen

2020

Front. Psychol.

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Section: Semantically Determined Relationshipsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Culture Blind Leadership Research: How Semantically Determined Survey Data May Fail to Detect Cultural Differences

Arnulf

Larsen

2020

Front. Psychol.

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“…Several authors (e.g., Clore & Ortony, 1991;Frijda & Zeelenberg, 2001;Parkinson, 1997;Smedslund, 1992;McEachrane, 2009) have drawn attention to the fact that appraisal is part of the ordinary and scientific meaning of emotion(s). Specific appraisals are part of the descriptive and prescriptive definitions 1 of specific emotions (e.g., fear is defined as caused by an appraisal of danger, sadness by an appraisal of loss, and anger by an appraisal of offense).…”

Section: Appraisal As Part Of the Meaning Of Emotionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Neither approach, however, escapes a third problem, that of how to identify whether the components measured are emotional in a general sense (McEachrane, 2009;Smedslund, 1992). When is an action tendency to fight emotional and when is it cold calculation?…”

Section: Causal Claim Is Non-empiricalmentioning

confidence: 99%

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On the Causal Role of Appraisal in Emotion

2013

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Many appraisal theories claim that appraisal causes emotion. Critics have rejected this claim because they believe (a) it is incompatible with the claim that appraisal is a part of emotion, (b) it is not empirically supported, (c) it is circular and hence non-empirical, and (d) there are alternative causes. I reply that (a) the causal claim is incompatible with the part claim on some but not all interpretations of the causal claim and the part claim, (b) the lack of empirical support can be remedied, (c) there may even be ways to cope with the circularity problem, and (d) it is unclear to what extent the alternative causes differ from appraisal.Keywords: emotion, causation, appraisal, component, feeling CAUSAL ROLE OF APPRAISAL 3 On the Causal Role of Appraisal in Emotion Many appraisal theories defend the claim that emotions are caused by appraisal, a process in which stimuli are evaluated on a number of variables such as goal relevance, goal congruence, intrinsic valence, coping potential, expectancy, and agency. I start by presenting definitions of the concepts of emotion, appraisal, and causation. This allows me to clarify how I think the causal claim should be understood. After that I discuss a number of objections that have been raised against this claim and I propose possible replies. Definitions EmotionThe set of emotions can be defined with an intensional and an extensional definition.An intensional definition specifies the necessary and sufficient conditions for an instance to belong to a set (i.e., a collection of necessary conditions that are jointly sufficient). An extensional definition lists all the instances or subsets within a set. As such, it reveals the internal structure of the set. Intensional definition.Appraisal theorists have put forward various criteria to demarcate the set of emotions from other sets (cf. Frijda & Scherer, 2009;Moors, 2009; Scherer, 2009a) The previous criteria may be necessary but they are not sufficient for calling something an emotion. For example, dropping an egg on the floor may produce all of the above-listed components, but few would call this an emotional episode. Therefore, appraisal theorists have proposed additional criteria. (3) It has been proposed that an emotion occurs when a stimulus is appraised as goal relevant, that is, when it signals the satisfaction status of a goal or concern (Frijda, 1988;Lazarus, 1991b;Moors, 2007;Oatley & Johnson-Laird, 1987; but see Scherer, 1984, Ellsworth, 1994. Some theorists add that the goal should be sufficiently high in the person's goal hierarchy (Moors, 2007) and/or that it should be appraised as urgent (Frijda, 1988). Dropping an egg on the floor is clearly relevant for the goal to keep the egg intact, but this goal is probably not at the top of one's goal hierarchy. (4) Frijda (1986, 2007 Frijda & Zeelenberg, 2001) proposed that the action tendencies in emotions have control precedence, that is, they call for priority over other non-emotional action tendencies. (5) Scherer (2000Scherer ( , 2009b ...

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“… 8. The presence of implicit emotion in passages of NP may also be explained with reference to ‘appraisal theory’ (Arnold, 1961; Lazarus, 1991; Phelps et al, 2006; Scherer et al, 2001; Zeelenberg et al, 2006), by which our appraisal or perception of an event is always determined by a previous attitude of mind or a particular ‘kind of attention’ (McEachrane, 2009: 33), and accompanied by an emotional response which is based on that appraisal. …”

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confidence: 99%

Narrated perception revisited: The case of Jane Austen’s Emma

Pallares-Garcia

2012

Language and Literature: International Journal of Stylistics

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Jane Austen’s Emma (1816) is generally considered an ambiguous and unreliable narrative in terms of point of view (Morini, 2009: 53–57; Wallace, 1995: 77–97). These qualities are often attributed to the extensive use of free indirect discourse (Finch and Bowen, 1990: 5–6; Mezei, 1996: 72–75). This article aims to demonstrate that another narrative technique is also responsible for the ambiguity and unreliability of the novel. ‘Narrated perception’ (NP) portrays the sensory perceptions of a fictional character by describing events as they are experienced by that character (Fludernik, 1993: 305–309). NP has been pointed out by some critics to be a distinct narrative technique, but in general perception is included within the broader category of free indirect discourse (FID), and occasionally as an aspect of free indirect thought (FIT). This article suggests that there are some subtle differences between NP and FID/FIT, and thus it can be beneficial to examine NP separately. In fact, NP is frequently similar to pure narration in terms of form and function. As a case study, this article presents a stylistic analysis of a number of passages containing NP in Emma which do not typically feature in studies of FID/FIT. The analysis provides textual evidence of (1) the presence of Emma’s sensory perceptions within what looks like narration, (2) the close connection between perception, thought and emotion, and (3) the difficulty of distinguishing between perception and narration in some cases, which suggests the potential of NP to mislead the reader by presenting as a seemingly objective fact what later on turns out to be Emma’s mistaken assessment.

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Emotion, Meaning, and Appraisal Theory

Cited by 35 publications

References 30 publications

Culture Blind Leadership Research: How Semantically Determined Survey Data May Fail to Detect Cultural Differences

Culture Blind Leadership Research: How Semantically Determined Survey Data May Fail to Detect Cultural Differences

On the Causal Role of Appraisal in Emotion

Narrated perception revisited: The case of Jane Austen’s Emma

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