The Case for Mixed Emotions

Abstract

How do people feel when they experience bittersweet events comprised of pleasant and unpleasant aspects (e.g., good news accompanied by bad)? Just as acids immediately neutralize bases, some have suggested that bittersweet events' pleasant aspects might neutralize their unpleasant aspects, thereby resulting in fairly neutral emotional reactions. Some contemporary theorists also contend that happiness and sadness are mutually exclusive. We review research on the alternative possibility that bittersweet events can elicit pairs of opposite-valence, mixed emotions, with particularly close attention to the growing body of evidence that people can feel happy and sad at the same time while watching films, listening to music, and experiencing meaningful endings. We also review evidence that people sometimes experience other types of mixed emotions, including disgust accompanied by amusement and fear by enjoyment. Taken together, these data indicate that positive and negative affect are separable in experience.On June 29, 2009, Kassim Bakari learned that the airliner carrying his daughter, Bahia, had plunged into the Indian Ocean. All aboard were believed to have perished. The next day, Bakari learned that Bahia had managed to survive by clinging to a piece of debris for 12 hours. The story, however, does not have an entirely happy ending for Bakari. His wife had also been aboard the flight and did not survive. A complete understanding of emotion must include an understanding of emotional reactions to events like those faced by Bakari, yet for centuries theorists have disagreed about how such bittersweet events make people feel.

Children's understanding of mixed emotions in self and other: Verbal reports and visual representations

“…The identified types of mixed emotion experience support Oceja and Carrera's (2009) refined types of simultaneity and may indicate that the simultaneous experiences are potentially as fine grained in mid childhood as those experienced in adulthood (Carrera & 20 Oceja, 2007;Larsen et al, 2014). Children were interviewed about possible variations in the experience of mixed emotion to a greater extent in the present study than in previous studies, indicating more variability of simultaneous experiences than has previously been identified (Burkitt & Watling, 2015;Donaldson & Westerman, 1985;Larsen & McGraw, 2001;Larsen et al, 2007).…”

“…Current theories concerning adult populations suggest that mixed emotion can be simultaneously experienced in different ways Larsen & McGraw, 2014). Research focussing on the subjective experience of mixed emotion, defined as the co-activation of two emotions typically of opposite valence (Larsen, McGraw, & Cacioppo, 2001), primarily seeks to understand the types of blended and mixed experiences in terms of happiness and sadness in adulthood.…”

“…Larsen and McGraw argued that this contention implies, unlike the circumplex model, that any pair of opposite valence emotions can co-occur (Larsen, McGraw, & Cacioppo, 2001). In reviewing a range of research, Larsen and McGraw (2014) concluded that there is sound evidence to show that emotions with opposite valence -in particular, happiness and sadness -can be experienced simultaneously.…”

“…Larsen and McGraw argued that this contention implies, unlike the circumplex model, that any pair of opposite valence emotions can co-occur (Larsen, McGraw, & Cacioppo, 2001). In reviewing a range of research, Larsen and McGraw (2014) concluded that there is sound evidence to show that emotions with opposite valence -in particular, happiness and sadness -can be experienced simultaneously.In support and extension of their conclusion, reviewed 63 studies which varied in the emotional pairs and conceptualisation of underlying models of mixed emotion, namely discrete or dimensional, and concluded that mixed emotion experiences occur regardless of the emotion pairs and dimensional or discrete nature of the foundational conceptualisation of the studies. They suggested that the affective system could be flexible enough to permit multiple activation patterns of mixed emotion ranging from bipolar responses, blended responses where similar valence emotions are activated, and different 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 …”

Spectral Perturbation of Theta and Alpha Wave for the Affective Auditory Stimuli

“…The theta waves exist during the various tasks which need the correlation of the increased mental effort and sustained concentration. Alpha waves (8-13 Hz) are broadly linked with perceptual processing and memory tasks, and have been largely implicated in the processing of emotions [12]. The theta and alpha waves are widely used in the auditory emotion research [13][14][15].…”