Profiles of Emotion-antecedent Appraisal: Testing Theoretical Predictions across Cultures

Abstract

Placed in a context of appraisal theories of emotion-elicitation and differentiation the present study pursues three aims: (1) testing theoretical predictions based on the author's Stimulus Evaluation Check (SEC) model; (2) examining the number and types of appraisal dimensions necessary for emotion differentiation and the relative importance of different dimensions; and (3) determining the similarity of emotion-specific appraisal profiles across cultures. The data reported were gathered in a large-scale intercultural study in which 2921 respondents in 37 countries were asked to recall recent experiences of joy, sadness, fear, anger, disgust, shame, and guilt; and toanswerquestions concerning theirappraisal of the emotion-eliciting event. The results support many but not all of the SEC model's predictions. Multiple discriminant analyses suggest that a relatively small number of appraisal dimensions may be sufficient to classify the major emotion categories with a reasonable degree of accuracy. Cross-cultural comparison shows that emotion-specific appraisal profiles correlate highly across geopolitical culture regions although there are consistent differences for some regions.