Beyond prototypes and classical definitions: Evidence for a theory-based representation of emotion concepts

Abstract

The question of how people represent emotions is eminently important for a number of different domains of psychological research. The present study tested the assumption that emotion concepts are represented similar to theories in that they are comprised of a set of causally interrelated features. Using emotional scenarios and investigating the emotion concepts of anger, anxiety, and sadness it was found that people's representations of emotion concepts essentially involved the representation of the causal relation of emotion features and that the causal status of a feature determined the feature's centrality in the concept. Moreover, people's representations of emotion concepts corresponded to basic assumptions of cognitive emotion theories, namely that cognitive appraisals cause other surface features of emotion, like expression and behaviour. By providing evidence for a theory-based representation, the present results show that the classical and the prototype approach are insufficient to model the representation of emotion concepts.

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by a grant from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG SI 873/1–1 and SI873/1–2).