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What are emotions? And how can they be measured?
Open accessAbstract
Defining “emotion” is a notorious problem. Without consensual conceptualization and operationalization of exactly what phenomenon is to be studied, progress in theory and research is difficult to achieve and fruitless debates are likely to proliferate. A particularly unfortunate example is William James’s asking the question “What is an emotion?” when he really meant “feeling”, a misnomer that started a debate which is still ongoing, more than a century later. This contribution attempts to sensitize researchers in the social and behavioral sciences to the importance of definitional issues and their consequences for distinguishing related but fundamentally different affective processes, states, and traits. Links between scientific and folk concepts of emotion are explored and ways to measure emotion and its components are discussed.
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“Motives and their states of action readiness (including autonomic responses) are elicited by events as these are appraised in a fraction of a second (Scherer, 2005; Frijda, 2007).”
From Impulsive action: emotional impulses and their control (2014) · cites this paper as Scherer, 2005
In the citing paper
“The most central appraisal is whether an event is appraised to promote or obstruct one or more of the person’s goals, needs, values, or more generally concerns (Ellsworth and Scherer, 2003; Scherer, 2005; Frijda, 2007).”
From Impulsive action: emotional impulses and their control (2014) · cites this paper as Scherer, 2005
In the citing paper
“Real-life emergency situations are suggested to evoke acute stress responses to facilitate remedial action (Scherer, 2005; Kreibig, 2010).”
From Voice Stress Analysis: A New Framework for Voice and Effort in Human Performance (2018) · cites this paper as Scherer, 2005
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Metadata
- Authors
- Scherer, K. R.
- Corresponding author
- Scherer, Klaus R.
- ORCID
- Scherer, Klaus R.
- Venue
- Social Science Information
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2005-12
- Volume
- 44
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 695-729
- ISSN
- 0539-0184 (ISSN-L)
- 1461-7412
- OpenAlex
- W2102998034
- Cited by
- 4,264
- References
- 80
- Citations by year
- 2026: 283 · 2025: 258 · 2024: 271 · 2023: 299 · 2022: 338 · 2021: 348 · 2020: 280 · 2019: 308 · 2018: 263 · 2017: 248 · 2016: 272 · 2015: 248 · 2014: 210 · 2013: 186 · 2012: 158
- FWCI
- 24.26
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- Locations
- Social Science Information (publishedVersion)
- Archive ouverte UNIGE (University of Geneva) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Emotions and Moral Behavior
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Artificial Intelligence › Emotion and Mood Recognition
- Social Sciences › Psychology › General Psychology › Academic and Historical Perspectives in Psychology
- Keywords
- emotions, definition of emotion, emotion measurement, emotional processing, affective states, emotional characteristics, conceptualization and operationalization
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