Appraisal Tendency and Emotion

Today's fun fact is about the Appraisal-Tendency Approach of Lerner and Keltner (2000; 2001).

In a reaction the the dominant valence-based approach to emotion in the social-psychological literature and actually much other psychological literature too (i.e. emotions are usually treated in two categories: as positive - happiness, surprise etc - or negative - sadness, fear etc ), they suggest that equi-valent emotions (emotions that have the same valence, such as pride and surprise, which would both be treated as positive using the valence approach) actually impact on cognitive processes in substantive and often significantly differential ways, specifically when making appraisals or judgments.

Using the idea that emotions are triggered by evolutionarily significant events (e.g. fear is activated by perceived threat) and that the emotion helps deal with that situation (i.e. puts you in a frame of mind that helps you prioritise things and overcome the situation. For instance when fear is activated, people are uncertain, experience low pleasantness, high anticipated effort and low control).

The authors do a number of experiments that support this theory, notably in the case of anger and fear.
Generally, they find that people experiencing fearful emotions (both trait and state) consistently make pessimistic judgments and choices whereas people who are experience anger display more optimism in these activities.
Also, they found that fearful people were more risk-averse (avoided taking risks, were more conservative in choices) than angry people who were far more risk-seeking (prone to taking risks).

Maybe this goes some way to explaining how our governments operate in relation to different threats? e.g. economic crisis = people scared and thus feel out of control. Decisions made more conservative (focussed on reducing loss) VS foreign invasion = people angry, are certain about understanding events and feel personally compelled to/resposible for retaliation. Decisions made are more risky (focussed on making gains)... just a thought!

References:
Lerner, J. S., & Keltner, D. (2000). Beyond valence: Toward a model of emotion-specific influences on judgment and choice. Cognition and Emotion, 14(4), 473-493.
Lerner, J. S., & Keltner, D. (2001). Fear, anger and risk. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 81(1), 146-159.