There is a lot of talk about giving machines emotions, some of it fluff. Recently at a large technical meeting, a researcher stood up and talked of how a Barney stuffed animal (the purple dinosaur for kids) “has emotions.” He did not define what he meant by this, but after repeating it several times, it became apparent that children attributed emotions to Barney, and that Barney had deliberatel...

This research investigated whether (1) the experience of mixed emotions is a consequence of activating conflicting goals and (2) mixed emotions are distinct from emotional conflict. A preliminary experiment (Study 1, N = 35) showed that an elicited goal conflict predicted more mixed emotions than a condition where the same goals were not in conflict. The second experiment was based on naturally...

Whether emotion is universal or social is a recurrent issue in the history of emotion study among psychologists. Some researchers view emotion as a universal construct, and that a large part of emotional experience is biologically based. However, emotion is not only biologically determined, but is also influenced by the environment. Therefore, cultural differences exist in some aspects of emoti...

INTRODUCTION Performance of work is related with experiencing various emotions, from positive - indicating full satisfaction with work, to negative - describing failures, and even harm caused by work. Such emotions are also experienced by children engaged in work on family farms. OBJECTIVE The objective of the study is the determination of emotions experienced in association with performing a...

The Autobiographical Emotional Memory Task (AEMT), which involves recalling and writing about intense emotional experiences, is a widely used method to experimentally induce emotions. The validity of this method depends upon the extent to which it can induce specific desired emotions (intended emotions), while not inducing any other (incidental) emotions at different levels across one (or more)...

Emotions research is now routinely grounded in evolution, but explicit evolutionary analyses of emotions remain rare. This article considers the implications of natural selection for several classic questions about emotions and emotional disorders. Emotions are special modes of operation shaped by natural selection. They adjust multiple response parameters in ways that have increased fitness in...

Patients with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) show evidence of disturbed emotion regulation. In particular, patients may try to suppress their emotions with possibly negative effects on mental health. We investigated the suppression of both negative and positive emotions in BPD patients and healthy participants. Thirty BPD patients and 30 matched healthy controls were assessed for emotion...

PURPOSE This research examined whether the frequencies of specific emotions are associated with major and minor depression in older primary care patients. DESIGN AND METHODS Older primary care patients (N = 146), prescreened with a depression questionnaire, completed a diagnostic interview and an emotions questionnaire. RESULTS Controlling for age, sex, and other psychiatric and medical ill...

The cognitive theory of emotions maintains that emotions necessarily involve cognition, and typically considers emotions as judgment in higher forms (or, in the form of complex appraisal judgments). It is especially in the form of thoughts, beliefs, conceptualization and propositional attitudes. Such a theory is challenged by somatic theory, which conversely regards emotions as non-cognitive, b...