Subjectively salient dimensions of emotional appraisal

Abstract

Four empirical studies of cognitive appraisals in emotion are reported. In studies 1 and 2, a simplified version of the repertory grid method was used to determine subjectively salient dimensions of cognitive appraisal. For a representative sample of 30 emotions, subjects considered pairwise comparisons of remembered eliciting events (study 1) or those typically conducive to the emotions (study 2) and indicated attributes on which the situations differed. The attributes were classified using a category system derived a priori from the theoretical and empirical literature. Some evidence was obtained for the majority of the 25 distinguished potential dimensions of appraisal, and no further dimensions of appraisal were suggested by the data. The most frequently mentioned dimensions—accounting together for 85% of the attributes—were subjective evaluation, causality/agency/responsibility, focus of event, controllability, importance, moral evaluation, stability, social relation positive-negative plus close-distant, self-evaluation, time of event, evaluation of others, intentionality/activity and expectedness. A reduced set of 22 dimensions for which some evidence was obtained in the grid studies was further examined in studies 3 and 4 using a nominal scale analogue of the rating method. It was found that (a) the appraisal dimensions which emerged as the most salient ones in the grid studies tended to be those relevant for the greatest number of emotions, (b) the dimensions were largely statistically independent within the investigated domain of emotions, and (c) they permitted from moderate to good statistical classification of the situations into the emotion categories. Potential limitations of the grid method as well as the issue of the criteria for cognitive appraisals in emotion are discussed.