Frijda: The Laws of Emotion

Overview: The article presents several “laws,” or empirical regularities, of emotion. Formulating these laws implies:
Emotional phenomena are lawful • The empirical regularities rely on underlying causal mechanisms • Mechanisms of emotion are assumed to be only partially under voluntary control – we are subjected to these laws • Research has developed sufficiently to formulate laws • Research programs can be developed based on the laws enumerated here • That a definition of “emotion” can be determined empirically = here defined as “state of action readiness”

THE LAWS: 1. Situational meaning: emotions arise in response to the meaning structure of a situation; different emotions arise in response to different meaning structures • Meaning depends on the person’s appraisal or subjective perception of the situation – including how the person thinks the event might affect him/her AND how he/she might handle the event ← Outcome certainty ( fear intensity ← Causal attributions ( anger, pride, shame, gratitude ← Unpredictability & uncontrollability ( depressive mood or reactance • Automatic and pre-conscious, but can be overridden by conscious control 2. Concern: emotions arise in response to events that are important to the individual’s goals, motives, or concerns – a concern is what gives a particular event its emotional meaning 3. Apparent reality: emotions are elicited by events appraised as real, and their intensity corresponds to the degree of reality perceived – applies to unreal events perceived as real and real events not taken seriously “Real” stimuli include: • unconditioned affective stimuli = pain, startle stimuli, perceived expressive behaviors • sensory stimuli strongly associated to above