ABSTRACT
Contemporary emotion theories consider emotions to be basically adaptive. They signal the relevance of events to personal concerns and prepare the individual to respond so as to ensure the satisfaction and protection of these concerns (Frijda, 1986). The essential function of an emotion is organization: once the system is switched on, it coordinates the activity of disparate response systems (physiology, perception, motor behavior, expression, and also higher mental processes) in order to deal appropriately with the emotion-eliciting event (Levenson, 1999; Scherer, 1984).
