ABSTRACT
In recent years, a large number of cognitive models of emotion have been proposed, mostly by social psychologists, which highlight the importance of particular appraisal dimensions or criteria in the process of antecedent situation evaluation for the differentiation of emotional experience (see, e.g., Frijda, 1986, review in Scherer, in press; Lazarus, Averill, & Opton, 1970; Roseman, 1984; Smith & Ellsworth, 1985). On the whole, there is a remarkable degree of convergence of theorizing in this tradition, lending a high degree of face validity to the claims made. However, so far very few empirical studies have been conducted to test the hypotheses. In several statements of his component process model of emotion, Scherer (1984a, b) has proposed a set of preductions concerning the verbal labels that are likely to be used to describe emotional experiences following particular patterns of stimulus evaluation check outcomes. An example for such a prediction table (taken from Scherer, 1984a) is reproduced in Table 3.1.
