ABSTRACT
Our life is rarely devoid of emotional experiences for a very long time. Emotions are elicited as a function of the significance or appraisal of a specific antecedent event to the experiencing person. Emotion theorists usually consider that emotions consist of three additional components: physiological changes, expressive behaviors or reactions, and subjective or experiential changes (Arnold, 1960; Ekman, 1984, 1992; Frijda, 1986; Izard, 1977; Lang, 1983; Leventhal, 1984; Ortony, Clore, & Collins, 1988; Roseman, 1984; Scherer, 1984). Since the classic writings of Walter Cannon (1929), emotions are rightly conceived as emergency reactions taking place in the framework of homeostasis. Energy-consuming physiological responses that are central to an emotional state cannot last long. Emotional responses are thus usually considered to last a few seconds or minutes and to be regulated immediately (Frijda, Mesquita, Sonnemans, & Van Goozen, 1991), Thus, emotions generally appear as shortlived phenomena, essentially consisting of brief and temporally wellcircumscribed disruptions affecting the course of the person’s life. An emotion would immediately be concluded by a self-control, or self-restoration, procedure (e.g., Carver & Scheier, 1990; Frijda, 1986).
