ABSTRACT
As is evident from the contributions to this volume, affect is central to goals. At a minimum, affect plays a role in determining one's commitment to goals, energizes goal-directed behavior, and serves as feedback informing a person of the status of his or her goals. Additionally, people have goals to feel or to avoid feeling certain emotions; one may desire a happy life or a life free from strife and turmoil. Theories of emotion and of subjective well-being (SWB) are increasingly adopting the position that affective states are a function of the status of one's goal pursuits. Whether affect is examined in terms of discrete short-term states (emotions) or as long-term individual difference characteristics, there is widespread agreement that goals and related constructs, such as concerns and commitments, play an essential role in determining the quality and intensity of affective experience (Frijda, 1986; Klinger, 1977; Lazarus, 1991; Oatley, 1992; Ortony, Clore, & Collins, 1988; Pervin, 1983). Goal theories of emotion postulate that discrete emotional states are the results of appraisals regarding the significance of life circumstances for one's personally meaningful goal strivings (Lazarus, 1991; Roseman, Wiest, & Swartz, 1994). For instance, in Frijda's (1986) theory, emotions arise when external conditions either facilitate or interfere with the individual's concerns (concerns being treated by Frijda as more or less equivalent with incentives or goals).
