A Vocabulary for a Scientific Framework for Emotion 293that something is pleasant but report no changes in actual
core affect. Various terms from the literature (e.g., evalua-
tion, affective judgment, affective appraisal, affective reac-
tion,orprimitive emotion) are similar to the perception of
affective quality (see Cacioppo et al., 1999; Zajonc, 1980,
2000). Several experiments suggest that an initial perception
of affective quality of a stimulus takes place automatically
within 25 ms of encountering the stimulus (Bargh, 1997;
Bargh, Chaiken, Govender, & Pratto, 1992; Bargh, Chaiken,
Raymond, & Hymes, 1996; Fazio, Sanbonmatsu, Powell, &
Kardes, 1986).
Attribution
People seek the cause of any change in core affect that they
experience. They attribute core affect to someone or some-
thing or some condition. In this way, core affect takes on an
object: One moves from simply feeling bad to grieving over
the loss of a friendship. Attributions are complex perceptual-
cognitive processes and entail the possibility of misattribu-
tion. Although the object typically is an obvious thing or
event, it can be invented (fear of ghosts), hallucinated, re-
membered, or anticipated. The object is a psychological con-
struction that includes past and future.
Motive
Attributing core affect to an object becomes a motivefor
action—for example, attributing negative core affect
(displeasure) to a deprivation (e.g., attributing discomfort to
the lack of a cigarette constitutes a motive to smoke). Mo-
tives may or may not result in action.
Liking and Disliking
These everyday concepts include both occurrent (actual, brief)
events and dispositions to those events. An occurrent instance
of liking (e.g., tasting a novel soup and liking it) is the experi-
ence of pleasure attributed to the liked object (the soup). A per-
son’s disposition to like something (e.g., Joe likes soup) is that
person’s tendency to derive pleasure from that thing.
Categories of Emotion
Core affect, perception of affective quality, and the corre-
sponding attributions to an object describe a huge variety of
phenomena usually calledemotion. Nevertheless, a dimen-
sional affect system should also explain all these cases in
which psychologists and laypeople prefer to speak in terms
of specific categories such as fear, sadness,and so on.
Categorization is a basic cognitive process. Rather than con-
sider each event encountered as unique (as we are encouraged
to do by the nominalists), people group them together on the
basis of perceived similarity. Thus, one notes a resemblance
between some actual event and a stored representation of a
group of events. On one theory, an emotion category is men-
tally represented by a script of the components of that emo-
tion, unfolding in a causally linked sequence (Fehr & Russell,
1984; Fischer, 1991; Lakoff, 1987; Russell, 1991; Russell &
Fehr, 1994). Categories are also linked to one another in a
complex net of associations, and categorization is implicated
in the perception of emotion both in others and in self.Emotional EpisodeOur term that comes closest toemotionisemotional episode.
It is any actual event that resembles the mental representation
of an emotion category sufficiently to count as a member of
that category. Resemblance is a matter of degree, and no sharp
boundary separates members from nonmembers. We define a
prototypical emotional episodeas an emotional episode for
which the resemblance is especially close. Our notion of
emotional episode as a pattern among simpler ingredients
(including those already described, such as core affect and
attribution) is congruent with much current conceptual
and empirical analysis of emotion as the integration of
simpler components through a process of attribution (Bem,
1972; Blascovich, 1990; Higgins, 1987; Keltner, Locke, &
Audrain, 1998; Öhman, 1999; Olson, 1990; Schachter, 1964;
Weiner, 1985).
An emotional episode typically begins with a real or imag-
inary event, which has a perceived affective quality.(This ini-
tial estimate of affective quality is included in appraisal
theories, usually as a first evaluative step; Arnold, 1960;
Smith & Ellsworth, 1985.) Core affect changes and prompts
anattributional process. In most cases, the eliciting event is
readily identified, but ambiguous cases can give rise to mis-
attributions (Nisbett & Schachter, 1966). Whatever event is
identified as the cause is thereby seen as the source of current
core affect—and therefore as a problem to be solved or an op-
portunity to be seized. Behavior follows accordingly.Emotional Meta-experienceIt is one thing to undergo an emotional episode, another to no-
tice that this is happening. Emotional meta-experience is the
perception of oneself as having a specific emotion. It is similar
to what is commonly called subjective emotional experience.
The prefix “meta-” draws attention to the notion that the raw
data (affect core, affective quality, action, somatic sensations,