294 Emotion, Affect, and Mood in Social Judgments
attribution, etc.) on which emotional meta-experience is based
are themselves consciously accessible experiences. On this
account, to perceive oneself as “angry” is a complex process of
self-categorization based on the everyday category of anger.
The hypothesis of emotional meta-experience fits well with
recent findings that conscious emotional feelings follow
and monitor rather that precede other emotional ingredients
(e.g., Gray, 1999; LeDoux, 1996; Öhman, 1999).
THE UNIVERSAL AND THE CULTURAL
In the debate between universalists and cultural relativists,
the psychology of emotion inherited a version of the peren-
nial nature-nurture controversy. As long as this question is
posed about the heterogeneous cluster called emotion,more
debate than resolution can be expected. When emotionis
replaced with the variety of concepts proposed here, we hope
that a resolution is nearer. In this chapter, we have come
down squarely both on the side of nature and on the side of
nurture. In principle, every psychological event is a joint
product of genetic and epigenetic influences. In searching for
elementary processes, we sought those whose existence ap-
pears to be as much a part of a universal human nature as pos-
sible. We offered core affect (and the specific dimensions of
pleasure and arousal), perception of affective quality, attribu-
tion, categorization, and so on as candidates. Specific out-
comes of some of these universal processes, however, might
show variability caused by epigenetic factors. For instance,
the event to which core affect is attributed and the affective
quality perceived in a specific stimulus might show measur-
able epigenetic variability.
Emotional episodes are patterns among these ingredients
and might show more variability caused by epigenetic influ-
ences. Behavior, for example, draws on prepackaged modules
that are coupled or decoupled to suit the specific antecedent
event and one’s goals, plans, social role, norms, values, and
so forth. An emotional episode in response to frustration will
bear a family resemblance to all human responses to frustra-
tion. Still, it might more typically resemble the script for
ligetamong the Ilongot, but more the script forningaqamong
the Utku. As a consequence, concepts formed in one so-
ciety can be expected to differ from those formed in another
(Russell, 1991).
On our account, emotional meta-experience (although hy-
pothesized to be a universal process) allows the greatest
cultural diversity in content. For example, the concept of
emocionadois available and readily accessible for Spaniards.
They are easily able to conceptualize, label, and report states
that resemble emocionado. Perhaps all persons experience a
core affect combined with thoughts and behaviors that do not
fit well into a specific emotion category, but Spaniards expe-
rience this state in terms of emocionado. Doing so places that
state within a culture-specific network of meaning. In con-
trast, a person who lacks this concept might also have the
same raw ingredients but would, nevertheless, not experience
the resulting Gestalt in the same way.A COMPARISON OF CORE AFFECT
WITH EMOTIONEmotionis an old and rich term that refers to a variety of fas-
cinating phenomena that are not as closely related to each
other as one might think. The gap between emotion and
nonemotion is fuzzier and smaller than was once thought. As
a consequence, the psychology of emotion is fragmented into
many largely independent areas. Research even on a suppos-
edly single emotion is fragmented. For example, research on
fear includes clinical research on anxiety, social psychologi-
cal research on the effect of fear on attitude change, and ex-
perimental research on fear as a basic emotion; each of these
areas has its own traditions. Articles in one tradition rarely
reference an article in another. These considerations suggest
any number of strategies for the future. One suggestion is to
take stock of the ecology of emotion events. Another is to
move to a much lower level of analysis. Fear, sadness, and the
like consist of components that can be studied in their own
right. A search for patterns among the components would re-
place assumption with empirically established patterns.
Our proposal of a new framework and vocabulary for re-
search on emotion should not be understood as a new theory
about emotion but as an outline for the integration of old the-
ories. The concept of emotional episodehas several advan-
tages over the old concept of emotion. It encourages the study
of individual components and thus allows researchers to ex-
plain and include in their theories the huge variability of
emotional behavior, expression, experience, and physiology
that has been uncovered in research on basic emotions. Be-
havior probably does not divide naturally into two qualita-
tively different classes, the emotional and the nonemotional.
Core affect, affective quality, and attribution all occur outside
emotional episodes as well.
Unlike “basic emotions,” which are self-contained entities,
emotional episodes consist of ingredients that can be shaped in
a variety of ways. For example, Bugental (2000) proposed that
socialization is not simply a general process of social influence
but an acquisition of effective procedures (algorithms) for
solving problems in five specific domains (attachment, power
in hierarchies, mating, coalitions in groups, and reciprocity).