Abstract
Scholars have suggested that emotions are evolved adaptations that increase fitness by adjusting the response of the individual to the specific situation. Thus, the particular emotion experienced by an individual should be dependent on whether the situation is a threat/opportunity, in the physical/social domain, and if the outcome is a success/failure. Nesse and Ellsworth (2009) created a model around this idea that predicts which emotions should arise in these particular situations. The current study empirically tested this model using the virtual simulation program Second Life. 50 (44 female, 6 male, Mage = 21.10 years, Age range: 18–30 years) participants’ avatars were placed in socially and physically threatening and opportunistic situations; further, participants were randomly assigned to succeed or fail at each task. After completing each task, participants rated the degree to which they experienced the emotions predicted by the model to arise in these situations. Results found the social opportunity, physical threat, and social threat conditions matched those emotions predicted by the model.
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Notes
pr refers to the probability ratio, a probability-based measure of effect size frequently used in this type of analysis.
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Acknowledgments
We thank Alexandra Saba, Briana Tauber, Jennifer Kazakoff, and Michael Wietecha for assistance with data collection.
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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.
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Guitar, A.E., Glass, D.J., Geher, G. et al. Situation-specific emotional states: Testing Nesse and Ellsworth’s (2009) model of emotions for situations that arise in goal pursuit using virtual world software. Curr Psychol 39, 1245–1259 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-018-9830-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-018-9830-x