Physics

Neuroscience

Action (physics)

Politics

Operating system

Feeling

Affective science

Cognition

Political science

Cognitive psychology

Psychology

Facial expression

Programming language

Emotion classification

Cognitive appraisal

Representation (politics)

Computer science

Appraisal theory

Quantum mechanics

Expression (computer science)

Process (computing)

Communication

Social psychology

Annual Review of Psychology

Much emotion research has focused on the end result of the emotion process, categorical emotions, as reported by the protagonist or diagnosed by the researcher, with the aim of differentiating these discrete states. In contrast, this review concentrates on the emotion process itself by examining how ( a) elicitation, or the appraisal of events, leads to ( b) differentiation, in particular, action tendencies accompanied by physiological responses and manifested in facial, vocal, and gestural expressions, before ( c) conscious representation or experience of these changes (feeling) and ( d) categorizing and labeling these changes according to the semantic profiles of emotion words. The review focuses on empirical, particularly experimental, studies from emotion research and neighboring domains that contribute to a better understanding of the unfolding emotion process and the underlying mechanisms, including the interactions among emotion components.

The Emotion Process: Event Appraisal and Component Differentiation