Motivational direction diverges from valence for sadness, anger, and amusement: A role for appraisals?

Emotion, Vol 23(5), Aug 2023, 1334-1348; doi:10.1037/emo0001165Recent work has cast doubt on whether the strength of motivation (strength of avoidance or approach tendencies) experienced while viewing emotion-eliciting pictures is dissociable from felt valence (negative versus positive). The present study extended this work by testing specific discrete emotions (amusement, anger, awe, desire, sadness). Previous work has proposed separate motivational direction (avoid versus approach) from valence. In Study 1, participants (N = 60) rated the motivational direction or valence they experienced while viewing 100 pictures that each evoked one of the five discrete emotions. We found significant differences between average motivational direction and valence ratings for sadness, anger, and amusement. Critically, underlying these averages, we found that while valence responses were highly consistent, there was large variability in motivational direction, with some people indicating they wanted to approach and others indicating they wanted to avoid while viewing the same picture. Individual differences in motivational direction were largest for sadness, so in Study 2 (N = 100) we tested whether they were predicted by appraisals of the situation (e.g., ratings of how welcome or useful people believed their help would be). The three appraisals tested accounted for 64% of the variance in motivational direction, after which valence made a very small unique contribution. These findings high...
Source: Emotion - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research