This study conducted interviews with 31 university and graduate students to qualitatively examine the contents of evaluations of emotions. Analysis of the narrative data revealed three elements of evaluations of emotions: emotions, attitudes, and cognition about emotions. These were further classified as positive, negative, or neutral based on their content. The nature of the evaluations differed across the emotions of joy, sadness, and anger. Findings revealed that joy overwhelmingly elicited positive evaluations, sadness tended to be evaluated diversely, and anger was frequently perceived from both positive and negative perspectives. Differences in the nature of each emotion were shown to result in a wide variety of evaluative responses toward them.
Research papers (publications of university or research institution)
