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Constraints for emotion specificity in fear and anger: The context counts
Author(s) -
Stemmler Gerhard,
Heldmann Marcus,
Pauls Cornelia A.,
Scherer Thomas
Publication year - 2001
Publication title -
psychophysiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.661
H-Index - 156
eISSN - 1469-8986
pISSN - 0048-5772
DOI - 10.1111/1469-8986.3820275
Subject(s) - anger , psychology , context (archaeology) , clinical psychology , developmental psychology , biology , paleontology
We investigated psychophysiological responses to fear and anger inductions during real‐life and imagination. Female participants ( N = 158) were assigned to a fear‐treatment, fear‐control, anger‐treatment, or anger‐control group. Context (real‐life, imagination) was varied in two sessions of fixed order. Eleven self‐report and 29 somatovisceral variables were registered. Results showed that (a) except during anger imagination, control groups were emotionless; (b) in control groups, contexts prompted diverging somatovisceral responses, but similar emotion self‐reports; except during fear imagination, the emotion inductions (c) were successful and (d) produced specific emotion reports; (e) during real‐life, somatovisceral fear and anger responses exhibited a marked cardiovascular defense reflex; (f) in addition, real‐life fear showed an adrenaline‐like specific response pattern, whereas real‐life anger showed specific forehead temperature and EMG extensor increases, accompanied by an elevated DBP during imagination. A Component Model of Somatovisceral Response Organization is proposed.