Cognitive Causes of Emotion

人们普遍认为，情感和认知之间存在着深刻的相互作用。情绪状态，即我们的感受和感受背后的强度，可以增强或削弱我们的判断和表现；认知，即我们的想法，通常在情绪状态的产生和维持中起着重要作用。尽管如此，人们对认知影响情绪的具体方式仍然知之甚少。这项研究将测试关于认知过程如何触发情绪并放大其强度的新假设。这项研究的目标是发展一个系统的方式，其中认知有助于情绪。次要的目标是确定这样一个账户应该涵盖的不同情绪。初步的研究将旨在将不同的特定情绪状态分类为相同的情绪类型。最初的迹象表明，结果将是一组大约20种不同的情绪状态，其中许多都有大量密切相关的状态。使用这些不同情绪类型的实验将决定当所使用的刺激已知代表真实情绪时，文献中已经报道的实验结论是否需要资格。一旦这些不同的情绪类型被识别出来，它们将被用于研究认知对情绪的影响。许多研究将检验这一问题，大多数研究旨在检验从特定理论中衍生出的特定假设，该理论规定了引发每种不同情绪所需的认知条件和使每种情绪温和或强烈的因素（它们的强度变量）。许多实验将使用几种不同的方法来研究情绪及其强度变量，包括对故事中人物信息的操纵（假设情绪），对最近个人经历的反应的评估（回顾性情绪），以及通过催眠，电脑游戏，电视转播的体育赛事（同时产生的情绪）。虽然这项研究本质上是基础的和非临床的，但它对那些情绪损害人们在世界上的功能的患者的临床工作具有启示意义。它还暗示了一些非临床问题，如人群控制，例如英国足球迷，以及控制重要政治决策的情感输入。

It is generally recognized that there is a profound interaction between emotion and cognition. Emotional states, what we feel and the intensity behind what we feel, can enhance and impair judgment and performance; cognitions, what we think, typically play a major role in the generation and maintenance of emotional states. Nevertheless, relatively little is still known about the specific way in which cognition affects emotions. This research will test new hypotheses about how cognitive processes trigger emotions and amplify their intensity. The goal of this research is to develop a systematic account of the way in which cognition contributes to emotion. A subsidiary goal is to determine the distinct emotions that such an account should cover. Preliminary research will be aimed at classifying different specific emotional states into those of the same emotion type. Initial indications are that the result will be a set of about twenty different emotion states, many of which have large numbers of closely allied states associated with them. Experiments using these distinct emotion types will determine whether the conclusions of experiments already reported in the literature need qualification when the stimuli used are known to represent genuine emotions. Once these distinct emotion types are identified, they will be used for examining the influence of cognition on emotion. A number of studies will examine this issue, most designed to test specific hypotheses derived from a particular theory that specifies both the cognitive conditions necessary to elicit each distinct emotion and the factors that make each emotion mild or intense (their intensity variables). A number of experiments will study emotions and their intensity variables using several different methods, including the manipulation of information about characters in stories (hypothetical emotions), the assessment of reactions to recent personal experiences (retrospective emotions), and the direct induction of emotions through hypnosis, computer games, and televised sports events (concurrent emotions). Though this research is basic and non-clinical in nature, it has implications for clinical work with patients in which emotions impair people's functioning in the world. It also has implications for such non-clinical issues as crowd control, for example, British soccer fans, and control of emotional input to important political decisions.