Current Specific Research Projects

Theory and goals

The componential theory of emotion and emotion term semantics

The basic assumption of the componential emotion theory is that an emotion is to be conceptualized as a process that consists in a synchronization of activity in several emotion components (appraisal, bodily changes, expressive behavior, action tendencies, and feeling state) as a response to specific events in the environment with the aim of quickly preparing the organism for optimal reaction. If the emotion terms we use in daily language across the world refer to emotion processes as described by the componential emotion theory, then the meaning of these words should reflect the respective changes in the emotion components. Thus, in the GRID paradigm, the meaning of emotion words is characterized as a highly specific pattern of features pertaining to appraisals, bodily changes, expressions, action tendencies, and feeling states. The emotion components can be used as a framework for semantic comparison across terms and across languages and cultures.

Identifying the underlying dimensional structure of the emotion domain

Once demonstrated that all emotion components are relevant to describe the meaning of emotion words across languages, the next question to be addressed is how each of the emotion components, and the emotion domain in general, are structured across cultural groups. The GRID project has revealed that the underlying dimensions structuring the emotion domain are comparable across languages, even if individual emotion words and individual emotion features can have highly culture-specific characteristics. The identified dimensions are four: valence, power, arousal and novelty. Specific structures have also been identified for each of the emotion components. The stability of the cross-cutural dimensional structure of the affective space allows us to use valence, power, arousal and novelty as reference points to identify aspects of cross-cultural stability or cultural specificity in the concrete emotion words and the concrete emotion features.

Meaning description and meaning comparison

The feature profiles provided by the GRID can be used to investigate the meaning equivalence of emotion terms and emotion characteristics within and across languages. Dictionaries are often inadequate to point out the exact differences between near-synonyms in a language, or to suggest the best translation equivalent in a different language. Even when several translation options are provided, the user cannot know what features differentiate the various terms suggested. Comparing the GRID profiles of those terms can help in this respect, allowing the researcher to identify meaning equivalence much more adequately.

The ultimate goal of the GRID project is to create a world dictionary of emotion terms with which to investigate regularities and differences in the linguistic representation of the affective space.