Cognition and Emotion

ISSN: 0269-9931 (Print) 1464-0600 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/pcem20

Studying appraisal-driven emotion processes:

taking stock and moving to the future

Klaus R. Scherer

To cite this article: Klaus R. Scherer (2018): Studying appraisal-driven emotion processes: taking
stock and moving to the future, Cognition and Emotion, DOI: 10.1080/02699931.2018.1510380

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Published online: 28 Aug 2018.

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COGNITION AND EMOTION
https://doi.org/10.1080/02699931.2018.1510380

Studying appraisal-driven emotion processes: taking stock and moving to

the future
Klaus R. Scherera,b
a
Department of Psychology, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland; bDepartment of Psychology, Ludwig-Maximilians-
University of Munich, Munich, Germany

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

Appraisal theories of emotion, and particularly the Component Process Model, have Received 9 May 2018
claimed over the past three decades that the different components of the emotion Revised 23 July 2018
process (action tendencies, physiological reactions, expressions, and feeling Accepted 27 July 2018
experiences) are essentially driven by the results of multi-level cognitive appraisals
KEYWORDS
and that the feeling component constitutes a central integration and Emotion definition; emotion
representation of these processes. Given the complexity of the proposed components; emotion
architecture of emotion generation, comprehensive experimental tests of these process; multilevel appraisal
predictions are difficult to perform and thus evidence has been slow to appear. theory; component
Complementing earlier work on self-reported appraisal, a massive amount of synchronisation
empirical results from studies with experimental designs based on appraisal
manipulation, using electroencephalographic and electromyographic measures,
now confirms many of the theoretical predictions with respect to the effect of
different appraisal checks, their interactions, and their exact timing. A major issue
for future research is the nature of the coherence or synchronisation of the
appraisal-driven components in the unfolding emotion process. It is suggested
that interdisciplinary multi-team research will be needed to face the theoretical
and methodological challenges of experimentally investigating the dynamics of
the emotion process.

When Fraser Watts prospected the idea of creating a
new journal with the name of “Cognition and
Emotion” in the mid eighties, he asked a number of
emotion researchers, including me, for their opinion
concerning the chances for such a venture. I have to
shamefully admit that I advised against taking the
risk, arguing that there were already a sufficient
number of journals as potential outlets for the limited
production of good research on emotion at that point
in time. I did not, then, anticipate the explosion of
research activity and the tremendous increase in popu-
larity of all things emotional (nor the all time highs of
the “publish or perish” pressure generated by the cita-
tion indices).
Since then, I had many opportunities to feel grateful
that Fraser went ahead anyway and founded Cognition
& Emotion. I do not need to expand on the terrific
success story of the journal, which has been very aptly
outlined by the two new editors– Rothermund and
Koole (2018). They identify three periods of thematic
preponderance in the history of the journal: 1) cognitive
theories being applied to the scientific analysis of
emotion, 2) more empirical research papers, particularly
automatic processing biases and their implications for
clinical psychology, and 3) an emerging focus on self-
regulatory processes and their implications for
emotion. Given my ignorance in the thematic fields of
automatic processing biases and self-regulatory pro-
cesses, I limit my remarks to the first period, addressing
the issue of emotion elicitation and differentiation and
the role of cognition in this process.
The early blueprint (overly ambitious)
Rothermund and Koole (2018, p. 6) are probably
correct in stating that “Leventhal & Scherer’s [1987]

CONTACT Klaus R. Scherer Klaus.Scherer@unige.ch

© 2018 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
2 K. R. SCHERER
view of emotions as multi-componential systems has
become widely adopted”. However, this is hardly sur-
prising as throughout the history of emotion theoris-
ing and research it has been acknowledged that
there are different components to emotion, with
differential emphasis on specific components by
different authors (see Sander, Grandjean, & Scherer,
2018). However, a more important (and hardly consen-
sual) issue concerns the nature of the links between
these components and the underlying causal struc-
ture of the emotion process in time.
Standing on the shoulders of Magda Arnold and
Richard Lazarus, Phoebe Ellsworth (with Ira Roseman
and Craig Smith) and I had simultaneously and inde-
pendently developed formal appraisal theories of
emotion. We discovered this when I gave a talk as a
visiting professor at Berkeley and Stanford in the
early eighties. Our theories both postulate that
emotions are elicited and differentiated by the
results of a process of event evaluation structured by
a set of major appraisal criteria or checks, the results
of which determine the changes in the different com-
ponents (Roseman, 1984; Scherer, 1982, 1984; Smith &
Ellsworth, 1985; see also Ellsworth & Scherer, 2003). A
Figure 1. Dynamic architecture of the Component Process Model (CPM) of emotion. (Adapted from Scherer, 2009a).
recent graphic illustration of this theoretical com-
ponent process framework is shown in Figure 1.
Our theories immediately came under heavy attack
from various sides – too deterministic, too cognitivis-
tic, mechanism much too slow to account for rapid
emotion onset, too much based on self-report (see
Van Reekum & Scherer, 1997, pp. 260–262). At the
time, Howard Leventhal was a visiting professor in
my lab and we decided to integrate the processing
levels of his perceptual-motor theory (Leventhal,
1984) with my sequential stimulus evaluation check
model (Scherer, 1984, 1986) and sent the result (see
Figure 2) to the new journal Cognition & Emotion,
which seemed to be the ideal outlet. The hope was,
of course, that this would provide a response to the
critics and a blueprint for hypothesis-guided research
into the emotion processes – not only for human
adults but also for infants and non-human mammals.
Later, we expanded the discussion of multilevel pro-
cessing, referring to comparable positions in cognitive
psychology in which different levels of processing (e.g.
reflective, effortful vs. automatic, schematic vs. con-
ceptual, propositional) had been proposed and
empirically tested (Van Reekum & Scherer, 1997).

Figure 2. Multi-level appraisal processing model. Columns show the sequential appraisal checks postulated by the Component Process Model
(CPM) of emotion, rows show the levels of information processing postulated by the perceptual-motor theory of emotion. Cell entries show the
different mechanisms that are expected to operate for each appraisal check on each structural level. (Adapted from Leventhal & Scherer, 1987).
However, the admittedly unrealistic hope that the
multilevel appraisal framework proposed in 1987 in
Cognition & Emotion would rapidly generate theoreti-
cal discussion and major research efforts on emotion
elicitation and differentiation was not fulfilled.
Moving forward – important developments
It was not before the mid 2000s that the presence of a
large number of particularly competent and enthusias-
tic collaborators and generous funding by the insti-
tutions mentioned in the acknowledgement allowed
us to launch research in my own laboratory on the
issues raised in the 1987 Cognition & Emotion paper.
Specifically, we aimed at using experimental designs
with manipulations of different appraisal processes
(through appropriately chosen stimuli in different
sensory modalities, game settings with different incen-
tives and power/mastery differentials, etc.) to measure
the impact of the respective appraisal results on brain
processes (using electroencephalography, EEG), on
facial expression (using facial electromyography,
EMG) and on somatovisceral physiological responses
(using standard physiological assessment devices).
We were able to obtain statistically significant
effects for all appraisal checks we manipulated accord-
ing to theoretical predictions – novelty, intrinsic
COGNITION AND EMOTION 3
pleasantness, goal conduciveness, and coping poten-
tial/power; Aue, Flykt, & Scherer, 2007; Aue &
Scherer, 2008, 2011; Brosch, Sander, & Scherer, 2007;
Delplanque et al., 2009; Gentsch, Grandjean, &
Scherer, 2015a, 2015b; Grandjean & Scherer, 2008;
Van Peer, Grandjean, & Scherer, 2014; Van Reekum,
2000; Van Reekum et al., 2004). In several of these
studies, we were also able to examine the interactions
between appraisal checks likely to occur on the sen-
sorimotor or schematic levels (e.g. novelty and intrin-
sic pleasantness) vs. the conceptual level (e.g. goal
conduciveness). Importantly, in those studies in
which EEG measures were used, we were able to
determine the exact timing (in milliseconds) of the
delay after stimulus onset in which the expected
appraisal-specific EEG pattern occurred.
An overview of the results of the aforementioned
studies (Gentsch, Grandjean, & Scherer, 2015a, Figure
10) shows that appraisal checks expected to be pro-
cessed on the sensorimotor or schematic level
showed effects within the first 100–200 milliseconds
(novelty, intrinsic pleasantness) whereas more
effortful, conceptual processing (goal conduciveness,
coping potential/power) took between 300 and 500
milliseconds for the first marker to occur.
As to the phylogenetic and ontogenetic impli-
cations of the scheme shown in Figure 2, there has
4 K. R. SCHERER
been little appraisal-related research with pre-verbal
infants. However, in one large-scale study, we
studied the reactions of infants aged 5, 7, 9, 11–12,
and 14 months to novelty/expectancy violation in a
cross-sectional design. The results showed that behav-
ioural freezing and changes in gaze direction, but not
facial or vocal expression, are reliable responses to
expectancy violation. The pattern of results suggests
that a transition in the infant’s capacity for cognitive
evaluation of novel and discrepant events may occur
around the age of 9 months (Scherer, Zentner, &
Stern, 2004). As expected, there has been little
research on nonhuman animals. However, in one
interesting series of studies it was shown that lambs
responded to experimentally manipulated sudden-
ness with a startle response coupled with an increase
in heart rate and to novelty with an orientation
response coupled with an increase of vagal activity.
The combination of suddenness and unfamiliarity
enhanced both the heart rate increase and the behav-
ioural orientation response (Désiré et al., 2006).
Given the continued interest in automatic proces-
sing in other affective contexts, there may be some
hope for more multilevel cognition research applied
to the emotion-constituent appraisal process in the
future. In any case, I still consider this issue as a
central concern for theory-guided investigations into
the emotion process, particularly with respect to neu-
ropsychological approaches to the “emotional brain”
(see the component network proposal in Sander
et al., 2018).
The research mentioned above is reviewed in
greater detail in an Annual Review article (Scherer &
Moors, in press), which also summarises the exper-
imental research on the impact of different appraisals
on action tendencies (e.g. antisocial vs. prosocial ten-
dencies, approach vs. avoidance tendencies, and ten-
dencies to be active vs. passive). Much of this work
was conducted in areas outside of emotion research,
mostly in cognitive and social psychology. While the
literature reviewed in the Annual Review article pro-
vides strong evidence for the causal assumptions
behind the arrows on the left side of Figure 1, many
questions remain open. For example, it is to be
expected that appraisal effects on physiological
responses and expressive behaviour are at least
partly mediated by action tendencies. Also, there are
only very few studies in which interaction effects
between different appraisals have been studied. One
of the exceptions is a study by Gentsch, Grandjean,
& Scherer (2015b), who found amplified goal
conduciveness effects when power was high in con-
trast to invariant goal conduciveness effects when
power was low.
Important open issues
Critics of the component process approach have
argued that evaluation of events occurs all the time,
independent of emotions, and that physiological
symptoms and motor expressions are pervasive
elements of everyday life. This is why I define the
beginning of an emotion episode by the synchronisa-
tion or coherence of organismic subsystems beyond a
certain threshold and the end of the emotion by the
coherence dropping below threshold. I hold that the
nature of the emotion episode is exclusively deter-
mined by the recursively generated appraisal results
(see Scherer, 1984, 2001, 2004, 2009a). In conse-
quence, the synchronisation of physiological and
expressive processes by the patterns of appraisal
results plays a central role in the component process
model (see also Grandjean, Sander, & Scherer, 2008).
Unfortunately, there has been very little empirical
research in this theoretically central domain (for
exceptions see the Special Issue of Biological Psychol-
ogy: “Whither Concordance? Autonomic Psychophy-
siology and the Behaviors and Cognitions of
Emotional Responsivity”, Vol. 98, 2014; and the
review in Sander et al., 2018). One of the major
reasons for this glaring neglect is the tendency of
researchers to specialise in only one of the many
emotion components (which is not surprising given
the high cost in time and money needed to acquire
equipment and expertise for multiple analysis
methods).
Synchronisation is a prerequisite for the rightmost
two boxes in Figure 1, representing the “feeling” and
the categorisation and labelling components. The
detailed argumentation and justification for both of
these components were provided on pages 1318–
1324 of my 2009 article in Cognition and Emotion
and can only be summarised very briefly here. The
essential assumptions are shown in Figure 3. I define
feeling as the subjective experience (Venn circles A
and B) that integrates and centrally represents all
information about the continuous patterns of
change and their coherence in all other components,
serving to monitor and regulate the component
process and enabling the individual to communicate
(Circle C) his/her emotional experience to others. As
the organising principle for the integration of

Figure 3. The reflection of component emotion processes in a monitor system (circle A), the emergence of Consciousness (circle B), and categ-
orisation and verbalisation (circle C). (Adapted from Scherer, 2009a).
information from the antecedent component pro-
cesses on the unconscious level (circle A), I suggested
coherence spreading (as described for memory pro-
cesses; Raffone & Van Leeuwen, 2001, p. 368) in line
with the general emphasis on synchronisation (see
also Dan Glauser & Scherer, 2008; Gentsch, Grandjean,
& Scherer, 2014; Péron, Frühholz, Vérin, & Grandjean,
2013; Sander et al., 2018).
Circle B, which, importantly, only partially overlaps
with A, represents that part of the integrated central
representation that becomes conscious, correspond-
ing directly to what is more generally called “feelings”
or qualia (see Scherer, 2009a, p. 1321). I have
suggested that the degree of synchronisation of the
components (which might in turn be determined by
the pertinence of the event as appraised by the organ-
ism) generates awareness (Scherer, 2000, 2005; see
also Grandjean et al., 2008). The central feature of
emotion processes is that they are dynamically inte-
grated over time. Therefore, the term “emotional
state” is misleading, as it suggests a static, unitary
phenomenon rather than a flow of continuously chan-
ging component states that constitute emotion epi-
sodes. Although people can focus on micro-
momentary changes of feeling, they tend to become
aware of their feelings in “experiential chunks”, the
result of breaking up the continuous flow of experi-
ence into discrete blocks that provide phenomenal
unity to a particular feeling quality or quale. Linguists
refer to this process in terms of what a speaker
chooses to focus on and how it is structured proposi-
tionally, taking into account conceptual salience and
COGNITION AND EMOTION 5
pertinence. Temporal integration, in the sense of
experiential chunking, is most likely determined by
the period during which a certain level of component
synchronisation persists.
Debates: problem areas and possible dead
ends
How can the feeling component be empirically
assessed? Starting with Wundt’s (1896) pioneering
suggestion to measure subjective feelings on three
dimensions: excitement-calm; pleasure-displeasure;
and tension-relaxation, there have been many propo-
sals for an assessment of feelings (which are unfortu-
nately often not differentiated from emotions) by
asking for ratings on a number of varying dimensions
(see Fontaine, 2009; Rubin & Talarico, 2009). The most
influential of these models has probably been Russell’s
(1980) two-dimensional circumplex model (valence x
arousal). Still, the question remains what is the
optimal affective space that allows sufficient discrimi-
nation of a multitude of different feelings with a
minimal number of dimensions?
We used a semantic feature analysis in the form of
a grid in which several emotion terms (in the rows) are
defined in terms of a fixed set of features or facets (in
the columns) to quantitatively measure the meaning
of emotion terms (the GRID method, Scherer, 2005)
to answer this question. The method consists of
having groups of judges in different languages rate
emotion words on a large list of facets representing
all emotion components. The use of principal
6 K. R. SCHERER

component analysis allows determining the number measurement of non-verbal subjective feelings – the
of factors needed to sufficiently discriminate the Facet Assessment of Qualia (FAQ). Except for the
emotion terms into the major classes or families. Ana- proven significance of the facets for emotion word
lyses of data for 25 languages and 24 emotion terms differentiation, this instrument has not been tested
clearly suggests that four dimensions are needed: on a large scale but I invite all those interested to
Valence, power, arousal, and novelty, in this order of have a go with it.
importance (Fontaine et al., 2013; Fontaine, Scherer, Finally, there is circle C, categorisation and label-
Roesch, & Ellsworth, 2007). More recent work using ling. Some have defined this as a “conceptual act”
80 emotion terms for English, French, and Indonesian, (Barrett, 2009). The problem is that the proposal of
clearly confirms the need of a four-dimensional model such an “act” is strongly reminiscent of nominalist
to represent of the whole gamut of human emotions. metaphysics, when it is declared as constitutive for
The results of these studies also reveal both linear and the existence of an “emotion”, justified by “psychologi-
non-linear relationship structures between the four cal constructionism”. I find it difficult to accept this
dimensions, which are similar across the three definitional act, which is also inconsistent with the
languages (Fontaine, Gillioz, Efrata, Soriano, & phylogenetic and ontogenetic continuity of the func-
Scherer, 2018). tional emotion mechanism (see Tooby & Cosmides,
Using an abbreviated list of the component facets 2008), because I defend a definition of emotion as a
that we have found in the GRID research to best dis- process, albeit often a very short process. If research-
criminate major emotion families allows to develop a ers are referring to different things when using the
new instrument to assess, in a highly differentiated very same term, one can expect serious confusion as
fashion, the nature of the conscious part of the a result. I am afraid that this is currently happening
central representation of the feeling before it is in emotion research.
labelled with an emotion word or expression. In Everyone is free to come up with their own
Table 1, I propose a concrete instrument for the definitions, of course, but definitions should be
clearly labelled. What about distinguishing between
Table 1 Proposal for a differentiated assessment instrument for non- c-emotions, defined as states created by conceptual
labelled feelings/qualia acts, and p-emotions, defined as fuzzy processes
Direction and probability of facets characterised by multicomponent synchronisation
Facets applying to your present feeling driven by appraisal? For the latter, no obligatory categ-
Appraisals orization or labelling is required. This corresponds to
Valence appraisal <<<<<<<<<<<0>>>>>>>>>>>
Novelty/ chance cause <<<<<<<<<<<0>>>>>>>>>>> the high frequency of mixed or blended emotions in
Coping ability <<<<<<<<<<<0>>>>>>>>>>> every day life that has been empirically observed
Expected/ familiar <<<<<<<<<<<0>>>>>>>>>>> (Scherer & Ceschi, 1997; Scherer & Tannenbaum,
Goal relevance <<<<<<<<<<<0>>>>>>>>>>>
Norm violation <<<<<<<<<<<0>>>>>>>>>>> 1986; Scherer, Wranik, Sangsue, Tran, & Scherer,
Self vs other cause <<<<<<<<<<<0>>>>>>>>>>> 2004). Furthermore, persons experiencing a strong
Action tendency emotion do not always label their emotions (except
Defensive/appetitive <<<<<<<<<<<0>>>>>>>>>>>
Disengagement/intervention <<<<<<<<<<<0>>>>>>>>>>> for communication and social sharing) and are often
Submit vs attack <<<<<<<<<<<0>>>>>>>>>>> quite uncertain on how exactly the emotion should
Facial expression be called (see Scherer & Meuleman, 2013). I suggest
Frown vs. Smile <<<<<<<<<<<0>>>>>>>>>>>
Jaw drop/eyebrows up <<<<<<<<<<<0>>>>>>>>>>> that the semantic GRID approach mentioned above
Eyes closed/tears <<<<<<<<<<<0>>>>>>>>>>> may be helpful for further work in this area.
Vocal expression
Vocal energy <<<<<<<<<<<0>>>>>>>>>>>
Firm vs perturbed speech <<<<<<<<<<<0>>>>>>>>>>> Desiderata for future development of
Bodily reaction
Distress symptoms <<<<<<<<<<<0>>>>>>>>>>> cognition and emotion research on the
Autonomic arousal <<<<<<<<<<<0>>>>>>>>>>> elicitation and differentiation of emotion
Body temperature <<<<<<<<<<<0>>>>>>>>>>>
Overall feeling I think the most important prerequisite for progress in
Bad vs good <<<<<<<<<<<0>>>>>>>>>>> the field is to finally come to grips with the tiresome
Weak vs strong <<<<<<<<<<<0>>>>>>>>>>>
Calm vs restless <<<<<<<<<<<0>>>>>>>>>>> issue of how an emotion should be defined. Mulligan
Tired vs. awake <<<<<<<<<<<0>>>>>>>>>>> and Scherer (2012) have proposed a working
Surprised vs. familiar feeling <<<<<<<<<<<0>>>>>>>>>>> definition of emotion that could be acceptable to

proponents of different theoretical persuasions.
However, this approach will only work if there is a
serious concerted effort by the community of
emotion researchers to agree on such a minimal set
of defining features for the concept of “emotion”.
Otherwise, the only option is to clearly state with
what definition one is working (p-, c-, or yet another
kind of emotion, as proposed above). And then, for
each of these, there should be a clearly specified over-
arching theoretical framework with concrete predic-
tions and hypotheses. I underline “overarching” – in
terms of the proposed mechanisms not just some iso-
lated ad hoc hunches for possible relationships. If the
current uncontrolled proliferation of definitions and
quasi-theories continues, there is little hope for
accumulation of knowledge on the emotion process.
As stated in the introduction, if indeed emotion
researchers agree that there are multiple components
to the phenomenon they study, the expected relation-
ships and interactions between these components
need to be theoretically analyzed and empirically
examined. This requires complex measurement oper-
ations in many highly technical domains requiring
appropriate competences. It is unlikely that individual
researchers can readily acquire all of the appropriate
skills. Thus, collaborative work between different
special areas and even different disciplines is a precon-
dition for conducting complex research projects on
multicomponent relationships. While such collabora-
tive ventures between different laboratories have
become standard for ambitious research aims in the
natural sciences, they are rarely found in psychology
in general, and in emotion research in particular.
One of the reasons for this is that there is no incen-
tive in terms of publication success. Before editors and
reviewers, all submissions are created equal. Further-
more, the increasing limitation of word counts for
major articles makes it virtually impossible today to
publish studies that address a more ambitious theor-
etical framework and to appropriately discuss
complex patterns of results. I suggest that journals
create a special category for large-scale collaborative
studies examining a multifaceted theoretical frame-
work requiring extensive measurement in different
domains. In order to justify the investment in time
and money, and to encourage potential collabor-
ations, such studies could be pre-registered (following
extensive review) and thus have a certain guarantee of
a return on investment.
I realise that these suggestions are unrealistic. But
would it not be fantastic if, apart from business as
COGNITION AND EMOTION 7
usual, we found a way to organise research in such a
way as to produce accumulation of knowledge that
really increases our understanding of the functions
and mechanisms of emotion? Let me take the
example of the postulated synchronisation or coher-
ence of different components in the emotion
process. The empirical investigation of these phenom-
ena typically require expertise in different disciplines,
theoretical domains, and analysis methods, in particu-
lar if an appropriate experimental design based on a
sophisticated theoretical framework is desired.
A group of experienced researchers from different
disciplines and theoretical domains, with complemen-
tary methodological competence, could form an
Emotion Coherence Consortium and organise a
working meeting to jointly decide on a number of
central research issues concerning the determinants
of synchronisation, potential interactions, the time
course involved, contextual effects as well as potential
outcomes. In addition, one or more concrete exper-
imental paradigms could be developed (for example,
an emotion-generating computer game setting allow-
ing experimental manipulation of major determinants
and their interactions), which would permit to system-
atically investigate these issues (including a list of the
variables in different components that could be
reasonably measured).
The next step would be to invite representatives of
leading emotion theories to make concrete predic-
tions for the expected effects in the chosen exper-
imental design, based on their theoretical
framework. In addition, experts from the pertinent
methodological approaches that should be employed
in the research should be invited. In particular, this
concerns specialists in neuroscience and psychophy-
siological methods but also experts in psychometrics,
behavioural coding, and, last not least, mathematical
and statistical approaches given the central role of
complex coherence of time series (see Rügamer, Broc-
khaus, Gentsch, Scherer, & Greven, 2017, for a recent
suggestion). Past research has identified frequent
and sizeable interaction effects as mentioned earlier.
This suggests that many of the relationships to be
investigated are essentially nonlinear (see reviews in
Scherer, 2000, 2009b), suggesting that it might be
useful to include expertise from nonlinear systems
theory.
With the constant collaboration of such an expert
group, the core research teams could then systemati-
cally test the different predictions or hypotheses
against each other in experimental studies conducted
8 K. R. SCHERER
by experienced collaborators having the required
competencies. If possible, parallel studies should be
conducted in different laboratories in order to avoid
the problem that later replication studies may not
have the required resources and have difficulties to
match the manipulations and context conditions of
the original study.
This multi-team research strategy will require
extensive resources and thus important funding. In
addition to the normal channels for research funding
in different countries, one might think of contacting
major private foundations and try to convince them
that this new form of multi-team research in the cog-
nitive, social, and behavioural sciences is the only feas-
ible approach to obtain valid and reliable results on
the nature and determinants of emotion processes.
This is particularly important with respect to the
urgently needed advances in the prevention of
affect disturbances such as depression and anxiety
disorders. These require a more holistic view of the
mechanisms underlying both normal and abnormal
emotion processes in order to identify the etiology
of malfunctions and their prevention (see the contri-
butions from psychiatry, psychology, and sociology
in a recent special issue of Emotion Review; Scherer
& Mehu, eds., 2015). As to publication, one could
think of dedicated special issues in major journals, as
mentioned above.
Once such an Emotion Coherence Consortium is
established and has demonstrated the expected
utility, the scope of investigation could be enlarged
to topics beyond the fundamental mechanisms in
the emotion architecture. For example, with respect
to applications, one could include studies on
emotion regulation. How do different forms of regu-
lation affect component coherence and what are the
consequences? If excessive coherence is problemati-
cal, how can it be reduced? Are dysfunctional apprai-
sal biases, e.g. underestimation of coping potential as
a risk factor for depression, linked to different synchro-
nisation patterns – e.g. do biased appraisals show an
earlier onset and a stronger effect on the synchronisa-
tion pattern? All these issues require extensive inter-
disciplinary collaboration.
The topic of component coherence is but one
example for the tremendous promise of interdisciplin-
ary multi-team research, many other potential areas
can be identified. However, the crux of the matter is
whether the inherent structural problems of our
present system of scientific research in the cognitive,
social, and behavioural sciences can be overcome. If
so, I predict a major breakthrough for emotion
theory and research.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Funding
This work was supported by funds granted to K. R. Scherer by the
Schweizerischer Nationalfonds zur Förderung der Wissenschaftli-
chen Forschung under [grant number 100014-122491] and by
the European Research Council (ERC) under [Advanced Grant
PROPEREMO 230331].
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