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. 2014 Mar 26;9(3):e92410.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0092410. eCollection 2014.

Intensity and duration of negative emotions: comparing the role of appraisals and regulation strategies

Karen Brans  1 , Philippe Verduyn  1
Affiliations

Intensity and duration of negative emotions: comparing the role of appraisals and regulation strategies

Karen Brans et al. PLoS One. .

Abstract

Intensity and duration are two central characteristics of an emotional response. Appraisals and regulation strategies are among the most important determinants of these emotion features. However, as intensity and duration are only moderately correlated, appraisals and regulation strategies may be differently related to these characteristics. A systematic empirical study comparing predictors of emotion intensity and duration is missing. The goal of the present study is to fill this gap. Participants were asked to recall recently experienced episodes of anger, fear, disgust, guilt, sadness, and shame. Subsequently, they were asked to answer a number of questions regarding (a) the intensity and duration of these emotions, (b) their appraisal of the emotion-eliciting event, and (c) their use of a wide range of regulation strategies. Emotion intensity was found to be mainly predicted by appraisals whereas emotion duration was equally well predicted by appraisals and regulation strategies.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Graphical representation of hypothesized relationships between appraisals and regulation strategies, and the intensity and duration of emotions.
Thick and thin lines represent strong and weak connections, respectively.
Figure 2
Figure 2. The mean intensity (top) and mean (log transformed) duration (bottom) by emotion.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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Grants and funding

The present research was supported by Grant GOA/10/02 from the Research Fund of the KU Leuven. Philippe Verduyn is supported by the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

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