The semantic organization of emotion concepts.

To better understand the semantic organization of emotion concepts, in the reaction time study to be reported 30 subjects, Italian men and women, judged whether 57 emotion words that were presented in pairs were similar (S) or Different (D) in meaning one from the other. Both reaction times and actual answers (S, D) were recorded. Subjects judged a total of 272 pairs. On the basis of results previously reported in the literature (e.g., Ortony, Clore & Foss 1987; Fehr & Russell 1984; Shaver, Schwartz, Kirson & O'Connor 1987; Zammuner 1998), seven pair groups were formed, characterized as follows as regards their constituent words: 1. basic emotion-prototypical emotion, both words belonging to the same emotion cluster (e.g., Sadness-Pain); 2. basic emotion-non prototypical emotion, both words belonging to the same emotion cluster (e.g., Sadness-Guilt); 3. prototypical emotion-non prototypical emotion, both words belonging to the same emotion cluster (e.g., Pain-Guilt); 4. prototypical emotion-non prototypical emotion, both words belonging to the same emotion clusters (e.g., Pain-Fury); 5. prototypical emotion-prototypical emotion, with words belonging to different emotion clusters (e.g., Pain-Hate); 6. non prototypical emotion-non prototypical emotion, with words belonging to different emotion clusters(e.g., Guilt-Envy); 7. pairs formed by 'socially' relevant emotions (e.g., Shame-Guilt; Pride-Envy). The results confirmed the hypotheses that judgements are significantly faster when words (a) have the same hedonic tone, (b) their hedonic tone is pleasant, (c) belong to the same meaning cluster; these conditions furthermore elicit a 'Similar' judgement in 80% or more of the cases. 'Different' judgements, typically slower than 'Similar' judgements, are instead elicited when words belong to different clusters and have an opposite hedonic tone. Detailed statistical analyses of the obtained reaction times and judgements confirmed the idea that emotion concepts are prototypically organized, although their organization is overall more complex than it has been assumed in previous studies