Universal development of emotion categories in natural language

Bibliographic Data

ID6203018
AuthorsRalph B Hupka (California State University, Long Beach), Alison P Lenton (University of Edinburgh), Keith A Hutchison (0000-0001-5189-2801)
Year1999
Volume77
Issue2
Pages247-278
Publication date1999-08-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Personality and Social Psychology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0022-3514 • E-ISSN: 1939-1315
PublisherAmerican Psychological Association (APA) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1037/0022-3514.77.2.247
OpenAlexW2025119534
LanguageEN
Citations received29
References cited76

P. Shaver, J. Schwartz, D. Kirson, and C. O'Connor (1987) found that English emotion words fall into 25 categories of synonyms. To find emotion nomenclature universals, the authors used P. Shaver et al.'s taxonomy in a sample of the world's languages and found that emotion categories were added in most languages in a relatively similar generalized sequence. Labeled first were the categories of anger and guilt; followed in Stage 2 by adoration, alarm, amusement, and depression; in Stage 3 by alienation, arousal, and agony; and ending with eagerness in Stage 4. The remaining 5 stages were derivatives of Stages 1-4. Thus, in the folk taxonomy, Stages 1--4 are basic linguistic emotion categories. Motives for labeling emotions were driven possibly by the need to maintain social control, the identification of prototypical emotions elicited in interpersonal relationships, and the need for terms to identify intra-personal emotions. Features of markedness theory were corroborated for English emotion terms

Cognitive psychology · Linguistics · Natural (archaeology) · Emotions and Moral Behavior · Language, Metaphor, and Cognition · Psychology · Social Psychology · Swearing, Euphemism, Multilingualism

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