Detecting Transient Emotional Responses With Improved Self-Report Measures and Instructions

Abstract

Psychological research often yields null results on self-reported emotion as measured by the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS; Watson, Clark, & Tellegen, 1988), even when using manipulations that might intuitively be expected to be emotionally impactful. Three studies reported here support the hypothesis that changes in self-reported negative emotion may be detected more sensitively when discrete emotions are measured rather than by either PANAS NA or a measure created by combining discrete emotions, and when participants were instructed to report how they felt during an emotion-eliciting event versus how they felt afterward. In Study 1, emotion was manipulated with disgusting ph..