Perception of emotions in everyday life: studies with patients and normals

Five studies with nearly 500 subjects recruited from the university, the work place, and from rehabilitation clinics served to investigate the perception of emotional events in everyday life. Physiological parameters (heart rate, physical activity, additional heart rate) and psychological parameters (excitement, enjoyment) were assessed simultaneously throughout the day using a special ambulatory monitoring device capable of storing 23-h records. Emotional events were identified by an increase of heart rate without an accompanying increase in physical activity (additional heart rate) and under special requirements a feedback signal was given which requested subjects to answer predefined questions. Between these 'true' feedbacks, 'random' feedbacks were interspersed with no indication of emotional arousal. Subjects were unaware that the feedback signal was triggered by their own heart rate. Laboratory experiments with films of different emotional quality showed that the method is suitable for the detection of emotional arousal. Comparisons of true feedbacks (emotional events) with random feedbacks (neutral situations) did not show significant differences for excitement and enjoyment ratings for any of the normal samples and for one of the patient samples. Only a sample of coronary heart disease patients showed small differences in the psychological variables which were significant due to the large sample size. From the results it may be concluded that the perception of physiological changes indicating emotional arousal in everyday life is quite different from the results suggested by laboratory experiments. The findings are discussed within the theoretical framework of 'competition of cues' and 'cognitive schemas' proposed by Pennebaker (1982, The psychology of physical symptoms, New York: Springer).