The Future's So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades: James J. Gross
The Future's So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades: James J. Gross
The Future's So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades: James J. Gross
James J. Gross
Department of Psychology, Stanford University, USA
Abstract
In this article I consider the future of the field of emotion. My conclusion—borrowing the title of a little-remembered song from
the 1980s—is that “the future’s so bright, I gotta wear shades.” I begin this article by considering some of the many daunting
conceptual and empirical challenges here; this is clearly not a field for the faint of heart. I then turn to some of the incredible
conceptual and empirical opportunities here; there are so many it’s easy to feel dizzy. In the final section, I predict that the field
of emotion will broaden and become more problem focused, and hazard a “top 10” list of hot topics.
Keywords
emotion, research, theory
In this article I first consider some of the challenges associated to the public (Gross, 1998). Mild irritation with a jammed stapler,
with studying emotion. There are many daunting conceptual intense rage at a grave miscarriage of justice, passing sadness
and empirical challenges here, and I do not recommend reading over a wilted orchid, unremitting grief at the death of a loved
this section if you’re faint of heart. In the second section, I turn one, slight amusement at a funny cartoon in a magazine, and
to some of the many opportunities associated with studying gut-wrenching laugh-till-you-cry hilarity all count as emotions.
emotion. There are incredible conceptual and empirical oppor- How is it possible to meaningfully capture all of these diverse
tunities here, and I do not recommend reading this section if you processes using a single construct?
are prone to getting dizzy. In the last section, I summarize my And definitional imprecision surrounding emotion is only
take on the field by arguing that all things considered, this the beginning. The whole lexicon of emotion-related terms is in
field’s “future’s so bright, I gotta wear shades.”1 a bit of a jumble (or, as Ross Buck colorfully put it two decades
ago, in a state of “conceptual and definitional chaos” [Buck,
1990, p. 330]). Figure 1 shows key emotion-related terms as I
(Some of) the Challenges in Studying Emotion (and many others) would order them. Affect is at the top, and
refers to valenced (good versus bad) states. There are many
Conceptual Challenges
types of affective states, including attitudes, moods, and emo-
In the earliest days of psychology, William James famously tions. Attitudes are relatively stable beliefs about the goodness
asked “What is an emotion?” (James, 1884). He still hasn’t or badness of something or someone; they bias how a person
received a satisfactory answer. This should give any potential will think about, feel towards, and behave regarding that thing
(or actual) emotion researcher pause. If we can’t even make up or person (Frijda, 1994). Moods are less stable than attitudes,
our minds about what we’re studying, it seems unlikely we’re and unlike attitudes, often do not have specific objects. Changes
going to get very far. Why is it so difficult to answer this ques- in feeling tone are predominant, and moods seem to bias cogni-
tion? The problem is that emotion is a heavily freighted term tion more than action (Siemer, 2005). Emotions are the shortest
that was lifted directly from common language, excess baggage lived of these three affective processes. They are responses to
and all. This means that emotion refers to an astonishing diver- situations that are perceived as relevant to an individual’s cur-
sity of happenings, ranging from the mild to the intense, the rent goals, and consist of appraisals (or ways of construing the
simple to the complex, the brief to the extended, and the private situation) which give rise to loosely coordinated changes in
Corresponding author: James J. Gross, Department of Psychology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305-2130, USA. Email: gross@stanford.edu
Gross The Future’s So Bright 213
Affect
Attitudes Moods
Emotions
Feelings Physiology
Behavior
Figure 1. One way of organizing key terms in affective science. Figure 2. Emotions unfold over time, as shown in these continuous
plots of amusement experience and amusement behavior during film
viewing (Mauss et al., 2005). Making sense of how experiential,
experiential, behavioral, and physiological response channels behavioral, and physiological responses interrelate as emotions unfold
(Levenson, 1999). over time represents a formidable challenge.
Even this basic ordering of terms is by no means uniformly
accepted. To take one example, consider the term affect. As
shown in Figure 1, I find it useful to think of affect as the super- and there is usually no clear non-emotion baseline with a
ordinate category. Others, however, use affect to refer to the clearly marked state change to an emotional state. For those
experiential aspects of emotion, two levels below my proposed who are experimentally inclined, there’s the additional chal-
placement (MacLean, 1990). Others still use affect to refer to lenge of eliciting emotions. I suspect I’m not the only emotion
the behavioral aspects of emotion, again two levels below my researcher who has felt frustrated when research participants
preferred ordering of these terms (Kaplan & Sadock, 1991). come into the lab smiling broadly, frowning, or looking tearful,
The more one thinks about this terminological slippage, the but then say they feel nothing at all despite being plied with all
more confused one gets. Things only get worse when one sorts of carefully developed films, slides, and the like. Yet
stops to appreciate the fact that although emotions appear to another practical challenge, should one be so lucky as to
come and go as they wish, they are often regulated. By emo- observe what appears to be an emotion, is to know what to do
tion regulation, I mean the processes that are engaged in order with all of the many response channels that you’ve been so
to influence which emotions people have, when they have carefully measuring (Figure 2). Although emotion theories pos-
them, and how these emotions are experienced or expressed tulate “response coherence,” it turns out that this coherence is
(Gross, 2007). The reason this complicates things is that it quite a fragile flower, and very difficult to capture and quantify
turns out that it is very difficult to distinguish when someone (Mauss, Levenson, McCarter, Wilhelm, & Gross, 2005).
is “just having an emotion” from times when someone is
“having an emotion and trying to regulate it.” Indeed, there
are ongoing debates about just how to draw the line—and (Some of) the Opportunities in
whether such a line even exists—between emotional reactivity
Studying Emotion
and emotion regulation.
Conceptual Opportunities
Empirical Challenges
The upside of all this conceptual confusion is that there is lots
So far I have suggested that it is very difficult to predict what of room for new and exciting conceptual developments. As long
an “emotion” researcher is actually studying because there are as the writer is clear about what he or she means by emotion, or
so many competing definitions of emotion in play. But let’s the facet of emotion under investigation, and as long as the
assume we could decide what we mean by emotion. What do reader has an open mind about what others mean when they talk
we do next? If we’re ambitious, we might want to simultane- about (and study) emotion, we can make good progress. The
ously measure as many response channels as we can to detect key here is to appreciate that neither the superordinate construct
the occurrence of the emotion we’re interested in studying. This affect nor its subordinate members are neatly definable con-
may be done either in the field or in the laboratory. However, it structs that map cleanly onto unique processes. There are a very
turns out that catching emotions as they unfold is a bit like large number of possible emotional states. These are experi-
catching butterflies, only harder. For those interested in the enced in different ways by different people (Feldman, 1995),
natural ebb and flow of emotion in everyday life, there’s the and there is significant variation in how emotions play out over
challenge of knowing when in an ongoing organism–environment time (Stearns, 2008) and across cultural contexts (Mesquita &
interaction an emotion has occurred. Emotions unfold over time, Frijda, 1992). Why should we expect otherwise? A comparison
214 Emotion Review Vol. 2 No. 3
and (b) targeted and tailored interventions that can be provided eye to genetic and epigenetic factors; (8) exploring cultural
in a context-sensitive fashion. There is much that we don’t yet differences and similarities in emotion-related processes;
know about the many functions emotions play in everyday life, (9) exploring conceptual and empirical relations between
and as Rozin (2001) has convincingly argued, this kind of emotion and emotion regulation, on the one hand, and psy-
descriptive analysis must be a priority. All of these theoretical chological health outcomes on the other; and (10) assessing
and empirical possibilities are extremely exciting, and I sus- the impact of emotion and emotion regulation processes on
pect there are many more opportunities just around the corner, physical health outcomes. This is more than enough work to
particularly as researchers from diverse backgrounds and home keep all of us busy who are interested in emotion, so don
disciplines converge on the field of emotion, bringing their those sunglasses and let’s get to work!
diverse theories and methods with them.
Notes
1 This is the title of an oddly catchy song from the 1980s by Timbuk 3.
The Future’s So Bright 2 This list is ordered conceptually, rather than by priority.
Ochsner, K. N, & Gross, J. J. (2008). Cognitive emotion regulation: Insights Stearns, P. N. (2008). History of emotions: Issues of change and impact. In
from social cognitive and affective neuroscience. Current Directions in M. Lewis, J. M. Haviland-Jones & L. F. Barrett (Eds.), Handbook of
Psychological Science, 17, 153–158. emotions (3rd ed., pp. 17–31). New York: Guilford Press.
Ohman, A. (2008). Fear and anxiety: Evolutionary, cognitive, and clinical Tracy, J. L., & Robins, R. W. (2004). Show your pride: Evidence for a
perspectives. In M. Lewis, J. M. Haviland-Jones & L. F. Barrett discrete emotion expression. Psychological Science, 15, 194–197.
(Eds.), Handbook of emotions (3rd ed., pp. 573–593). New York: Zajonc, R. B. (1980). Feeling and thinking: Preferences need no inferences.
Guilford Press. American Psychologist, 35, 151–175.
Rozin, P. (2001). Social psychology and science: Some lessons from Zajonc, R. B. (1981). A one-factor mind about mind and emotion. American
Solomon Asch. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 5, 2–14. Psychologist, 36, 102–103.
Siemer, M. (2005). Mood-congruent cognitions constitute mood experi- Zajonc, R. B. (1984). On the primacy of affect. American Psychologist, 39,
ence. Emotion, 5, 296–308. 117–123.
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