Lay perspectives on emotion: past, present, and future research directions

Abstract

Empirical research has demonstrated that individuals vary widely in how they view their emotions. We call the viewpoints that individuals have towards their emotions emotion perspectives. While many subdisciplines of psychology, such as social psychology and clinical psychology, have studied this topic, research thus far can be siloed, despite overlap in terms and constructs. The goal of the current special issue and this introduction is to describe the state of research on emotion perspectives, highlight common themes in streams of emotion perspective research, and present future directions for investigation. The first portion of this introduction to the special issue provides a basic review of emotion perspective research, spotlighting topics such as emotion beliefs, emotion mindsets, lay theories of emotion, and attitudes toward emotion. The second portion of the introduction presents themes that cut across papers in the special issue, with a discussion of future research directions throughout. The goal of this introduction and special issue is to serve as a guide for greater integration in emotion perspective research and to provide a roadmap for emotion perspective research moving forward.

Emotion beliefs: conceptual review and compendium

“…What is next for this field? Recently, two special issues of scientific journals devoted to emotion beliefs and related constructs have provided wide-ranging suggestions for critical research directions including deepening our understanding of the causes and consequences of emotion beliefs, development of stronger guiding theory beyond simply descriptive frameworks [e.g., the superordinate vs. subordinate framework of Ford and Gross (2019)], the role of 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1271135 Frontiers in Psychology 12 frontiersin.org emotion beliefs in the formation and maintenance of psychopathology, other individual differences in specific beliefs, the relationship between emotion beliefs and emotion regulation, and the role of emotion beliefs in cultural norms and maintenance, just to name a few (Gonzalez et al, 2020;Kneeland and Kisley, 2023). As researchers explore these and other areas, we hope they will also consider the importance of different dimensions of belief, as described here.…”

“…Despite broad scientific consensus that emotion is relevant to, and serves an important purpose for an individual, a conspicuous lack of agreement appears to exist across laypersons on the role and relevance of emotion to one’s life ( Kneeland and Kisley, 2023 ). Individual differences have been documented in people’s beliefs regarding broad, overarching characterizations of emotions as useful ( Chow and Berenbaum, 2012 ), helpful or hindering ( Karnaze and Levine, 2020 ), and foolish or wise ( Netzer et al, 2018 ).…”

“…The study of emotion beliefs has undergone a recent surge in interest and activity ( Gonzalez et al, 2020 ; Kneeland and Kisley, 2023 ). Among the critical, over-arching questions that are being asked: what leads one to hold specific beliefs about emotion?…”

“…Despite the progress made to date in establishing the importance of emotion beliefs, the field has been hampered by several interconnected obstacles, which the present review aims to address. In lieu of a clear and widely accepted definition of the concept emotion belief , a potentially bewildering array of terminologies, theoretical constructs, and measurement tools have emerged ( Kneeland and Kisley, 2023 ). For example, and as considered in more depth below, the following phrases coined by different researchers appear to be pointing toward the same overarching concept, at least according to our analysis: beliefs about emotion, emotion beliefs, emotion mindsets, evaluations of emotion, implicit theories of emotion, lay conceptions of emotion, lay theories of emotion, perceived properties of emotion, theories about emotion, and others.…”