So YOUR team lost or won ... what do YOU care?

Photo by gogo6969.com, http://www.flickr.com/photos/wgaebler/4707253868/, creative commons license

The world cup is coming to an end real!soon!now! - In the meanwhile, I have been busy collecting photos of the emotional reactions of fans (like here). Amazing! But not only on TV or the Internet and the press have I witnessed such emotions, I have seen them first hand - without having to go to South Africa. Walking through the streets in Germany after a win, there were cars honking, vuvuzelas were given a good work out, flags were waved, and people were busy wearing smiles and laughing all around. Fascinating. Why? I was surprised by the intensity and the ubiquity of the reactions - after all, it was not these people on the field, they did not win, the players are people who they do not know personally, who are very different from them, and the team will not see any of the reactions and waving (unless you happen to be in the first row of some official "public viewing" and the coaches will show the players video clips for motivational reasons - which apparently they do).

So what creates these intense emotions? How can they be explained? The go-to theory here surely is appraisal theory - this group of theories distinguishes itself from others in that it focuses on what conditions/situations/events elicit a specific emotional state. Different people react to the same objective situation differently - appraisal theory hold that this because the meaning and the implications for everybody might be different. The emotion is not caused by the event directly, but by what that entails for you, now ... Typically the key feature then that determines whether you will have an emotional reaction (what you show, feel, how your body responds) is to what degree the event is perceived as relevant for you. If it is not relevant it should not do much, if it is highly relevant and it is either important for or against your goals and needs then something should happen.

Consider some stranger getting into a car and driving off - no big deal. If it is your car that would be a different story. You see an apple - if you are really hungry and there is nothing else around, you will see this apple with different eyes then when you are not hungry. Magda Arnold, the "mother of appraisal theory" already discussed things like that 50 years ago and of course many philosophers did before. There is no need that these goal states are as biological as hunger, thirst, or having to go to the bathroom (a locked door then can mean a very different thing under such circumstances), but for example, a bus closing its doors in front of you when you have to be somewhere on time vs when you are on vacation and you have much time.

But what about things like TV or film? Why would you care about a fictional character dying on screen? Why can a novel move you to tears? Why can a football match create mayhem? Let's wait for the final to see who wins the cup and I will continue from there ... In the meanwhile I invite comments and I also invite you to participate in our studies here.

A good overview over appraisal theory can be found here.

... and ... do emotions explain the death threats to Paul the octopus?

Arnold, M.B. (1960). Emotion and personality (2 vols). New York, NY: Columbia University Press.

Scherer, K. R., Schorr, A., & Johnstone, T. (2001). Appraisal processes in emotion: Theory, Methods, Research. New York: Oxford University Press.