Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 1989. Vol. 56, No. 3. 339-353 Copyright 1989 by the American Psychological Association, Inc. 0022-35I4/89/S00.75 Dimensions of Appraisal and Physiological Response in Emotion Craig A. Smith University of California, Berkeley Appraisal theorists propose physiological activity in emotion to be systematically organized around appraisal of the adaptational significance of the environment in ways that promote two functions commonly ascribed to emotion: communication and preparation for coping. However, relations be- tween appraisal and physiological activity remain largely untested. This article reviews existing evi- dence to generate specific hypotheses linking appraisal to physiological activity and presents an imag- ery-based experimental test of a subset of these hypotheses. No evidence was found for a relation between other-agency and the eyebrowfrown, but brow activity and heart rate were affected by effort- related appraisals: Anticipated effort influenced heart rate, and perceived goal-obstacles influenced the eyebrow frown. Implications of the findings and theoretical approach are discussed. During the past 120 years the perceived role of emotion in human functioning has oscillated greatly. Early theorists, in- cluding Darwin (1872/1965), James (1890/1950), and Cannon (1929), viewed emotions from a functional perspective and con- sidered them to be primarily adaptive. Darwin believed they had evolved to prepare the organism to respond adaptively to environmental demands, and his first principle of emotional ex- pression, the Principle of Serviceable Associated Habits, stated that many of the physiological changes comprising a given ex- pression were weak preparatory forms of behavior that had pre- viously been adaptive under the emotion's typical eliciting con- ditions. He also emphasized that emotional expressions served important communicative functions. Similarly, Cannon be- lieved the high levels of arousal associated with anger and fear physically prepared and energized the organism for "fight or flight" under emergency conditions. However, during the first half of this century emotions were predominantly viewed as maladaptive. Working from the obser- vation that extreme levels of emotional arousal can disrupt cop- ing, several theorists (e.g., Angier, 1927; Claparede, 1928; Dar- The research described in this article is based on Craig A. Smith's doctoral dissertation, submitted to Stanford University, and was sup- ported in part by a Stanford University graduate fellowship and in part by a National Institute of Mental Health training grant to Craig A. Smith. 1 would like to express my deepest appreciation to Phoebe Ellsworth, who contributed much to the theoretical perspective from which this research was derived and who provided considerable advice throughout the preparation of this article. A debt is also owed to Tracy Beers, Rich- ard Carson, and Andrew Goorno, who assisted in many phases of the research. I would further like to thank Greg McHugo and John Lanzetta for providing training and advice that made the research possible and Philip Zimbardo, Daniel Weinberger, Eliot Smith, Laura Novick, and three anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments on earlier ver- sions of this article. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Craig A. Smith, who is now at the Department of Psychology and Human Development, Box 512 Peabody College, Vanderbilt University, Nash- ville, Tennessee 37203. row, 1935; Young, 1936) depicted emotion as a disorganized physiological disturbance, produced only when the organism was unable to cope with its circumstances, that further dis- rupted the organism's coping abilities. Thus, emotion was seen as a harmful symptom of poor functioning. These latter conflict theories, in turn, have been roundly criti- cized (e.g., Arnold, 1960; Lazarus, 1968; Leeper, 1948, 1965; Scherer, 1982), and many contemporary theorists have revived and extended the original functional perspective and are explor- ing its implications (e.g., Ekman, 1984; Frijda, 1986; Izard, 1977; Lazarus, Kanner, & Folkman, 1980; Leventhal, 1984; Plutchik, 1980; Roseman, 1984; Scherer, 1984; Smith & Ells- worth, 1985;Tomkins, 1980). Although acknowledging that ex- treme emotional arousal is debilitating (cf. Arnold, 1960; Laza- rus, 1968; Leeper, 1965), functional theorists view emotion as a flexible system that mediates between environmental stimula- tion and behavioral response. Emotions arise in particular con- texts (which combine both the objective situation and the per- son's wants, needs, and expectations; Lazarus, in press) and prepare and motivate the person to respond to the context in usually adaptive ways (Smith & Ellsworth, 1987). Each emotion serves a particular set of functions. For example, anger prepares and motivates the person to remove an irritant or obstacle; fear prepares and motivates the person to escape danger; and guilt motivates the person to adhere to personal and social norms (Ellsworth & Smith, 1988; Izard, 1977; Plutchik, 1980). Appraisal Theory and Research Within the functional approach, several appraisal theories have been proposed to explain how emotions can be responsive to particular demands (e.g., Arnold, 1960; Frijda, 1986; Laza- rus, 1968; Roseman, 1984; Scherer, 1984; Smith & Ellsworth, 1985). These theories assert that emotions result from a mean- ing analysis in which the adaptational significance of the per- son's relation to the environment is evaluated. According to this view, different emotions result from different evaluations. The appraisal perspective and related approaches (e.g., attribution theory; Weiner, 1985) have produced a growing body of re- search designed to identify the major cognitive antecedents of 339 This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.