Causal-attributional analysis of emotion

Abstract

Five social and self emotions such as anger,gratitude,pity,guilt and shame were contrasted and analyzed in terms of several critical dimensions of action or state:controllability of action,positivity/negativity of action,self/other agency,and interpersonal/personal action on the basis of the causal-attributional theory of motivation of B.Weiner.Episodes of emotional experience which were obtained from university students were categorized into canonical,semi-canonical and uncanonical types of each emotion in order to test validity and fitness of those dimensions of analysis.