Psychological bulletin
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Psychological bulletin · Jan 2013
CommentThe hundred-year emotion war: are emotions natural kinds or psychological constructions? Comment on Lench, Flores, and Bench (2011).
For the last century, there has been a continuing debate about the nature of emotion. In the most recent offering in this scientific dialogue, Lench, Flores, and Bench (2011) reported a meta-analysis of emotion induction research and claimed support for the natural kind hypothesis that discrete emotions (e.g., happiness, sadness, anger, and anxiety) elicit specific changes in cognition, judgment, behavior, experience, and physiology. ⋯ Second, we point out that Lench et al.'s findings are in fact consistent with the alternative (a psychological constructionist approach to emotion). We close by appealing for a construct validity approach to emotion research, which we hope will lead to greater consensus on the operationalization of the natural kind and psychological construction approaches, as well as the criteria required to finally resolve the emotion debate.
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Psychological bulletin · Jan 2013
CommentSearching for evidence, not a war: reply to Lindquist, Siegel, Quigley, and Barrett (2013).
Lindquist, Siegel, Quigley, and Barrett (2013) critiqued our recent meta-analysis that reported the effects of discrete emotions on outcomes, including cognition, judgment, physiology, behavior, and experience (Lench, Flores, & Bench, 2011). Lindquist et al. offered 2 major criticisms-we address both and consider the nature of emotion and scientific debate. Their 1st criticism, that the meta-analysis did not demonstrate emotion-consistent and emotion-specific changes in outcomes, appears to have been based on a misunderstanding of the method that we employed. ⋯ Their 2nd criticism, that the findings are consistent with a psychological constructionist approach to emotion, is partially supported by the data and our statements in Lench et al. (2011). However, only 1 meta-analytic finding is relevant to this hypothesis, and it does not offer unequivocal evidence. Further, we contend that no modern discrete emotion theories would make the claims described by Lindquist et al. as representing a "natural kind" perspective and that viewing a scientific debate as a war has negative implications for the ability to evaluate evidence.
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Psychological bulletin · Jan 2013
CommentTesting the Storm et al. (2010) meta-analysis using Bayesian and frequentist approaches: reply to Rouder et al. (2013).
Rouder, Morey, and Province (2013) stated that (a) the evidence-based case for psi in Storm, Tressoldi, and Di Risio's (2010) meta-analysis is supported only by a number of studies that used manual randomization, and (b) when these studies are excluded so that only investigations using automatic randomization are evaluated (and some additional studies previously omitted by Storm et al., 2010, are included), the evidence for psi is "unpersuasive." Rouder et al. used a Bayesian approach, and we adopted the same methodology, finding that our case is upheld. Because of recent updates and corrections, we reassessed the free-response databases of Storm et al. using a frequentist approach. We discuss and critique the assumptions and findings of Rouder et al.