Appraisals, Rather Than Unpleasantness or Muscle Movements, Are the Primary Determinants of Specific Emotions.

Appraisal theorists can agree with several points in L. Berkowitz and E. Harmon- Jones's (2004) analysis of anger generation. However, evidence indicates that appraisals such as control potential and other-person agency are most often key determinants of whether anger vs. another negative emotion results from an undesired event, and there are functional reasons why this should be so. I suggest that cognitive-neoassociationist theory may benefit from going beyond anger and fear to incorporate additional emotions (with their characteristic action tendencies and appraisal determinants) that can occur in response to undesired events, building on work by emotion researchers. Emotion theory can benefit from devoting more attention to primitive emotion-generation processes, as urged by L. Berkowitz and E. Harmon-Jones.