Content area
Abstract
This study investigated the relationships between personality, life events, appraisal, and emotional experience. Two models that allowed for the integration of personality, life events, and appraisal as determinants of emotional experience were tested. Aside from testing the models, more specific aspects of the relationships prescribed by the models were also examined. These would include the hypothesized differential effects of positive and negative life events on emotional experience, the direct and indirect effects of personality on emotional experience, and the hypothesized appraisal-emotion patterns. Most of the previous studies conducted on emotional experience looked into the independent effects, but not the integrated effects of personality, life events, and appraisal. The present study tested these models in a non-Western culture (the Philippines) and, thereby, assessed their cross-cultural generalizability. The study utilized indigenous Philippine measures of personality (Gregariousness Scale and Temperamentalness Scale) and mood (Philippine PA-NA scales). Filipino undergraduate students (N = 154) were asked to record 3-5 significant emotion-eliciting events, appraise these events on six dimensions (pleasantness, personal control, certainty, effort, situational control, and attention) and rate their overall mood (PA, NA) daily for at least 28 days.
The results of the path analyses showed that the model that integrated the role played by personality and appraised pleasantness/unpleasantness of life events fit the data better than the model that focused on personality and the number of pleasant/unpleasant life events. The results of the study supported some of the hypothesized relationships between personality and emotional experience. The hypothesized differential effects of life events and personality on emotional experience were partially supported. Lastly, based on the contrast analysis and visual inspection of mean ratings, only the hypothesized appraisal-emotion pattern for happiness was completely supported.
The findings suggested that a model integrating personality, life events, and appraisal can account for variations in emotional experience. Cultural factors that could account for some of the distinct appraisal patterns were discussed.
