Emotion ReviewPub Date : 2026-03-23DOI: 10.1177/17540739261422564
Agnes Moors
{"title":"Author Reply: Why goal-directed cycles still explain most phenomena called emotions","authors":"Agnes Moors","doi":"10.1177/17540739261422564","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/17540739261422564","url":null,"abstract":"This reply engages with five commentaries on my target article advancing the goal‑directed theory (GDT). Stussi et al. expand the discussion by emphasizing epistemic goals, whereas Scarantino, Bonard, Pacherie, and Prinz resist my eliminativist conclusion to varying degrees by raising objections in the form of counterexamples (e.g., decisional paralysis, emotional recalcitrance, responding with vs. without emotional heath) and other puzzles (e.g., identity-based irrational emotions). By clarifying several misunderstandings about the GDT (e.g., about the revisability, automaticity, and complexity of goal-directed processes), I show how the theory can accommodate these objections, thereby further strengthening its viability.","PeriodicalId":48064,"journal":{"name":"Emotion Review","volume":"23 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.4,"publicationDate":"2026-03-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147507936","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Emotion ReviewPub Date : 2026-03-11DOI: 10.1177/17540739261422553
Agnes Moors
{"title":"Emotions as High-Impact Decisions: A Goal-Directed Theory","authors":"Agnes Moors","doi":"10.1177/17540739261422553","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/17540739261422553","url":null,"abstract":"I defend the adequacy of the goal-directed theory (GDT) of emotion. After outlining the properties of emotions (mental and bodily aspects, valence, intensity, urgency, automaticity, and irrationality) and common emotion types that emotion theories seek to explain, I contrast the GDT with traditional emotion theories, portraying the former as proactive and the latter as reactive. The GDT proposes that most behavior and feelings, emotional or otherwise, arise from multiple competing, hierarchical goal-directed cycles, each involving discrepancy detection and strategy/behavior selection. I systematically assess the GDT's ability to account for these properties and emotion types. Finally, I discuss implications for (a) the scientific status of emotions, (b) their influence on other entities, (c) emotion regulation, and (d) agency and moral responsibility.","PeriodicalId":48064,"journal":{"name":"Emotion Review","volume":"7 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.4,"publicationDate":"2026-03-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147393175","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Emotion ReviewPub Date : 2026-02-26DOI: 10.1177/17540739261426001
Andrea Scarantino
{"title":"Moors’ Eliminativism Cross-Examined: Why Emotions Are Not Goal-Directed Cycles","authors":"Andrea Scarantino","doi":"10.1177/17540739261426001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/17540739261426001","url":null,"abstract":"Moors’ eliminativist theory of emotions aims to show that understanding emotional behavior as goal-directed behavior when the goals are high value explains all that is worth explaining about behavior without invoking the concept of emotion. I argue that eliminating emotions in favor of goal-directed cycles has major explanatory costs, because emotional behavior differs in important ways from behavior governed by cost-benefit analysis. I compare and contrast Moors’ theory with my own Motivational Theory of Emotions (MTE) with respect to two explanatory challenges in particular—emotion-induced decisional paralysis and recalcitrance. I conclude that we cannot make sense of these affective phenomena in purely goal-directed terms, and that a stimulus-driven process of behavior causation such as the one posited by MTE is required for explanatory purposes.","PeriodicalId":48064,"journal":{"name":"Emotion Review","volume":"24 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.4,"publicationDate":"2026-02-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147287448","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Emotion ReviewPub Date : 2026-02-19DOI: 10.1177/17540739261422956
Jesse J. Prinz
{"title":"Re-Assessing James: A Call to Action","authors":"Jesse J. Prinz","doi":"10.1177/17540739261422956","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/17540739261422956","url":null,"abstract":"Agnes Moors challenges William James’s theory of emotions on multiple grounds. She argues that: James wrongly commits to the view that emotions must have perceptual causes; he wrongly insists that all emotions are embodied, ignoring emotions such as hope and regret; he errs in treating bodily feeling as sufficient for emotions; he cannot account for the “heat” (valence and intensity) of emotions; and he fails to account for emotions’ intentionality. This commentary addresses each of these objections, while also agreeing with Moors that James’s theory needs to be updated. An imperatival theory of emotions is proposed and compared to Moors’ response evaluation theory.","PeriodicalId":48064,"journal":{"name":"Emotion Review","volume":"96 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.4,"publicationDate":"2026-02-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146261183","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Emotion ReviewPub Date : 2026-02-18DOI: 10.1177/17540739261422556
Simon McCarthy-Jones, Arun Bokde, Jan de Vries
{"title":"Hate as Poison and Cure? Reassessing our Hatred of Hatred","authors":"Simon McCarthy-Jones, Arun Bokde, Jan de Vries","doi":"10.1177/17540739261422556","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/17540739261422556","url":null,"abstract":"Hatred is widely condemned as an unambiguous evil, yet this paper asks whether it might also serve constructive functions. Drawing on philosophical, psychological, and evolutionary perspectives, we argue that hate evolved as an adaptive response to threats of domination and to challenges to shared meaning systems posed by individuals or groups. Hate fulfills this role by motivating action, sustaining focus, fostering coalitional cohesion, providing meaning, and operating as a power-based emotion that can mobilize the subordinated. We then illustrate how hate has been used in revolutionary social movements. While acknowledging its dangers, we contend that dismissing hate as purely toxic overlooks its possible role in signaling injustice and galvanizing resistance. The challenge is understanding when hatred cures rather than poisons.","PeriodicalId":48064,"journal":{"name":"Emotion Review","volume":"50 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.4,"publicationDate":"2026-02-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146215600","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Emotion ReviewPub Date : 2026-02-17DOI: 10.1177/17540739261422949
Matthew Ratcliffe
{"title":"Emotional Self-Dissonance","authors":"Matthew Ratcliffe","doi":"10.1177/17540739261422949","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/17540739261422949","url":null,"abstract":"This paper identifies and characterizes a commonplace but philosophically neglected aspect of human emotional experience, which I call <jats:italic toggle=\"yes\">emotional self-dissonance</jats:italic> . I start from the position that emotional experiences generally involve taking things to matter in ways that reflect what we already care about. Building on this, I suggest that our various projects, pastimes, commitments, relationships, and habits together comprise an <jats:italic toggle=\"yes\">evaluative orientation</jats:italic> through which we experience things emotionally. Although this orientation is for the most part cohesively organized, tensions within it are inevitable. I suggest that emotions of familiar kinds often incorporate a sense of these tensions. In addition, emotional self-dissonance can amount to a form of emotional experience in its own right, one that encompasses considerable variety.","PeriodicalId":48064,"journal":{"name":"Emotion Review","volume":"17 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.4,"publicationDate":"2026-02-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146209977","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Emotion ReviewPub Date : 2026-02-17DOI: 10.1177/17540739261422938
Yoann Stussi, Martin Gaudré, David Sander
{"title":"Demystifying the Role of Goal-Related Processes in Explaining the Effects of Emotion on Information-Seeking Decisions","authors":"Yoann Stussi, Martin Gaudré, David Sander","doi":"10.1177/17540739261422938","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/17540739261422938","url":null,"abstract":"Adopting componential and appraisal approaches to emotion, this commentary highlights how Moors' goal-directed theory allows a deep analysis of the role of emotion in information-seeking decisions. We illustrate how (i) the opportunity to gain information can signal discrepancies with multiple goals, which are reduced by seeking or avoiding information, (ii) goalrelated appraisals and goal satisfaction may partly account for the rewarding properties of information, (iii) practical rationality can explain seemingly irrational information-seeking behaviors, and (iv) biased goal priorization and appraisal biases could lead to maladaptive information-seeking. We suggest that appraisal and goal-directed theories may complement current theoretical frameworks of information-seeking by providing a mechanistic approach to understanding how the evaluation and selection of goals, behavioral strategies, and actions influence information-seeking.","PeriodicalId":48064,"journal":{"name":"Emotion Review","volume":"78 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.4,"publicationDate":"2026-02-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146205213","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Emotion ReviewPub Date : 2026-02-12DOI: 10.1177/17540739261422552
Constant Bonard
{"title":"Identity-Based Irrationality and the Goal-Directed Theory of Emotions","authors":"Constant Bonard","doi":"10.1177/17540739261422552","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/17540739261422552","url":null,"abstract":"This article introduces identity-based irrationality, a form of emotional irrationality that arises when the evaluations eliciting an emotion conflict with a person's deep, identity-constituting beliefs and desires. While the goal-directed theory (GDT) of emotions accounts for apparent (Type-1) and theoretical (Type-2) irrationality, it does not capture cases where emotions are structurally inconsistent with the agent's deep self. Drawing on theories of the deep self, identity-based irrationality is characterized as a conflict between circumstantial evaluative hierarchies operative in the moment and more enduring identity hierarchies that organize the person's commitments. Through illustrative cases, the paper argues that this form of irrationality is neither merely apparent nor grounded in erroneous representations of the situation, but instead reflects an evaluative structural irrationality. It concludes by assessing three ways the GDT might accommodate such conflicts and argues that incorporating identity-level structure is necessary for a complete account of emotional irrationality.","PeriodicalId":48064,"journal":{"name":"Emotion Review","volume":"331 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.4,"publicationDate":"2026-02-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146169913","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Emotion ReviewPub Date : 2026-02-06DOI: 10.1177/17540739261422562
Elisabeth Pacherie
{"title":"Kinds of Goal-Directed Processes and Kinds of Values","authors":"Elisabeth Pacherie","doi":"10.1177/17540739261422562","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/17540739261422562","url":null,"abstract":"Agnes Moors’ claim that the processes underlying emotional behavior and those driving non-emotional instrumental behavior are predominantly goal-directed leads her to the eliminativist conclusion that there is no solid mechanistic distinction between emotional and non-emotional episodes—and, thus, that emotions do not qualify as scientifically fruitful concepts. Here, I introduce a distinction between two types of goal-directed processes and discuss the sense of value that I consider relevant to emotional goals. On that basis, I reexamine whether the path to eliminativism is actually unescapable.","PeriodicalId":48064,"journal":{"name":"Emotion Review","volume":"58 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.4,"publicationDate":"2026-02-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146129384","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}