AUTHOR=Song Chengfang , Rui Xiaosong , Xie Nini 

TITLE=Justifications of emotional responses to eliciting situations: A narratological approach to the CAD hypothesis

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Psychology

VOLUME=Volume 13 - 2022

YEAR=2022

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1019485

DOI=10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1019485

ISSN=1664-1078

ABSTRACT=Different from the previous design to establish correlations between emotions and eliciting situations which instantiate moral codes, this paper examined the CAD hypothesis by considering three elements, namely eliciting situations, the emotional responses to them, and justifications of responses, within the appraisal theories of emotion. First, similarity data were collected among the situations by using the Order k/n-1 with fixed K method. Second, the participants were instructed to write down both their responses and justifications of their responses to the situations. Correspondence analyses among the three elements, together with results from the Multidimensional Scaling analysis of the similarity data, showed that the CAD hypothesis is largely supported if mappings are set between the emotions in question and moral judgement concerning the eliciting situations (referred to as basis in the paper), rather than situations themselves, and that the hypothesis is further conditioned by characters (another component of justification).