Whether and How Much: Nonlinear Thresholds in Discrete Emotional Responses to Workplace Events

Abstract Appraisal theories imply that emotions may arise only once events exceed a threshold relative to a personal frame of reference, whereas dynamical accounts propose that emotional systems can become bistable. We tested whether discrete emotions respond to event valence and strength proportionally, through thresholds, or discontinuously, and whether people differ in these responses. In a diary study, 100 employees reported 1,479 work events and rated six discrete emotions. Two-part generalized additive models revealed nonlinear relations, mostly in intensity: anger intensified for events worse than usual, happiness for events better than usual, and disgust and, less robustly, fear for events stronger than usual, whereas sadness and surprise responded linearly. Cusp catastrophe models showed no evidence of the bistability proposed by the Bifurcation Model of Affect Structure. People differed in asymmetry, but not detectably in bifurcation, parameters. Emotional responses to everyday events are thus better described by emotion-specific thresholds relative to each person’s typical experience than by proportional or catastrophic change.