Emotion and Mood: Over 120 Years of Contemplation and Exploration in The American Journal of Psychology

Abstract

Abstract Emotional states derived from stimuli such as visual objects, scenes, and films, linguistic input such as words and phrases, and other inputs such as music and humor have been examined over many decades in an attempt to understand how feelings are aroused and, in turn, how they influence behavior. From early introspectionists to modern-day social, clinical, and cognitive researchers studying the ways in which affect is derived from everyday conscious and unconscious experiences and how those experiences frame our perceptions for processing future encounters with emotional stimuli, over 120 years of work has been reported in The American Journal of Psychology. The current article provides an overview of the more salient and influential of those works and articulates the ways in which the reported findings influence our current explorations of emotion and mood.