Psyc 208 Research Methods on Emotion
Fall 2012
Instructor and Course Information
Professor: Patricia M. Rodriguez Mosquera (patricia.rodriguezmosquera@wesleyan.edu
or prodriguezmo@wesleyan.edu)
Office and Phone: Judd Hall 503, (860) 685-4958
Location and time of course: Monday and Wednesday from 2:40 to 4:00, Judd B6
Office hours: Monday 4-5, Wednesday 12-1, or by appointment
Course Description and Organization
This course will focus on methods and techniques to study emotions in their social
context, including emotional narratives, experiments, and daily diaries. We will study
which methods and techniques are best suited to study different positive and negative
emotions. We will start the course by learning some basic notions about emotions. Next,
we will learn different methods to study emotions (e.g., experiments, narratives, daily
diary methods). We will then read articles on different emotions that apply these different
methods. The course will also give attention to ethical issues in emotion research.
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Course Schedule and Readings
(All readings on Moodle)
September 3
Introduction to Research Methods Course
September 5
The Place of Emotions in Social Life
Parkinson, B., Fischer, A. H., & Manstead, A. S. R. (2005). Emotion’s place in the social
world. Emotion in Social Relations. Cultural, Group, and Interpersonal Processes (pp. 122). New York, NY: Psychology Press.
September 10
Understanding Emotion (I): On Emotional Experience
Feldman Barrett, L., Mesquita, B., Ochsner, K. N., & Gross, J. J. (2007). The experience
of emotion. Annual Review of Psychology, 58, 373-403.
September 12
Understanding Emotion (II): The Notion of Function Applied to Emotions
Keltner, D., & Haidt, J. (1999). Social functions of emotions at four levels of analysis.
Cognition & Emotion, 13, 505-521.
September 17
Theory, Research Design, and Measurement at Different Levels of Analysis (I)
Pettigrew, T. F. (1996). How to Think Like a Social Scientist (Chapter 1). Harper Collins.
September 19
Theory, Research Design, and Measurement at Different Levels of Analysis (II)
Pettigrew, T. F. (1996). How to Think Like a Social Scientist (Chapter 6). Harper Collins.
Research Methods on Emotion
September 24
Experimental Design (I)
Aronson, E., Ellsworth, P. C., Carlsmith, J. M., & Gonzales, M. H. (1990). Methods of
research in social psychology (Chapter 1). McGraw-Hill.
September 26
Experimental Design (II)
Aronson, E., Ellsworth, P. C., Carlsmith, J. M., & Gonzales, M. H. (1990). Methods of
research in social psychology (Chapter 4). McGraw-Hill.
October 1 & October 3
Methods for Studying Everyday Experience
Reis, H. T., & Gable, S. L. (2000). Event-sampling and other methods for studying
everyday experience. In H. T Reis & C. M. Judd (Eds.). Handbook of Research Methods
in Social and Personality Psychology (pp. 190-222) Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
October 8 & 10
Narratives and Content Analysis
Smith, C. P. (2000). Content analysis and narrative analysis. In H. T Reis & C. M. Judd
(Eds.). Handbook of Research Methods in Social and Personality Psychology (pp. 313339) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
FALL BREAK FROM OCTOBER 12 TILL 17
October 17
Envy and Jealousy (I)
Parrott, Q. G., & Smith, R. H. (1993). Distinguishing the experiences of envy and
jealousy. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 64, 906-920.
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October 22
Envy and Jealousy (II)
Aldrich, N. J., Tenenbaum, H. R.; Brooks, P. J.; Harrison, K.; Sines, J. (2011).
Perspective taking in children’s narratives about jealousy. British Journal of
Developmental Psychology, 29, 86-109.
October 24
Fear of envy
Rodriguez Mosquera, P. M., Parrott, W. G., & Hurtado de Mendoza, A. (2010) I fear
your envy, I rejoice in your coveting. On the ambivalent experience of being envied by
others. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 99(5), 842-854.
October 29
Anger (I)
Fischer, A. H., & Roseman, I. J. (2007). Beat them or ban them: The characteristics and
social functions of anger and contempt. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 93
(1), 103-115.
October 31
Anger (II)
Pond, R. S., Kashdan, T. B., DeWall, C. N., & Savostyanova, A. (2012). Emotion
differentiation moderates aggressive tendencies in angry people: a daily diary analysis.
Emotion, 12, 326-337.
November 5
Pride (I)
Williams, L. A., Desteno, D. (2008). Pride and perseverance: The motivational role of
pride. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 94, 1007-1017.
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November 7
Pride (II)
Kornilaki, E. N., & Chloverakis, G. (2004) The situational antecedents of pride and
happiness: Developmental and domain differences. British Journal of Developmental
Psychology, 22, 605-619.
November 12
Shame (I)
Tangney, J. (1992). Situational determinants of shame and guilt in young adulthood.
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 18, 199-206.
November 14
Shame (II)
Gausel, N., Leach, C. W., Vignoles, V. L., & Brown, R. (2012). Defend or repair?
Explaining responses to in-group moral failure by disentangling feelings of shame,
rejection, and inferiority. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 102, 941-960.
November 19
Shame (III)
Saha, S., Chung, M. C., & Thorne, L. (2011). A narrative exploration of the sense of self
of women recovering from childhood sexual abuse. Counselling Psychology Quarterly,
24,101-113.
THANKSGIVING RECESS FROM NOVEMBER 21 TILL NOVEMBER 26
November 26
Hurt & Rejection

Leary, M. R., Springer C., Negel, L, Ansell, E., & Evans, K. (1998). The causes,
phenomenology, and consequences of hurt feelings. Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, 74 (5), 1225-1237.
Research Methods on Emotion
November 28 CLASS CANCELLED DUE TO PROFESSOR’S CONFERENCE
ATTENDANCE
December 3
Happiness (I)
Adler, J. M. & Hershfield, H. E. (2012). Mixed emotional experience is associated with
and precedes improvements in psychological well-being. PloS ONE 7(4):e35633.
December 5
Happiness (II)
Mauss, I. B., Savino, N. S., Anderson, C. L., Weisbuch, M., Tamir, M., & Laudenslager,
M. L. (2011, September 12). The Pursuit of Happiness Can Be Lonely. Emotion.
Advance online publication.
Assessment
1. Questions for class sheet. For each class, you are expected to submit at least two
questions based on the readings. These questions can be, for example, about what you
found unclear in the readings, or what you thought was left unanswered in the readings,
or a new research question inspired by the readings. There will be ample time for
participation in class, and you can always bring these questions to the class.
The questions for class sheet shoud be short (no longer than half a page). Please write
your questions using bullet points. I will collect the questions sheet at the end of each
class.
You are allowed two “free passes” for the semester.
2. Short reflection essays You will need to submit a short reflection essay every two
weeks. Each essay is a reflection on the readings we have discussed in the past two
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weeks. You are free to focus your essay on those readings, or aspects of the readings, that
you found most interesting
Please treat these essays as longer reflection papers. The following are some question
guidelines for your reflection essay: what did you find most interesting or unexpected in
the readings? what did you find most difficult, or challenging about the readings? what
have you learned about methods, or/and about emotion, through these readings?
Each essay should be no longer than 1,100 - 1,250 words in length (approx. 2 singlespaced pages). I will drop the lowest writing grade so your best five essays will count
toward your final grade. Here are the dates where you will need to submit your reflection
essays (all essays need to be submitted at 5pm on the due date):
-Friday September 14.
-Friday September 28.
-Friday October 12.
-Friday October 26.
-Friday November 9.
-Friday Novembe 23.
You will receive feedback and grade for your short reflection essay within a week after
submission. Generally, A papers show a careful reading of the readings and are wellwritten and coherent. B papers show a good understanding of the readings, but do not
provide a careful reflection on the readings. Papers who mostly summarize the readings
will receive this evaluation. C papers are poorly written and do not show a careful
reading of the readings. You can submit all papers through Moodle.
3. Final individual paper. Your final paper should be a literature review of an emotion
topic of your choice. This topic can be a topic we have covered in class. For example,
you are really interested in anger, or in pride, and you would like to read more papers
about the emotion.
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You need first to identify a topic you are interested in. Please come to my office hours to
discuss your ideas. You will then need to find 3 papers, 2 of them empirical (i.e.,
academic journal articles that report empirical research using experiments, or narratives,
etc.) on the topic of your interest. Two of your papers need to be empirical as you will
need to critically evaluate the methods used in the papers. This will give you a chance to
apply what you learned about methods in the course. The third paper can a be a
theoretical paper, or a book chapter, about the emotion you are interested in. You are
expected to search for recent and appropriate sources for your final paper through
Wesleyan library’s databases. The Library offers tutorials to students on how to search
for sources in the Library’s databases. I will post on Moodle a document that provides
guidelines on how to write a literature review, and how to evaluate different aspects of a
paper (i.e., ideas, method, conclusions based on findings).
Your final paper should be no longer than 10 pages long, double spaced (excluding
references).
Important deadlines for final paper:
From Monday November 19 till Friday December 7: You can submit your paper’s
draft and I will provide feedback about your draft. Please remember that the more
complete the draft you submit, the more detailed my feedback will be and the more useful
my feedback will be to you. I do not grade the draft; this step is aimed to provide you
with my feedback so you can improve your paper.
December 14, 5pm: Submission of final draft through moodle.
Breakdown of final grades
(1) Short reflection essays: 40%
(2) Final paper: 40%
(3) Discussion questions for class: 10 %
(4) Class attendance and participation: 10%
I will compute your final grade according to Wesleyan’s grading system.
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Moodle
There is a Moodle set up for this course. Please check it regularly. I will post
announcements and important information about the course.
Exceptional Circumstances
I do not accept any work submitted after the specified deadline unless in case of a
medical or family emergency. In case of a medical emergency, you will need to provide a
doctor’s letter indicating that you were unable to complete class-related work due to a
medical emergency. In case of a family emergency, you will need to provide a letter from
a parent or your advisor/dean at Wesleyan indicating that you were unable to complete
class-related work due to a family emergency.
Special Needs
I want to create the most supportive learning environment possible for all students. It is
the policy of Wesleyan University to provide reasonable accommodations to students
with documented disabilities. Students, however, are responsible for registering with
Disabilities Services, in addition to making requests known to me in a timely manner. If
you require accommodations in this class, please make an appointment with me as soon
as possible [during the 2nd week of the semester], so that appropriate arrangements can
be made. The procedures for registering with Disabilities Services can be found at
http://www.wesleyan.edu/studentaffairs/disabilities/index.html.
Academic Honesty
You are expected to adhere to Wesleyan’s Honor Code as stated in the Student
Handbook. No group work is acceptable for any of the assignments. Any evidence of
group work on an assignment will result in a 0 for that assignment.
Attendance and Participation
Class attendance is absolutely essential. Please be punctual and do not talk in class while
the instructor or other students are speaking. You are not allowed to use mobile phones in
class. You are allowed to use your laptop in class, but not the internet.