Universal variations in feeling states; variations that can describe the mood of any and all people.

The psychological impact of a potentially stressful event from the perspective of the individual experiencing it.

A set of bodily processes that protects against germs, micro-organisms, and other foreign substances that enter the body and can cause disease.

A method for studying, via a card game with monetary payoffs, the influence of emotions on decision making.

A behavioral pattern in which an organism facing a threat does one of two things: attack or flee.

Loving care and personal assistance from friends and family, particularly as provided during times of stress.

A theory of how the brain and body generate emotional experience in which physiological arousal, in response to an event, is said to precede and cause a subsequent emotional response.

A theory of the generation of emotional states in which emotionally arousing events produce physiological and emotional responses simultaneously, rather than one leading to the other.

Theories claiming that emotions arise from a psychological process in which people continuously monitor the relation between themselves and the world around them, with these appraisals determining the emotion they experience.

A method for measuring emotions that capitalizes on the link between emotional experience and facial expression; in this system, researchers code muscular movements occurring in specific parts of the face.

Any conscious, intentional effort to prevent oneself from showing any visible sign of emotional arousal (or other such psychological states).

A coping strategy identified particularly in women in which the response to threat involves taking action to help others (tending) while maintaining a close support network (befriending).

A coordinated series of physiological changes that prepare you for “fight or flight”; that is, to confront the stressor, or flee.

Decisions that involve fundamental questions of right and wrong.

A psychological state that combines feelings, thoughts, and bodily arousal and that often has a distinctive accompanying facial expression.

A sequence of physiological reactions in response to stressors: alarm, resistance, and exhaustion.

Evaluations of the personal significance of ongoing and upcoming events.

A proposal about the way in which feeling states influence thinking processes; in this hypothesis, moods inform thinking directly, as if they were sources of information.

The prediction that biological feedback from facial muscles directly influences emotional experience.

A prolonged, consistent feeling state, either positive or negative.

An interconnected set of structures and hormone pathways regulating stress response.