452 v. AFFECTI vE PROCESSES
Research on specific emotions has long 
been guided by analyses of their theorized 
adaptive functions (Sznycer et al., 2016). 
Guided by these two core assumptions, so -
cial functional accounts have broadened 
considerably the range of states emotion 
scientists study, a theme we detail in the 
next section (e.g., Shiota et al., 2017). Re -
searchers are now mapping how emotions 
such as love, desire, and sympathy are core 
to attachment processes (e.g., Bowlby, 1969; 
Diamond, 2003; Goetz, Keltner, & Simon- 
Thomas, 2010; Gonzaga, Turner, Keltner, 
Campos, & Altemus, 2006; Mikulincer & 
Shaver, 2006). Other programs of research 
show that embarrassment, shame, pride, 
and envy are vital to the negotiation, main -
tenance, and change of rank-  related rela -
tions (Gilbert, 2000; Keltner & Buswell, 
1997; Sznycer et al., 2016; Tracy, Weidman, 
Cheng, & Martens, 2014; van de Ven, 2017). 
Still other researchers are examining how 
emotions such as awe, interest, and confu -
sion help the individual explore and acquire 
information about both the social and the 
physical environment, and internalize social 
norms, customs, and values (Bai et al., 2017; 
Griskevicius, Shiota, & Neufeld, 2010; Piff, 
Dietze, Feinberg, Stancato, & Keltner, 2015; 
Shiota, Keltner, & Mossman, 2007; Shiota 
et al., 2017; Stellar et al., 2018).
Beyond expanding the range of states 
examined by researchers, the social func -
tional approach has also shifted the field’s 
orientation to consider additional aspects of 
emotional responding within the individual. 
Functional analyses at the intraindividual 
level have long guided research on emotion- 
antecedent appraisals, emotional experi -
ence, peripheral physiology, and even facial 
expression (e.g., Keltner & Gross, 1999; 
Levenson, 1999; Mesquita & Frijda, 1992; 
Oatley & Jenkins, 1992). An explicit focus 
on social function has suggested new emo -
tional processes that are worthy of study, 
two of which we discuss in detail. First, ap -
praisals associated with one emotional event 
tend to “carry over” to our interpretation of 
subsequent events, organizing downstream 
social cognition in systematic ways. Second, 
emotions are accompanied by specific action 
tendencies that structure social interactions, 
for example, through the dyadic patterning 
of expression over time.Emotions Organize and  Direct Social Thought 
through  Appraisal  Tendencies
One of the most entrenched ideas about 
emotions in Western philosophy is that they 
are the enemy of reason, disrupting rational 
thought. The past 20 years of scientific and 
philosophical thought have led to a dramatic 
departure from this thinking (e.g., Lerner, 
Valdesolo, & Kassam, 2015; Nussbaum, 
2001). It is now widely assumed that emo -
tions shape social cognition in systematic 
ways that enable the individual to respond 
effectively to shifting events in the social 
context. This thinking found early inspira -
tion in accounts of how broader affective 
states, such as positive and negative moods, 
inform evaluative judgments of objects of 
different kinds (Schwarz & Bless, 1991; 
Clore & Huntsinger, 2007), and infuse cog -
nitive processes such as stereotyping, deci -
sion making, and attribution (Forgas, 2003).
An appraisal tendency framework  has 
proved particularly generative for under -
standing how specific emotions shape social 
cognition (Baumann & DeSteno, 2010; Kelt -
ner, Ellsworth, & Edwards, 1993; Lerner & 
Keltner, 2000, 2001; Lerner et al., 2015). 
Appraisal  has been defined as “a process 
that detects and assesses the significance of 
the environment for well-being . . . the sat -
isfaction or obstruction of [one’s] concerns” 
(Moors, Ellsworth, Scherer, & Frijda, 2013, 
p. 120). While some theoretical approaches 
conceptualize the appraisals associated with 
specific emotions in categorical terms (e.g., 
linking anger to the appraisal of an inten -
tional personal offense; Lazarus, 1991), and 
others as a set of intersecting dimensions 
(e.g., linking anger to combined appraisals 
of unpleasantness, goal obstruction, exter -
nal cause, and unfairness; Scherer, 2009), 
all presume that appraisals are the proxi -
mal causes of emotional response—  a thesis 
with support in the empirical literature (e.g., 
Ellsworth & Smith, 1988; Siemer, Mauss, 
& Gross, 2007; Smith & Ellsworth, 1987). 
Generally speaking, an appraisal tendency 
framework assumes that each emotion is 
defined by a core appraisal or set of ap -
praisals (e.g., Lazarus, 1991; Moors et al., 
2013; Roseman, 2013; Scherer, 2009): Fear 
involves the appraisal that one is in danger; 
compassion involves the appraisal of an -