Towards a better understanding of emotion blends: The case of anger-related emotion blends elicited via film clips

We sought to better understand the effect of film clips supposed to elicit different intensities of anger on feelings and cardiac activity among our participants. In experiment 1, we tested in 21 volunteers the ability of two film clips to elicit two intensities of anger: a slight one and strong one. In experiment 2, we used the same film clips in order to investigate, in 36 volunteers, how cardiovascular patterns may differ between the emotional states we elicited. Results suggest that the film clips produced a physiological reappraisal pattern, with a lower heart rate and higher heart rate variability values (RMSSD and SD1) during exposure to film clips that were selected to elicit anger. Results of both experiments also suggest that film clips selected to elicit anger, not only triggered anger, but also other negative emotions. Consequently, we propose a method of assessing emotions which takes emotion blends into account.