Individual Differences in Emotion Components and Dynamics

Our emotions define us as individuals: Each of us has unique ways of feeling and emotionally responding. In this Special Issue several contemporary approaches to emotion are used to gain insight in the ways people differ with regard to two of the most central features of emotions, their multicomponential and dynamical nature.

Different theoretical perspectives on how individual differences in emotion should be considered and studied are offered by Russell, Feldman Barrett, Scherer, and Larsen. Innovative empirical studies on individual differences in emotional experience are discussed by another set of articles by Smith, Van Mechelen, Silvia, and Verduyn and their respective colleagues. Finally, Frijda reflects on the challenges and controversies that emerge from the Special Issue. Together, the contributions of this Special Issue offer a cutting-edge view of current thinking and research, in which individual differences in the componential architecture of emotions as well as the unfolding of emotions over time are used as a stepping stone, not only to the understanding of how and why people differ emotionally, but also to the understanding of the nature of emotion itself.