The Positive Side of Negative Emotions

This unique volume brings together state-of-the-art research showing the value of emotions that many believe to be undesirable. Leading investigators explore the functions and benefits of sadness, anxiety, anger, embarrassment, shame, guilt, jealousy, and envy. The role of these emotions in social interactions and relationships is examined, as are cultural differences in how they are valued and expressed. The volume considers how people seek out these feelings in everyday life to improve performance, gain insight, and express cares and commitments. Negative emotions are shown to have an important place in a rich and meaningful life.

W. Gerrod Parrott, PhD, is Professor of Psychology at Georgetown University. His central interest is the nature of human emotion. His published work has focused on three areas: philosophical and historical approaches to the concept of emotion; emotion's social foundations and functions, including such social emotions as embarrassment, shame, guilt, envy and jealousy; and the influence of emotion and emotional self-regulation on thought. Dr. Parrott is the author of over 75 scholarly chapters, articles, and books. He is past editor of the journal Cognition and Emotion and past president of the International Society for Research on Emotion.

I. Specific Negative Emotions
1. Can Sadness Be Good for You?: On the Cognitive, Motivational, and Interpersonal Benefits of Negative Affect, Joseph P. Forgas
2. Anxiety as an Adaptive Emotion, Adam M. Perkins and Philip Corr
3. Anger Is a Positive Emotion, Ursula Hess
4. Can Negative Social Emotions Have Positive Consequences?: An Examination of Embarrassment, Shame, Guilt, Jealousy, and Envy, Nicole E. Henniger and Christine R. Harris
II. Social and Cultural Aspects of Negative Emotions
5. When Negative Emotions Benefit Close Relationships, Levi R. Baker, James K. McNulty, and Nickola C. Overall
6. On the Social Influence of Negative Emotional Expressions, Gerben A. Van Kleef and Stéphane Côté
7. Listening to Negative Emotions: How Culture Constrains What We Hear, Yulia E. Chentsova-Dutton, Nicole Senft, and Andrew G. Ryder
8. The Function of Negative Emotions in the Confucian Tradition, Louise Sundararajan
III. The Desirability of Negative Emotions
9. Why Might People Want to Feel Bad?: Motives in Contrahedonic Emotion Regulation, Maya Tamir and Yochanan Bigman
10. Negative Emotions and the Meaningful Sides of Media Entertainment, Mary Beth Oliver, Anne Bartsch, and Tilo Hartmann
11. The Right Tool for the Job: Functional Analysis and Evaluating Positivity/Negativity, Julie K. Norem
12. Feeling, Function, and the Place of Negative Emotions in a Happy Life, W. Gerrod Parrott