Agnes Moors

KU Leuven | ku leuven · Research unit for Quantitative Psychology and Individual Differences

The review first discusses componential explanations of automaticity, which specify non/automaticity features (e.g., un/controlled, un/conscious, non/efficient, fast/slow) and their interrelations. Reframing these features as factors that influence processes (e.g., goals, attention, and time) broadens the range of factors that can be considered (e....

Standard dual process models in the action domain postulate that stimulus-driven processes are responsible for suboptimal behavior because they take them to be rigid and automatic and therefore the default. We propose an alternative dual process model in which goal-directed processes are the default instead. We then transfer the dual process logic...

This inquiry attempts to integrate two skeptical emotion theories: dimensional appraisal theory and Russell’s (2003) psychological construction theory. To bring out the skeptical elements of these theories, I compare them first with two classical theories: affect program theory and discrete appraisal theory. The skeptical theories are similar to ea...

Several theoretical views of automaticity are discussed. Most of these suggest that automaticity should be diagnosed by looking at the presence of features such as unintentional, uncontrolled/uncontrollable, goal independent, autonomous, purely stimulus driven, unconscious, efficient, and fast. Contemporary views further suggest that these features...

I present an overview of emotion theories, organised around the question of emotion causation. I argue that theories of emotion causation should ideally address the problems of elicitation, intensity, and differentiation. Each of these problems can be divided into a subquestion that asks about the relation between stimuli and emotions (i.e., the fu...

Purpose of Review This paper aims to revisit and critically analyse the definitions of impulsive actions, challenging the traditional focus on negative outcomes and dysfunctionality. By shifting the discussion away from an exclusive association with dysfunctionality, it advocates for a more nuanced examination of rapid actions undertaken with minim...

Traditional emotion theories assume that stimulus-driven processes are responsible for early emotional action tendencies and that goal-directed processes step in at a later stage to implement or correct these action tendencies. In contrast to this, a recent, goal-directed theory proposes that goal-directed processes operate in parallel with stimulu...

People sometimes emit frequently practiced responses that were previously effective in achieving desired outcomes but are no longer appropriate in the current context. While dual-process theories attribute these action slips to goal-independent, associative processes, we propose that errors in the expectancies about action outcomes contribute to th...

Eder proposes a theory of action causation based on Powers' control theory and Hommel's theory of event coding in which emotional feelings play a crucial role. After presenting a rough description of Eder's theory in which I try to spell out the various steps in the control cycle, I compare his theory to my own goal-directed theory. The two theorie...

How feelings change over time is a central topic in emotion research. To study these affective fluctuations, researchers often ask participants to repeatedly indicate how they feel on a self-report rating scale. Despite widespread recognition that this kind of data is subject to measurement error, the extent of this error remains an open question....

The role of nature in promoting both affective and cognitive benefits has been extensively studied in the field of environmental psychology. Two well-established theories, Stress Recovery Theory (SRT) and Attention Restoration Theory (ART), are commonly used to explain these restorative benefits. However, despite their popularity, both theories fac...

Substance use remains a pressing societal concern, with significant ramifications for public health, economics, and social well-being. The habit theory offers an influential explanation for problematic substance use but lacks a solid empirical grounding. To support this contention, we first review the main assumptions and predictions of the habit t...

The role of nature in promoting both affective and cognitive benefits has been extensively studied in the field of environmental psychology. Two well-established theories, Stress Recovery Theory (SRT) and Attention Restoration Theory (ART), are commonly used to explain these restorative benefits. However, despite their popularity, both theories fac...

People often engage in unhealthy eating despite having an explicit goal to follow a healthy diet, especially under certain conditions such as a lack of time. A promising explanation from the value accumulation account is that food choices are based on the sequential consideration of the values of multiple outcomes, such as health and taste outcomes...

Wood et al. (2022) reviewed arguments in support of the idea that much of human behavior is habitual. In this commentary, we first point at ambiguities in the way Wood et al. referred to habits. This allows us to clarify the question that lies at the core of the debate on habits: To what extent is habitual behavior mediated by stimulus–response ass...

Understanding how people maintain what they have is of ultimate importance. On the individual level, maintenance goals are essential to both mental and physical wellbeing, while on the societal level, they are vital for pro-social and pro-environmental behavior. Nevertheless, to date, there is no integrative framework for understanding peoples’ eff...

People are more likely to engage in various suboptimal behaviors such as overeating, addictive behaviors, and short-sighted financial decision making when they are under stress. Traditional dual-process models propose that stress can impair the ability to engage in goal-directed behavior so that people have to rely on habitual behavior. Support for...

Müller proposes a position-taking theory to account for the manifest image of emotional feelings as “feelings towards”. He reduces the process of position-taking to goal-based construal, which is akin to the stimulus-goal comparison process central in appraisal theories. Although this reduction can account for the heat of emotional feelings and the...

People often keep engaging in behaviors that used to be successful in the past but which are knowingly no longer effective in the current situation, so called action slips. Such action slips are often explained with stimulus-driven processes in which behavior is caused by a stimulus- response association and without information about the outcome of...

People often engage in unhealthy eating despite having an explicit goal to follow a healthy diet, especially under certain conditions such as a lack of time. A promising explanation from the value accumulation account is that food choices are based on the sequential consideration of the values of multiple outcomes, such as health and taste outcomes...

This chapter discusses social theories. Although personal theories known as evolutionary theories, network theories, stimulus evaluation theories, response evaluation theories, and psychological constructionist theories already accept that emotions take place in a social context, the personal mechanisms that they propose seem ultimately inadequate...

This chapter discusses response evaluation theories (RETs), which foreground a process of response evaluation. It zooms in on the goal-directed theory of Moors (2017a), which proposes a goal-directed cycle as the causal-mechanistic explanation of the phenomena called emotions. The cycle starts with the detection of a discrepancy between a stimulus...

This chapter discusses network theories in psychology (Lang, 1994; Leventhal, 1984; Lewis, 2005) and kindred theories in philosophy (Colombetti, 2009). While evolutionary theories focus on innate mechanisms, network theories shift focus to learning. Network theories propose the following causal-mechanistic explanation of emotion. An emotion is caus...

This chapter applies the demarcation-explanation cycle to emotion theories. In Stage 1, theories propose working definitions of emotion listing (a) properties of emotions (intensional format) and/or (b) prototypical emotions (divisio format). Typical and apparent properties of emotions are that they have ontogenetic and phylogenetic continuity, are...

Demystifying Emotions provides a comprehensive typology of emotion theories in psychology (evolutionary, network, appraisal, goal-directed, psychological constructionist, and social) and philosophy (feeling, judgmental, quasi-judgmental, perceptual, embodied, and motivational) in a systematic manner with the help of tools from philosophy of science...

Demystifying Emotions provides a comprehensive typology of emotion theories in psychology (evolutionary, network, appraisal, goal-directed, psychological constructionist, and social) and philosophy (feeling, judgmental, quasi-judgmental, perceptual, embodied, and motivational) in a systematic manner with the help of tools from philosophy of science...

This chapter discusses evolutionary theories in psychology (Ekman & Codaro, 2011; Levenson, 2011; Panksepp, 2012; Keltner, Tracy, et al., 2019), also known as motivational theories in philosophy. Building further on the bridging work of McDougall (1908), these theories propose the following causal-mechanistic explanation of emotion. Stimuli activat...

Demystifying Emotions provides a comprehensive typology of emotion theories in psychology (evolutionary, network, appraisal, goal-directed, psychological constructionist, and social) and philosophy (feeling, judgmental, quasi-judgmental, perceptual, embodied, and motivational) in a systematic manner with the help of tools from philosophy of science...

This chapter discussed the general precursors of the families of emotion theories to be discussed in the ensuing chapters: Darwin (1872) and James (1890b). Darwin (1872) proposed an evolutionary and eventually also a mechanistic explanation for emotional behavior, particular facial expressions. Initially goal-directed processes grow into habits (le...

This chapter discusses stimulus evaluation theories (SETs), which foreground a process of stimulus evaluation (or appraisal). A first brand, called evaluation-first SETs, include appraisal theories in psychology and (quasi-)judgmental and perceptual theories in philosophy. Theories in this brand differ in the role they confer to stimulus evaluation...

This concluding chapter summarizes the main insights gained in this book. Emotion theories show substantial agreement in their working definition of emotions in terms of the typical and apparent properties of emotions (intensional format) and the prototypical emotions (divisio format) they want to see explained. Their constitutive explanations rang...

Demystifying Emotions provides a comprehensive typology of emotion theories in psychology (evolutionary, network, appraisal, goal-directed, psychological constructionist, and social) and philosophy (feeling, judgmental, quasi-judgmental, perceptual, embodied, and motivational) in a systematic manner with the help of tools from philosophy of science...

This chapter discusses psychological constructionist theories (PCTs). PCTs reject the existence of affect programs as special-purpose mechanisms for the phenomena called emotions. PCTs come in a two-factor version, endorsed by Schachter (1964) and Barrett (2017b), and a multi-factor version, endorsed by Russell (2009). Two-factor PCTs propose that...

This chapter presents an idealized path towards theory development (for all kinds of theories), called the “demarcation-explanation” cycle. The cycle comprised four stages: (a) the provisional demarcation of the explanandum in a working definition, (b) the proposal of different types of explanations, (c) the validation of explanations in empirical...

Demystifying Emotions provides a comprehensive typology of emotion theories in psychology (evolutionary, network, appraisal, goal-directed, psychological constructionist, and social) and philosophy (feeling, judgmental, quasi-judgmental, perceptual, embodied, and motivational) in a systematic manner with the help of tools from philosophy of science...

The way in which emotional experiences change over time can be studied through the use of computational models. An important question with regard to such models is which characteristics of the data a model should account for in order to adequately describe these data. Recently, attention has been drawn on the potential importance of nonlinearity as...

Meta‐analyses show low correlations between implicit attitude measures and behavior measures, suggesting that these attitude measures are weak predictors of behavior. Researchers of implicit cognition have resorted to several rescue strategies. Their most important reply, based on a traditional dual‐process theory of behavior causation, is that att...

Demystifying Emotions provides a comprehensive typology of emotion theories in psychology (evolutionary, network, appraisal, goal-directed, psychological constructionist, and social) and philosophy (feeling, judgmental, quasi-judgmental, perceptual, embodied, and motivational) in a systematic manner with the help of tools from philosophy of science...

Suri and Gross's 2022 connectionist emotion theory can be considered as one version of a family of theories known as network theories of emotion. It presents similarities and differences with older versions of network theories. Like previous network theories and several other traditional emotion theories, however, the connectionist theory remains a...

More than 40 years ago, pioneering social psychologist Robert Zajonc (1980) published his seminal work titled “Preferences need no inferences” in which he argued for the primacy of affect over cognition. Affective evaluation (the preference) comes first, he claimed, and only then do cognitive processes (the inferences) kick in. The view is untenabl...

People often keep engaging in behaviors that used to be successful in the past but which are knowingly no longer effective in the current situation, so called action slips. Such action slips are often explained with stimulus-driven processes in which behavior is caused by a stimulus-response association and without information about the outcome of...

In this presentation we outline an integrative explanatory account for affective (cf., Stress Recovery Theory) and cognitive (cf., Attention Restoration Theory) restoration. Our account starts off from the view that human behavior is goal-directed, and that phenomena like psychological stress, negative affect and attentional/cognitive fatigue – whi...

Research over the past decades has demonstrated the explanatory power of emotions, feelings, motivations, moods, and other affective processes when trying to understand and predict how we think and behave. In this consensus article, we ask: has the increasingly recognized impact of affective phenomena ushered in a new era, the era of affectivism?

The determinants of affect proposed by the appraisal theory, the goal-directed theory, and the predictive processing theory are compared. The first theory attaches a role to multiple factors (goal-related factors, expectation-related factors, and control), the second theory only focuses on goal-related factors, and the third theory only focuses on...

Despite growing awareness of the benefits of large-scale open access publishing, individual researchers seem reluctant to adopt this behavior, thereby slowing down the evolution toward a new scientific culture. We outline and apply a goal-directed framework of behavior causation to shed light on this type of behavioral reluctance and to organize an...

As an alternative to biological reductionist and network approaches to psychopathology, we propose a non-reductionist mental-mechanistic approach. To illustrate this approach, we work out the implications of the goal-directed framework of Moors, Boddez, and De Houwer [1], which has the potential to explain the heterogeneous manifestations of psycho...

Subjective well-being changes over time. While the causes of these changes have been investigated extensively, few attempts have been made to capture these changes through computational modelling. One notable exception is the study by Rutledge et al. [Rutledge, R. B., Skandali, N., Dayan, P., & Dolan, R. J. (2014). A computational and neural model...

Habitual processes are often seen as the mechanisms underlying various suboptimal behaviors. Moors et al. (2017) challenged this view, arguing that the influence of goal-directed processes may be underestimated in explaining suboptimal behavior. Much evidence for habitual processes in humans comes from studies that used an outcome devaluation test...

According to the temporal need-threat model, different responses toward social exclusion stem from the fact that different needs are threatened. Because evidence for this account is mixed, we tested a goal-directed account in which the chosen behavior depends not only on the threatened need but also on the behavior that has the highest expectancy o...

Previous behavioral studies using stimulus-response compatibility tasks have shown that people are faster to carry out instructed approach/avoidance responses to positive/negative stimuli. This result has been taken as evidence that positive/negative stimulus valence directly activates a tendency to approach/avoid, which in turn, facilitates execut...

Dual-process models with a default-interventionist architecture explain early emotional action tendencies by a stimulus-driven process and they allow goal-directed processes to intervene only in a later stage. An alternative dual-process model with a parallel-competitive architecture developed by Moors, Boddez, and De Houwer (2017), in contrast, ex...

We explore the development of habitual responding within the colour-word contingency learning paradigm, in which participants respond to the colour of neutral words. Each word is most often presented in one colour. Learning is indicated by faster responses to the colour when the word is presented in the expected rather than in the unexpected colour...

A classic example of discriminatory behavior is keeping spatial distance from an out-group member. To explain this social behavior, the literature offers two alternative theoretical options that we label as the “threat hypothesis” and the “shared-experience hypothesis”. The former relies on studies showing that out-group members create a sense of a...

Feedback signaling the success or failure of actions is readily exploited to implement goal-directed behavior. Two event-related brain potentials (ERPs) have been identified as reliable markers of evaluative feedback processing: the Feedback-Related Negativity (FRN) and the P3. Recent ERP studies have shown a substantial reduction of these componen...

For decades already, the human fear conditioning paradigm has been used to study and develop treatments for anxiety disorders. This research is guided by theoretical assumptions that, in some cases indirectly, stem from the tradition of association formation models (e.g., the Rescorla-Wagner model). We argue that one of these assumptions – fear res...

Previous behavioral studies using stimulus-response compatibility tasks have shown that people are faster to carry out instructed approach/avoidance responses to positive/negative stimuli. This result has been taken as evidence that positive/negative stimulus valence directly activates a tendency to approach/avoid, which in turn, facilitates execut...

Converging evidence in human electrophysiology suggests that evaluative feedback provided during performance monitoring (PM) elicits two distinctive and successive ERP components: the feedback-related negativity (FRN) and the P3b. Whereas the FRN has previously been linked to reward prediction error (RPE), the P3b has been conceived as reflecting m...

This study examines two contrasting explanations for early tendencies to fight and flee. According to a stimulus-driven explanation, goal-incompatible stimuli that are easy/difficult to control lead to the tendency to fight/flee. According to a goal-directed explanation, on the other hand, the tendency to fight/flee occurs when the expected utility...

This study examines two contrasting explanations for early tendencies to fight and flee. According to a stimulus-driven explanation, goal-incompatible stimuli that are easy/difficult to control lead to the tendency to fight/flee. According to a goal-directed explanation, on the other hand, the tendency to fight/flee occurs when the expected utility...

Performance monitoring (PM) entails the continuous evaluation of actions and their outcomes. At the electrophysiological level, PM has been consistently related to two event-related brain potentials (ERPs): the Feedback-Related Negativity (FRN) and the P3. In a previous within-subject crossover design study, we showed that feedback’s goal impact (i...

Much emotion research has focused on the end result of the emotion process, categorical emotions, as reported by the protagonist or diagnosed by the researcher, with the aim of differentiating these discrete states. In contrast, this review concentrates on the emotion process itself by examining how (a) elicitation, or the appraisal of events, lead...

The paper sketches the historical development from emotion as a mysterious entity and the source of maladaptive behaviour, to emotion as a collection of ingredients and the source of also adaptive behaviour. We argue, however, that the underlying mechanism proposed to take care of this adaptive behaviour is not entirely up for its task. We outline...

This manuscript is part of a special issue to commemorate professor Paul Eelen, who passed away on August 21, 2016. Paul was a clinically oriented scientist, for whom learning principles (Pavlovian or operant) were more than salivary responses and lever presses. His expertise in learning psychology and his enthusiasm to translate this knowledge to...

Studies that investigated the relation between appraisal and emotion have largely focused on the linear effect of appraisal criteria on subjective feelings (e.g., the effect of appraised goal obstruction on anger). Emotional responding can be extended to include more than just feelings, however. Componential definitions of emotion also add motivati...

The stimulus-preceding negativity (SPN) component reflects the anticipatory phase of reward processing. Its amplitude is usually larger for informative compared to uninformative upcoming stimuli, as well as for uncertain relative to predictable ones. In this study, we sought to assess whether these two effects, when combined together, produced a sy...

Researchers typically classify behavior as habitual if it occurs independently of changes in the value of its outcomes (revaluation test) or the impact it has on those outcomes (contingency degradation test). We argue that these tests are valid only if they (a) are sufficiently sensitive and (b) target the outcomes that might actually control behav...

Successful performance monitoring (PM) requires continuous assessment of context and action outcomes. Electrophysiological studies have reliably identified event-related potential (ERP) markers for evaluative feedback processing during PM: the Feedback-Related Negativity (FRN) and P3 components. The functional significance of FRN remains debated in...

When we have to judge the distance between another person and an object (social condition), we judge this distance as being smaller compared to judging the distance between two objects (nonsocial condition). It has been suggested that this compression is mediated by the attribution of a motor potential to the reference frame (other person vs. objec...

Despite the growing body of research on Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy (EFT‐C), less research attention has been paid to the validity of EFT‐C's description of the relationship dynamics that characterize distressed couples. The current theoretical paper provides a narrative review of evidence from existing emotion and couple research for EFT‐C'...

The feedback-related negativity (FRN) provides a reliable ERP marker of performance monitoring (PM). It is usually larger for negative compared to positive feedback, and for unexpected relative to expected feedback. In two experiments, we assessed whether these effects could be modulated by goal relevance, defined as feedback informativeness (relia...

People speak and listen to language all the time. Given this high frequency of use, it is often suggested that at least some aspects of language processing are highly overlearned and therefore occur “automatically”. Here we critically examine this suggestion. We first sketch a framework that views automaticity as a set of interrelated features of m...

Positive and negative feelings were central to the development of economics, especially in utility theory in classical economics. While neoclassical utility theory ignored feelings, behavioral economics more recently reintroduced feelings in utility theory. Beyond feelings, economic theorists use full-fledged specific emotions to explain behavior t...

Standard dual process models in the action domain postulate that stimulus-driven processes are responsible for suboptimal behavior because they take them to be rigid and automatic and therefore the default. We propose an alternative dual process model in which goal-directed processes are the default instead. We then transfer the dual process logic...

Previous studies suggest that feelings of regret are elicited by events appraised as goal incongruent and caused by the self and that they are characterized by a tendency to repair the event. Study 1 investigated whether the appraisal of self-agency increases the tendency to repair. Participants played a game in which goal-congruent and goal-incong...

Appraisal theories of emotion have two fundamental assumptions: (a) that there are regularities to be discovered between situations and components of emotional episodes, and (b) that the influence of these situations on these components is causally mediated by a mental process called appraisal. Appraisal theories come in different flavors, proposin...

In reply to the commentaries of Clay-Warner (2014), Gendolla (2014), Nesse (2014), Shweder (2014), and Zachar (2014), I repeat the essential features of appraisal theories of the second flavor: They take emotional components (and not specific emotions) as the phenomenon to be explained, and they strive for a multilevel mechanistic explanation that...

The present study investigated the function of parental attention to child pain in regulating parental distress and pain control behaviour when observing their child performing a painful (cold pressor) task (CPT), as well as the moderating role of parental state anxiety. Participants were 62 school children and one of their parents. Parental attent...

We investigated the function of parental attention to child pain in regulating parental distress and pain control behaviour when observing their child performing a painful (cold pressor) task (CPT); we also studied the moderating role of parental state anxiety. Participants were 62 schoolchildren and one of their parents. Parental attention towards...

Previous research has revealed that feelings of anger are typically accompanied by the goal to approach the emotion-evoking stimulus and feelings of fear by the goal to avoid the emotion-evoking stimulus. We set up an experiment to investigate the boundary conditions of this set of relations. We hypothesized that anger is related to approach and fe...