The Belief–Desire Appraisal Theory of Emotion
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: ABSTRACT I introduce the Belief–Desire Appraisal Theory of Emotion (BDA). BDA makes three main claims: (a) Emotions are psychological episodes whose paradigmatic instances are constituted by coordinated changes in appraisals, action tendencies, bodily responses, and subjective feelings; (b) appraisals—which are rapid, low‐level evaluations of situational relevance to one's concerns—drive and explain the changes in the other components; and (c) appraisals are operations on belief–desire pairs (this is BDA's central claim). Thus, BDA treats belief–desire pairs as the central explanatory components of emotions. This enables unificatory and parsimonious explanations of psychological phenomena across philosophy and cognitive science.
Source: Pacific philosophical quarterly
DOI: 10.1111/papq.70022
Author: Constant Bonard
Institution: University of Bern
Language: English
Subfield: Experimental and Cognitive Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $2,760
OpenAlex ID: W7166307849