Affect control theory is a mathematical model that describes how social roles, behaviors, and emotions are related to one another. This project uses five studies to test predictions from the theory. The first study tests the theory in natural settings by sampling people's emotions at random times throughout their normal waking activities. It will be one of the first studies to get a representative sample of the emotions that people actually experience. The theory argues that people's emotions should change in specific ways when they change from one role to another. The second study will use subjects' reactions to descriptions of unusual events (presented to them under controlled laboratory conditions) to test ideas about how these atypical situations may influence emotional responses. The third and fourth studies test predictions about how other peoples' emotional reactions influence what we think about them. The fifth study pursues some practical implications of this idea for the criminal justice system. If the theory is true, the sentences handed down to convicted criminals are influenced in counterintuitive ways by their emotional displays.
