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THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTlVIST ApPROACH TO EMOTIONS
According to this theory emotions are a product of society, and not of the
physiological make-up of a person. Cognitive processes are only a mechanism that
represents the social environment and which helps to interpret past experiences and
future expectations. LeDoux (1996:115) regards the "emotional diversity ofcultures" as
evidence of this. Paul Ekman's theory reconciled the two divergent theories of
emotional expression (facial expressions) and expression using bodily movements i.e.
emblems and illustrators.
IDENTIFYING EMOTIONS
If you want to identitY a person's specific emotions, you need to infer the
specific needs and desires that s/he is experiencing. According to Bulmer (1975) this
can be done either by asking the person to tell you the needs and desires that he is
experiencing at that time and then infer his motives and emotions. Sternberg (1998:545)
calls this the self-report measure and adds that people may also be asked about their
attitudes, feelings, opinions or behaviours. However, the person may have difficulty
reporting clearly what he is experiencing because he may be experiencing multiple
needs. He may also be unwilling to talk about his needs and then may lie about them. If
he is willing to talk about his needs, he may not be accurate because he may be
unaware ofhis own needs, motives and emotions and their effect upon his behaviour.
To Sternberg (1998) such responses are difficult to quantitY, therefore
alternative self-report measures like the Likert scale have been devised. Here a
respondent is asked to choose among several options the one that best describes the
extent to which he is experiencing a certain emotion. The responses are graded along a
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