| Abstract |
In a series of studies the emotion lexicon of the Greek language was explored from a
prototype perspective. In the first study the concept of emotion was presented to subjects in
order to list its members. The study was conducted in the spring semester 2001. Subjects (84
psychology students of the University of Crete) were asked to write down as many emotion
names as they can in 5 minutes. The twelve most frequent words, mentioned by at least 25%
of the sample, were: Love (αγάπη), joy (χαρά), sorrow (λύπη), hate (μίσος), fear (φόβος),
romantic love (έρωτας), frustration (απογοήτευση), anguish (άγχος), happiness (ευτυχία),
anger (θυμός), pain (πόνος), sadness (θλίψη). The same sample rated a list of 280 terms,
compiled by the author with emotion names found in dictionaries or used in other studies, for
prototypicality or emotionness. Subjects rated the states named by each of these 280 terms, on
4-point scale ranging from I definitely would not call this an emotion (1) to I definitely
would call this an emotion (4).
Based on the results of the first study a new list containing the “good” examples of the
emotion names was compiled. A second study was conducted in the spring semester 2002 in
order to assess the validity of the proposed list. Subjects (98 psychology students) were asked
to classify each term of this list in one or more of the following superordinate concepts:
physical / bodily state, cognition, emotion, personality trait.
On the grounds of the first two studies the most representative emotion names (110 terms)
were chosen and used in a study conducted in the 2002-2003 academic year. Each of the
terms on this list was printed on a small card. The participating subjects (53 psychology
students) performed a card-sorting task. They sorted cards into categories representing their
best judgements about which emotions are similar to each other. These data were analysed
using a hierarchical cluster analysis technique in order to reveal features of categorical
structure of the Greek emotion lexicon (study 3). The cluster analysis (average linkage)
yielded 17 interpretable clusters named as follows: Fear - anxiety, shame, boredom, psychic
pain, anger, hate, disgust, pleasure - joy, love, altruism, hope, wish, feeling safe, surprise,
moral and religious emotions, being moved, pride. These findings confirm numerous
categories of emotions, which had been found in former studies (Schmidt-Atzert & Ströhm,
1983, Storm & Storm, 1987, Shaver, Schwartz, Kirson & O’Connor, 1987, Alvarado, 1998).
The categories “lust” and “interest” were not confirmed from the Greek data. The categories
wish”, “feeling safe” and “being moved” emerge only in the Greek study as separate
clusters. The category “moral and religious emotions” emerge in the Greek and the Canadian
study.
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