Kinematic Elicitation of Basic Emotions: A Validation Study in an Italian Sample

Abstract

Video clips proved to effectively elicit different emotions. Hewig and colleagues (2005) developed a comprehensive set collecting 20 emotional film clips and investigated the basic emotions elicited in a German sample. In this study, we tested the reproducibility of their findings in Italian nonclinical adult subjects (N = 32) examined individually in an ecological setting; moreover, the differences between presentation modalities (with and without sound) were examined. Clips were rated on 10 emotional states (serene, amused, happy, surprised, sad, scared, angry, disgusted, indignant, tense) and on two bipolar dimensions of valence and intensity. Only little differences between presentation modalities were found; stories depicted proved to be clear enough. Film clips elicited the expected emotional profiles, and their rank order for each emotion is almost comparable with the German ones. However, all the clips elicited more than one emotion: ANCOVA proved that emotions were not fully independent and specific association patterns were found. Implications are discussed in the light of the complexity of emotional activation.