The ultimate goal of this research was to create a taxonomy of emotion terms that can be used in future studies on the role of emotions in work life. To achieve this goal, the research also pursued a number of sub-goals, namely: (1) to obtain conceptual clarification on the concept of emotion; (2) to create a comprehensive yet parsimonious word list on which the taxonomy would be based; (3) to distinguish affect-oriented terms from related terms that more accurately reflect dispositional characteristics (i.e., traits), physical states, and cognitive conditions, in addition to separating affect-oriented terms into moods and emotions; and (4) to identify the major dimensions of emotional states and to classify terms according to these dimensions. To achieve these goals, the research was divided into five empirical phases. The research began with the creation of a word list based on previous empirical research into the semantic structure of emotions. During Phase I, the initial word list was reduced and refined using a complex set of criteria. In Phase II, the list was further refined, with a panel of judges classifying terms according to a series of tests that distinguish affective phenomena from non-affective phenomena. The purpose of Phase III was to test whether valence was the dominant dimension by which emotions could be classified and to divide the list of terms into separate lists of positive and negative words. In Phase IV, other dimensions of emotions were identified and all emotion terms were subjected to a classification task based on the major dimensions identified. As a result of the previous phases, the taxonomy of emotion terms was created and finalized in Phase V.
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