Roberts: "What an emotion is: A sketch".
Question: Characterize 'concern-based construals'. Use a detailed example of your own!.
The disquisition "What an emotion is: A sketch" by Robert C. Roberts in 1988, has the aim to describe clearly what Roberts understands as emotions. He defines emotions, feelings, construals and judgments to exclude some other interpretations of emotions. .
At first, he gives seven points that characterize emotions. Some major attributes are that emotions can be felt and they are intentional states with propositional objects. The subject of an emotion is sometimes capable of controlling it and sometimes not (for example: One can let a certain fear take control over oneself or one tries to ignore it and is therefore able to suppress it.). Additionally, emotions are typically experienced as unified states of mind. Roberts does not want to include all definitions of emotions that any philosopher or psychologist has made but he gives a quite all-embracing account of occurrences: embarrassment, anger, shame, envy, gratitude, hope, anxiety, jealously, grief, despair, remorse, joy, resentment, fear, religious awe, pity, panic, pride, indignation, contempt, disgust, resignation, compassion and only to some degree exuberant delight. .
Because some people think that emotions can be equated with feelings, Roberts defines feelings as well to show, not all emotions are feelings and vice-versa. His main argument is that emotions have to "be about/of/etc." something and some feelings, like flushes or goosebumps, do not contain any such postulated reference and thus cannot be called emotions. Still, there are some feelings which have attributes mutual with emotions, for example, felling triumphant, self-confident, awkward or excluded. The combining attribute is the feature of "construing". In general, it is the idea that one sees something by construing it in terms of something else.