Basic and complex emotions in depression and anxiety

The current study was designed to assess the emotion states that occur across the clinical disorders of depression, anxiety and mixed anxiety depression. The emotion states were assessed using the Basic Emotions Scale, which includes a set of simple and complex emotions rationally derived from the basic emotions of sadness, anger, fear, disgust and happiness. The profiles of emotion states across the clinical disorders and across a matched healthy control group supported an analysis in which emotions related to sadness and disgust were elevated in the depressed and mixed disorders, whereas increased levels of anger and fear, and decreased levels of happiness did not distinguish between clinical groups but were found in all disorders in comparison to healthy controls. Further factor analyses gave support for the proposed basic emotions model and did not support alternative models such as the Positive Affect‐Negative Affect model. The findings demonstrate how a theoretically based emotion analysis can provide a useful foundation from which to explore the emotional disorders. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.