Abstract
Verduyn and Lavrijsen show that event importance and rumination account for much of the variance in how long emotions persist — sadness among the longest in everyday recall.
Verduyn, P., & Lavrijsen, S. (2015). Motivation and Emotion, 39(1), 119–127. DOI
Key findings
- Importance drives length — High-appraisal events produce longer emotional tails than minor triggers.
- Rumination mediator — Rumination explains a large share of duration differences between emotion types.
- Sadness persistence — Sadness ranks among the longest-lasting everyday emotions in this sample.
- Regulation lever — Shorter emotions cluster with less perseverative appraisal styles.
Limits
Self-report recollection — participants recall recent episodes; real-time sampling might shorten some estimates.
Application
When decompression fails — check rumination, not only the original stressor. See Cognitive Decompression · The Refractory Period.