Can you hear it? Toward conceptual clarity of emotional cost and negative emotions

Abstract

Research on cost beliefs has surged over the past several years. Though many dimensions of cost have been identified, researchers have often conflated these dimensions with one another. Moreover, some dimensions of cost may actually refer to already established constructs. In the current study, we explore the potential jangle fallacy between emotional cost and negative emotions, including anger, frustration, anxiety, boredom, and confusion, with particular attention to the costs and emotions that students anticipated to be associated with a course, as well as the costs and emotions that students actually experienced during the course. Results of this study provide evidence that emotional cost and negative emotions are distinct constructs in both their anticipated and experienced forms, although some similarities between constructs were also identified. Future directions are discussed for providing more conceptual clarity of emotional cost.