Emotional phenomena are as pervasive as they are varied. Over a century ago, William James complained that,

As far as “scientific psychology” of the emotions goes, I may have been surfeited by too much reading of classic works on the subject, but I should as lief read verbal descriptions of the shapes of the rocks on a New Hampshire farm as toil through them again. They give one nowhere a central point of view, or a deductive or generative principle. They distinguish and refine and specify in infinitum without ever getting onto another logical level. (1890, p 448).

Since James’ complaint, several scholars have proposed theories that attempt to bridge that gap in abstraction. Of those theories, the basic emotions approach gained increased support during the second half of the twentieth century. There are several basic emotions theories, but they all share some basic assumptions. Basic emotion theories propose that the array of human affective phenomena arise out of a handful of basic emotions (e.g., Ekman 1999; Izard 1991, 2007). Basic emotions are “those emotions that have been characterized as having evolutionarily old neurobiological substrates, as well as an evolved feeling component and capacity for expressive and other behavioral actions of evolutionary origin” (Izard 2007, p 261). Through their interaction with an individual’s experiences and cognitions, basic emotions give rise to a variety of complex and idiosyncratic affective experiences. While these complex emotional reactions can be understood in terms of more basic components, basic emotions cannot. In this sense, they are irreducible, and hence basic. Furthermore, basic emotion theorists proposed that most of the daily emotional experiences of human adults are not basic emotions. “Theorists generally agree that basic emotions are few in number, relatively infrequent, and short in duration and that nonbasic emotions (emotion schemas) are virtually infinite in number and usually longer in duration (cf. Damasio 1999; James 1890/1950; Kagan 1978).” (Izard 2007, p 265) Thus, basic emotions include many experiences that laypeople call emotions, but not all of those experiences. For instance, laypeople probably consider jealousy an emotion. Basic emotion theorists would propose that, although jealousy is a real emotional experience, it is not a basic emotion. They would argue that jealousy is a complex phenomenon that arises out of the interaction of basic emotions (especially anger) and specific cognitive processes.

One area of disagreement among different basic emotion approaches is over the list of basic emotions. Shaver et al. (1996) have summarized the basic emotion lists proposed by several scholars. A review of those lists shows that there is consensus that joy, anger, sadness, and fear are basic emotions. Other emotions like shame and contempt are more controversial. In this article, I will argue that tenderness should be considered a basic emotion.Footnote 1 In order to understand what tenderness is, I will first discuss its relationships with related concepts.

Tenderness, love, and empathy

One of the concepts related to tenderness is love. Love is conspicuously absent from basic emotion lists. Shaver et al. (1996) have presented several arguments for the inclusion of love as a basic emotion. However, they agreed with Ekman (1999) that the word “love” often does not refer to an emotion but to a disposition to respond emotionally. Shaver et al. pointed out, however, that the emotional disposition of love is punctuated by “surges” of emotion. These surges are temporally discrete in the way other basic emotions are.

In addition, Shaver et al. (1996) noted that the term “love” means different things under different circumstances. In other words, there are several varieties of love. Based on attachment theory, Shaver et al. distinguished among love as attachment, love as caregiving, and love as sexual attraction. Each of these three types of love may occur by itself, or it may combine with one or both other types. Shaver et al. suggested that different types of emotion “surges” may correspond to the different types of love.

I conceptualize tenderness as the momentary experience, that is, the emotion “surge,” that corresponds to love as caregiving. Frijda (1986) proposed that, “tenderness can be regarded as the impulse toward tender—that is, caregiving—behavior; or else as the acute act of recognition of an object as a fit object for such behavior” (p 83). To summarize the conceptual relationship between tenderness and love, whereas love is a disposition to respond emotionally, tenderness is a momentary emotional experience. And whereas there are different varieties of love, tenderness relates specifically to caregiving.

Another concept that is related to tenderness is the concept of empathy. Clinical and counseling psychologists may be familiar with Rogers’ (1957) definition of empathy: “to sense the client’s private world as if it were your own, but without ever losing the ‘as if’ quality” (p 99). In the context of this definition, the word “sense” probably means two things: a cognitive understanding and a feeling. Batson and Shaw (1991) suggest using the term “perspective taking” to refer to the cognitive aspect. They reserve the term “empathy” for the emotional feeling that may arise from taking someone else’s perspective. In this sense, Batson et al. (2005) state that,

Empathy (…) refers to an other-oriented emotional response congruent with the perceived welfare of another (…). Empathic feelings for someone in need include sympathy, compassion, tenderness, and the like. These feelings have been found to be a potent source of motivation to help relieve the empathy-inducing need. (p 15).

Lishner (2003) reported some evidence consistent with the idea that tenderness and sympathy are distinct empathic feelings. In particular, his results suggest that perceiving someone’s vulnerability elicits tenderness, whereas perceiving someone’s current need elicits sympathy. In addition to differences in what elicits tenderness versus sympathy, it appears that laypeople categorize tenderness apart from sympathy. Shaver et al. (1987) found that participants organized the term “tenderness” into a love category and “sympathy” into a sadness category. To summarize the relationship between tenderness and empathy, tenderness is an empathic feeling, but it is more specific, and distinct from sympathy, which appears more closely related to the basic emotion of sadness.

Both love and empathy are complex reactions and therefore they would not qualify as basic emotions. I hypothesize, however, that tenderness probably does qualify as a basic emotion. Ekman (1999) proposed 11 characteristics that any basic emotion must have. They are: (a) distinctive universal signals; (b) distinctive physiology, (c) automatic appraisal, tuned to (d) distinctive universals in antecedent events; (e) distinctive appearance developmentally; (f) presence in other primates; (g) quick onset; (h) brief duration; (i) unbidden occurrence; (j) distinctive thoughts, memories, images; and (k) distinctive subjective experience (p 56). Ekman admitted that research had not yet established that any emotion fulfills all the criteria he proposed.

The present article reports an experiment designed to test whether tenderness meets the criterion of distinctive subjective experience. In particular, given that tenderness is a pleasant, positive emotion (Shaver et al. 1987), I looked into the subjective distinction between tenderness and joy. If tenderness is not subjectively distinct from joy, that may indicate that tenderness, rather than a basic emotion, can be explained in terms of the more basic emotion of joy. Before presenting the rationale for the experiment, I will review some evidence concerning whether tenderness meets some of the other criteria for basic emotions proposed by Ekman.

Distinctive universal signals and physiology

Researchers have found evidence for the physiological and expressive distinctiveness of tenderness in a variety of cultures. In studies with Chilean and Danish participants, Bloch and her colleagues (Bloch et al. 1991, 1987; Santibáñez-H and Bloch 1986) found that tenderness was associated with a specific breathing pattern, body posture, and facial expression, which were different from those of joy, anger, sadness, fear, and sexual arousal. In particular, breathing in tenderness has a slow and even rhythm, inhalation and exhalation are done through the nose, and there is a slight pause at the end of the exhalation. The general muscular tone is relaxed, leaning slightly forward. One of the most distinctive characteristics of the tenderness display is that the head is tilted sideways. Finally, in tenderness, there is a slight smile, and the gaze is directed at an object. Santibáñez-H and Bloch (1986) also found that whereas joy, anger, sadness, fear, and sexual arousal increased heart rate, tenderness decreased it. In another study, French observers were able to effectively distinguish the postural and facial expressions of tenderness from those of joy, anger, sadness, fear, and sexual arousal (Lemeignan et al. 1992).

Automatic appraisal tuned to distinctive universals in antecedent events

There is little on the appraisals and antecedents that elicit tenderness. Lishner (2003) reported a reanalysis of data from a previous experiment showing that reading a story about a human adult led to less tenderness than reading the same story about a child, a dog, or a puppy. In two subsequent experiments, Lishner found that watching a video of a human infant led to high levels of tenderness, regardless of the infant’s emotional display or reported health state. This pattern was more reliable among women than men. In a third experiment, he found that, for both men and women, imagining a child led to more tenderness than imagining an adult. Lishner proposed that appraising vulnerability in a target elicits tenderness and that,

Perceptions of vulnerability will likely occur when an observer makes certain inferences about a target such as whether he or she can control his or her situation, whether the target is naïve or not, and possibly whether the target displays heuristic vulnerability cues (e.g., childlike features, attributes, or behaviors; Eibl-Ebesfeldt 1971; Lorenz 1971). Furthermore, if current need is perceived, then the likelihood of perceiving vulnerability increases because the existence of current need indicates that some dimension of well-being is not sufficiently regulated. (p 73).

The little extant evidence thus suggests that an appraisal of vulnerability is associated with tenderness. Observing an animal, an infant, or a child appears to be a common antecedent of tenderness. However, not all infants may elicit the same level of tenderness. Langlois et al. (1995) reported that mothers of attractive infants displayed more interactions that were affectionate towards their children than did mothers of unattractive infants.

Presence in other primates

As previously discussed, tenderness is related to caregiving. Caregiving behavior is present not only among primates, but among mammals more generally. Panksepp (2000) described a “CARE/nurturance” emotional system in mammals, mediated by the anterior cingulate, bed nucleus of stria terminalis, preoptic area, ventral tegmental area, and periaqueductal gray. Oxytocin, prolactin, dopamine, and opioids are the key neuromodulators of this system. Bell (2001) proposed a theory which traces the evolution of caregiving behavior back to the premammalian reptiles. Bell provided an especially compelling argument for the evolutionary primitiveness of caregiving:

Attachment theory has described how an attachment behavioral control system could provide survival advantages to primates and humans within the environment of evolutionary adaptedness. However, as Bowlby’s (1982) analysis showed but did not emphasize, the evolutionary advantages of attachment can only be realized if there is a preexisting caregiving behavioral control system (Bell and Richard 2000). Crying, one of the prototypical attachment behaviors, would be an evolutionary disadvantage if there were no caregiver to respond because crying attracts predators. Crying is only an advantage to the extent that it usually attracts the caregiver faster than it attracts the predator. As a result, any evolutionary analysis of attachment must account for the prior emergence of the caregiving behavioral control system as a prerequisite for the emergence of an attachment behavioral control system (p 226).

Bell argued that attachment theory had focused excessively on the cognitive aspects of caregiving at the expense of the emotional impulse towards caregiving. Bell’s “caring emotion” appears to be equivalent to tenderness.

Quick onset, brief duration, and unbidden occurrence

As previously discussed, it is important to distinguish the emotion of tenderness from the emotional disposition of love. Tenderness probably meets the criteria of quick onset and brief duration, although research is needed in this area. In addition, the emotion of tenderness cannot be willed. The feeling that arises upon seeing, for instance, a cute baby, is automatic.

Distinctive thoughts, memories, images

As previously discussed, Bloch et al. (1987, 1991; Santibáñez-H and Bloch 1986) found that tenderness was associated with a specific breathing pattern, body posture, and facial expression. These authors also discovered that they could teach participants the “effector patterns” of each emotion, and that the voluntary reproduction of these patterns induced the corresponding subjective feeling in the participant. In Chile, I conducted a study exploring the use of these patterns in psychotherapy (Kalawski 1997). In one of the sessions studied, the client/participant was talking about a conflict with her boyfriend. Her discourse was generally one of blaming him without understanding his perspective. Then I gave her instructions to reproduce the pattern of tenderness, but without naming the target emotion. During this exercise, I asked her to think about her boyfriend. After the exercise, the participant reported having felt tenderness. She added that when I asked her to think about her boyfriend she was able to see the whole situation in a different way, understanding his position. Also concerning thoughts associated with tenderness, Lishner (2003) reported that tenderness was positively correlated to feeling “protective” and to valuing the welfare of the tenderness-inducing target.

Distinctive subjective experience and the present experiment

An affective phenomenon cannot be considered a basic emotion if it “feels” like another emotion. An example of this is jealousy, which does not have a specific subjective feeling. Often, a jealous person may feel anger or another basic emotion, but there is no “jealous” feeling distinct from the way basic emotions feel. With regards to tenderness, it could not be considered a basic emotion unless it has its own, unique subjective experience. Lishner’s results suggest that the experience of tenderness is distinct from the experience of sympathy. However, I am not aware of any studies directly testing whether the subjective experience of tenderness is distinct from that of other basic emotions. Given tenderness’ pleasant quality, it is possible that persons reporting feeling tenderness will also report feeling joy. This intuitive hypothesis may be one of the reasons why theorists do not consider tenderness a basic emotion. I assumed that a positive correlation between tenderness and joy would be likely. However, it is possible that this correlation is not due to tenderness’ lack of a distinct subjective experience. Instead, a positive correlation between joy and tenderness may reflect the fact that many situations call for both tenderness and joy. It is also possible that people use words such as “joy” to refer to pleasant feelings in general, but, if required, are able to tell joy from tenderness. Therefore, an experiment that uses stimuli that selectively preclude the experience of either joy or tenderness may have a better chance of finding a subjective distinction between the two, if such distinction exists. The question then is what kinds of stimuli can selectively preclude either joy or tenderness. A possible answer to this question may come from the intuitive notions that joy is the opposite of sadness and that tenderness is the opposite of anger. Some research findings are consistent with this possibility. Lorr and McNair (1988), for instance, reported the discovery of six bipolar mood factors. One factor had “elated” (joy) and “depressed” (sadness) as their poles. Another factor’s poles were “agreeable” (tenderness) and “hostile” (anger). There are several ways to interpret this kind of results. The first interpretation is that the two poles of each factor represent opposite extremes of a single process. Another interpretation is that emotions such as joy and depression result from different processes that somehow inhibit each other. Thirdly, one might view these results as reflecting the fact that situations that induce one polar emotion normally do not induce the emotion considered its opposite. Under this interpretation, sadness is not necessarily opposite to joy; they just tend to occur in different situations. Whatever the interpretation, it appears that stimuli that induce certain emotions also tend to preclude the experience of other specific emotions. If this were the case, and in particular, if anger precludes tenderness and sadness precludes joy, adding anger-inducing features to a joyful stimulus and sad features to a tender stimulus would increase the contrast between joy and tenderness. The present study employed five types of stimuli, as presented in Table 1. The stimuli varied along two hypothetical dimensions: sadness-inducing versus joy-inducing, and anger-inducing versus tenderness-inducing. For the purposes of the present study, I called “pitiful” a stimulus expected to induce both tenderness and sadness, whereas a “cute” stimulus would induce tenderness but not sadness. Both are “tender” stimuli. Similarly, I called “ironic”, a stimulus expected to induce both joy/amusement and anger, and “funny” one expected to induce joy/amusement but no anger. Both are “amusing” stimuli. The main hypothesis was that tender stimuli would lead to higher levels of tenderness and lower levels of joy as compared to the amusing stimuli. Another hypothesis was that tender stimuli would lead to higher tenderness than a “neutral” stimulus would. Likewise, amusing stimuli would lead to higher joy/amusement than the neutral stimulus would.

Table 1 Emotional stimuli conceptualized on sadness-joy versus anger-tenderness dimensions
Full size table

In addition to finding out what types of stimuli differentially induce tenderness versus joy, it was important to know what “tenderness” meant to participants. Thus, they rated tenderness on three dimensions: passive-active, unpleasant-pleasant, and relaxed-tense. The research and theory previously reviewed are consistent with a view of tenderness as active, relaxed, and pleasant. It is active as it provides the impulse toward caregiving behavior. It is relaxed according to research on its physiology and expression. Finally, previously reviewed research by Shaver et al. (1987) showed that people categorize tenderness as a pleasant emotion.

Method

Participants

One hundred forty-seven undergraduates (86 female) from the research pool of the University of North Texas psychology department participated in the study. Their mean age was 22.15 years (SD = 5.92). The modal age was 19 years. Separate schedules for males and females randomly assigned each participant to one stimulus condition (ironic, funny, pitiful, cute, or neutral).

Design

As previously stated, the main hypothesis was that tender stimuli would lead to higher levels of tenderness and lower levels of joy than amusing stimuli would. To test this hypothesis, I compared emotion ratings across levels of two variables: the main emotional characteristic of the stimuli (tender or amusing, a between-subjects variable) and the type of emotion measured (tenderness or joy, a within-subjects variable). If joy and tenderness are in fact distinct emotions, as hypothesized, participants in the joy-inducing conditions would score higher on the joy measure, and participants in the tenderness-inducing conditions would score higher on the tenderness measure. This means that there would be an interaction between the type of emotional stimulus and the emotion measured.

An additional between-subjects factor was the presence or absence of features to preclude either joy or tenderness. That is, sadness-inducing features in a tenderness-inducing stimulus would preclude joy. Conversely, anger-inducing features in a joy-inducing stimulus would preclude tenderness. There was no prediction as to whether the presence or absence of these features would moderate the hypothesized interaction between the type of emotional stimulus and the emotion measured. This stimulus x measure interaction could occur across the board, or it could occur only when the precluding features were present.

Materials

Emotional stimuli

The “cute” scene was a segment from the movie Animal Bloopers (Ingle and Heck 1994), lasting approximately 1 min and 45 s. In it, a zookeeper explains how he takes care of a baby Asian otter while images show the animal in several activities. The expectation was that this scene would elicit tenderness as the baby otter is vulnerable, and thus an object for care-giving behavior.

The “pitiful” scene was a segment from The Bear (Annaud 1989), lasting approximately 1 min and 34 s. The scene shows a cub bear and its mother. A big rock falls on top of the mother, causing its death. The cub tries to rescue the mother unsuccessfully. As in the case of the baby otter, the cub is vulnerable and thus an object for care-giving behavior, which should induce tenderness. Additionally, both the death of a family member and failure to achieve an important goal (in this case, saving the cub’s mother) tend to elicit sadness (Izard 1991), so if participants identified with the cub they would experience those emotions too.

The “funny” scene was a segment from Bill Cosby: Himself (Cosby and Cosby 1982), lasting approximately 2 min and 13 s. In this scene, Bill Cosby humorously describes his experiences with dentists. As this scene is from a popular comedian, the expectation was that it would induce joy/amusement.

The “ironic” scene was a segment from the movie Brazil (Gilliam 1985), lasting approximately 1 min and 13 s. The character played by Jonathan Pryce is in a minuscule office receiving documents though a tube, which he must then insert into another tube. The documents come in faster than he can manage. When he finds a way to connect the two tubes, someone pulls his desk from the adjacent office. Finally, the tube explodes, causing a rain of paper. The expectation was that this ridiculous situation would elicit joy/amusement. However, participants would also experience anger if they identified with the frustration endured by the character.

The “neutral” scene was from an interview with B. F. Skinner (Miller 1977), lasting approximately 1 min and 20 s. In it, Skinner explains operant conditioning. The expectation was that this scene would not induce high levels of any emotion.

Before beginning the present study, I showed all the segments, except the one from Bill Cosby, to graduate psychology students and measured their emotional reactions with the same scales described in the Measures section, to assess whether their reactions matched the expected ones. All of the graduate students reported the predicted pattern of emotions to the cute, pitiful, and neutral scenes. In response to the ironic scene, one person reported feeling anger and joy/amusement, as expected. Another one reported only anger, and a third person reported sadness.

Measures

There was a set of standard demographic questions. The emotion questionnaire had the following instructions: “Below are four emotions. Please circle how much of each emotion you felt in response to the video. The number 0 means that you did not feel the emotion at all. The number 10 represents an extreme level of that emotion. You can circle any number.” There were four separate lines labeled “Joy/Amusement”, “Tenderness”, “Sadness”, and “Anger”. Thus, the questionnaire yielded four separate scores, ranging from 0 to 10, for each participant on each emotion, equal to the number circled on each scale. Following the emotion questionnaire on a separate page, participants answered a questionnaire with the following instructions: “One of the emotions we asked you about in the previous page was TENDERNESS. Regardless of how much tenderness you felt, we want to know what tenderness means to you. For each item below, please circle the number that you think represents tenderness. There is no right or wrong answer.” After those instructions, there were three semantic differential scales. Each scale had a 0–10 range. The anchors were passive-active, unpleasant-pleasant, and relaxed-tense.

Procedure

Students individually participated in this experiment. After providing informed consent, participants completed the demographic questionnaire. An experimenter then started the videotape and then went to the back of the room to avoid giving the participant any cues regarding reactions to the scene. Once the scene was over, the experimenter handed the participant the questionnaires to complete. For participants watching the pitiful scene, before starting the video, the experimenter added this statement: “The scene you will watch is not from a documentary. It is from a fictional movie”. The reason for this explanation is that one pilot participant reported feeling angry that someone would film the death of an animal without intervening.

Results

Table 2 presents the mean ratings for each emotion and experimental condition.

Table 2 Mean ratings by emotion measured and experimental condition
Full size table

Anger and sadness

Before testing the hypotheses regarding tenderness and joy, the first set of analyses was a manipulation check for the effectiveness of the features meant to preclude those emotions. The first step in this process was testing whether the ironic and pitiful scenes had actually induced anger and sadness, respectively. The next step was testing the correlation between anger and tenderness on the one hand, and sadness and joy on the other. If anger precluded tenderness and sadness precluded joy, both correlations would be negative.

An ANOVA comparing anger scores among the five experimental conditions (cute, pitiful, funny, ironic, and neutral) yielded a significant gender main effect, F(1, 137) = 4.84, MSE = 3.07, Partial η2 = .59. There was also a significant scene × gender interaction, F(4, 137) = 2.66, MSE = 3.07, Partial η2 = .07. Therefore, the next analyses were tests of simple effects for males and females. Among males, the scene watched had a significant effect on anger scores, F(4, 56) = 6.66, MSE = 3.78, Partial η2 = .32, as expected. Paired Bonferroni comparisons showed that the ironic scene, M = 3.62 (SD = 2.90), led to the higher anger scores than the neutral, M = .69 (SD = 2.21), cute, M = .30 (SD = .95), and funny, M = .04 (SD = .20), scenes did. The scores from the pitiful condition, M = 1.66 (SD = 1.66), did not differ significantly from those of any other condition. These results were consistent with my expectations, except that the anger scores in the pitiful condition were not statistically different from those in the ironic condition. The scene watched had a significant effect on anger scores for females, F(4, 81) = 4.29, MSE = 2.58, Partial η2 = .18. Contrary to my expectations, paired Bonferroni comparisons did not yield a significant difference between the ironic condition scores, M = 1.17 (SD = 2.17), and those of the other conditions. The scores for the pitiful condition, M = 1.80 (SD = 2.48), were higher than those for the neutral, M = .22 (SD = .73), cute, M = .07 (SD = .26), and funny, M = .07 (SD = .26), conditions, which did not differ from each other.

The next ANOVA compared sadness scores among the five experimental conditions. Gender had no main or interaction effects, Fs < 1. Consequently, the analysis presently reported did not include gender as a factor. As expected, the scene watched had a significant effect on these scores, F(4, 142) = 148.50, MSE = 2.38, Partial η2 = .81. Paired Bonferroni comparisons showed that the pitiful scene led to higher sadness scores than any of the other scenes did. The scores of the cute, ironic, neutral, and funny conditions did not differ from each other. These results are consistent with my expectation that the pitiful scene would induce more sadness than all other conditions would.

The next step of the manipulation check was testing the correlation between anger and tenderness and joy and sadness, respectively. The former correlation was not significant, r = .06, p = .43, contrary to the expectation. The latter correlation was negative, r = −.44, p < .01, as expected.

To summarize, the ironic condition appeared to succeed at inducing anger in males. However, among females, the pitiful, not the ironic, condition induced the most anger. Furthermore, anger did not preclude tenderness, and the pitiful condition, meant to induce tenderness, led to an unexpectedly high level of anger. The pitiful condition did appear to succeed at inducing sadness. Sadness, in turn, had a negative correlation with joy.

Ratings of tenderness versus joy

The primary analysis was a 2 × 2 × 2 ANOVA according to the design previously described. As previously explained, the dependent variable was emotion rating as indicated by the score on the 0–10 scale for the corresponding emotion. The factors were type of emotion measured (within subjects), whether the scene was tender or amusing (between subjects), and the presence or absence of precluding features in the scene (between subjects). A preliminary analysis yielded no interaction effects of gender, Fs < 1. Consequently, the analysis presently reported did not include gender as a factor. There was a significant three-way interaction, F(1, 112) = 24.50, MSE = 3.04, Partial η2 = .18. This means that the presence or absence of precluding features moderated the interaction between the emotion measure and the main emotional feature. Further exploration of this interaction involved running separate tests of simple effects for the participants who saw the scenes with precluding features and for those who saw the scenes without those features. Again, gender was not a factor. There was a significant interaction between the emotion measured and the main emotional characteristic of the scene, both for the precluding features condition, F(1, 61) = 191.36, MSE = 3.73, Partial η2 = .76, and the no precluding features condition, F(1, 51) = 73.73, MSE = 2.22, Partial η2 = .59. However, the interaction took a different form depending on whether or not the scenes included a precluding feature. In the case of the scenes with the precluding features, the ironic (amusing with anger-inducing features) scene led to low tenderness and higher joy/amusement, whereas the pitiful (tender and sad) scene led to high tenderness and low joy/amusement. In the case of the scenes without the precluding features, the funny scene led to low tenderness and high joy/amusement, whereas the cute scene led to high scores for both tenderness and joy/amusement. The interaction between the main emotional feature and the emotion measured was consistent with the main hypothesis of the present study.

Comparison among all groups

Given an interaction between the main emotional feature and the emotion measure, a possible next step could be to run separate tests of simple effects for tenderness and joy as the dependent variables. As the interaction was significant for conditions both with and without precluding features, that would yield four separate tests. An alternative, more informative strategy consisted of running two ANOVAs comparing scores among all five experimental conditions (cute, pitiful, funny, ironic, and neutral). The dependent variables were the tenderness and joy scores, respectively. Preliminary analyses showed no main or interaction effects of gender on either variable, Fs < 1.

As expected, the experimental condition significantly affected tenderness scores, F(4, 142) = 93.51, MSE = 3.39, Partial η2 = .72. Paired Bonferroni comparisons showed that tenderness scores were higher for the cute and pitiful scenes than for the funny, ironic, and neutral scenes. These results are consistent with my hypotheses.

As expected, the experimental condition significantly affected joy scores, F(4, 142) = 61.81, MSE = 3.97, Partial η2 = .64. Paired Bonferroni comparisons showed that the funny and cute conditions led to higher joy scores than all other conditions did. The ironic condition, in turn, led to higher scores than the pitiful and neutral conditions. These results were consistent with the hypotheses, with the exception that there was no prediction regarding how much joy the cute scene would induce.

Participants’ conceptions of tenderness

The next series of analyses dealt with the participants’ responses to the questionnaire on the meaning tenderness had for them. Participants’ responses could range from 0 (passive, unpleasant, or relaxed, depending on the item) to 10 (active, pleasant, or tense, respectively). A score of 5 meant “neutral”. Participants rated tenderness as neither passive nor active, t(146) = 1.40, p = .16, M = 5.26 (SD = 2.24). This was contrary to my hypothesis that they would rate it as active. There was no correlation between this item and participants’ tenderness scores, r = .01, p = .91. Furthermore, the answer to this question did not differ by gender, F(1, 145) = 1.06, MSE = 5.03, Partial η2 = .01.

As expected, participants rated tenderness as pleasant, t(146) = 5.84, p = < .01, M = 6.49 (SD = 3.10). There was no correlation between this item and participants’ tenderness scores, r = −.07, p = .38. The answer to this question did not differ by gender, F(1, 145) = .14, MSE = 9.64, Partial η2 < .01. Participants also rated tenderness as relaxed, t(146) = 8.47, p = < .01, M = 3.26 (SD = 2.49). This was consistent with my hypotheses. Again, there was no correlation between this item and participants’ tenderness scores, r = .13, p = .11. Likewise, the answer to this question did not differ by gender, F(1, 145) < .01, MSE = 6.26, Partial η2 < .01.

Discussion

The present results may clarify the relationships of empathy, sympathy, and tenderness with other emotional phenomena. Although I did not directly measure empathy or sympathy, those feelings would be expected in the pitiful condition, as it presented a target in need (Batson et al. 2005; Batson and Shaw 1991; Lishner 2003). The cute condition, on the other hand, would be expected to induce tenderness but not sympathy, as it presented a target which was vulnerable but not in current need (Lishner’s 2003). The results show that the pitiful condition induced tenderness and sadness, while the cute condition induced tenderness but not sadness. This pattern of results seems to suggest that tenderness and sadness are different components of sympathy. It may also help explain why laypersons categorize sympathy along with sadness (Shaver et al. 1987). A sympathetic observer’s sadness is congruent with the sadness likely felt by the target in need. Tenderness appears to provide the other-oriented, empathic emotional component to sympathy.

The present results also show that tenderness is not simply general positive affect, as different experimental conditions led to either tenderness with joy (the cute condition), tenderness without joy (the pitiful condition) or joy without tenderness (the funny and ironic conditions). If tenderness and joy are distinct emotions, they may also have distinct cognitive and behavioral consequences. There is a wealth of research on the effects of positive affect on social cognition and behavior (e.g., Crisp and Hewstone 2000; Isen 1987; Urada and Miller 2000). Future research may focus on the specific behavioral and cognitive effects of tenderness versus joy.

One interesting finding of the present study was that the ironic scene induced significant levels of anger only among males. There are several possible explanations for this. The simplest one would be that males are more prone to experience and/or report anger. Another possibility is that it was easier for males to identify with the male character in the scene. Finally, it is possible that women are more likely to think of anger as negative. If this is the case, the fact that the ironic scene also induced joy might have prevented them from consciously acknowledging anger. Future research could empirically test these speculations.

With the exception of the previously discussed gender effect, gender showed no other significant effects. In the present study, gender did not relate either to the overall level of tenderness or to what conditions led to it. By contrast, Lishner (2003) found that women reported higher tenderness than did men. One difference between Lishner’s studies and the present experiment is that Lishner’s targets were human babies and children. In the present experiment, on the other hand, the tenderness targets were animals. Women’s higher tenderness scores in Lishner’s studies may be due to women having more extensive socialization with children and babies. Men and women’s experiences taking care of animals may be more comparable. In the present study, gender also did not relate to participants’ conceptions of tenderness.

Participants’ conceptions of tenderness were largely consistent with the ones predicted. They viewed it as pleasant and relaxed. Contrary to my hypothesis, participants rated tenderness as neither active nor passive. Tenderness may not show a consistent active/passive pattern because it influences behavior differently depending on whether the target of tenderness has high or low current need.Footnote 2 When the target’s current need is high, then tenderness may motivate more immediate active behavior designed to protect and promote the welfare of the target from immediate threats to his or her wellbeing. In contrast, when current need is low, feeling tenderness for a target may result in an impulse to simply be available for the target.

Overall, the present results suggest that tenderness is distinct from both sadness and joy, and that tenderness may be a necessary component of sympathy and empathy. Previous studies have also shown that tenderness appears to have distinctive signals and physiology. Furthermore, both animal research and attachment theory suggest that tenderness is biologically primitive. Together, these findings are consistent with the view of tenderness as a distinct, elementary emotion, which can be considered in the same category as anger, fear, joy, and sadness. Obviously, the findings presented here do not settle the issue of whether tenderness is a basic emotion. Remember that Ekman (1999) acknowledged that research had not shown that any emotion met all of his criteria. Fully making the case for tenderness as a basic emotion would necessitate a replication of the present findings, as well as additional empirical and conceptual work on whether tenderness meets the different criteria for basic emotions. With the present article, I hope to have shown that it makes sense to think of tenderness as a basic emotion, and that this issue deserves serious consideration. Viewing tenderness as a basic emotion would help understand the complex phenomena of empathy and love using the same paradigm applied to other emotional phenomena.