Emotional experience is subject to social and technological change: extrapolating to the future

While the emotion mechanism is generally considered to de evolutionarily co ntinuous, suggesting a certain degree of universality of emotional respondi ng, there is evidence that emotional experience may differ across cultures and historical periods. This article extrapolates potential changes in futu re emotional experiences that can be expected to be caused by rapid serial and technological change. Specifically, four issues due discussed (1) the e ffect of social change on emotions chat ave strongly tied to dominant value s, norms, goals, and self-ideals, like shame, guilt, contempt, and anger; ( 2) the effects of the use of emotion by the mass media on emotional experie nce and emotion serialization; (3) the effects of information technology on emotion expression and regulation; and (4) the possibility of producing ar tificial emotions in autonomous agents (robots). Special emphasis is placed on the class of emotions, defined here as "commotions", that are produced by observing affect in others.