After using descriptive experience sampling to study randomly selected moments of inner experience, we make observations about feelings, including blended and multiple feelings. We observe that inner experience usually does not contain feelings. Sometimes, however, feelings are directly present. When feelings are present, most commonly they are unitary. Sometimes people experience separate emotions as a single experience, which we call a blended feeling. Occasionally people have multiple distinct feelings present simultaneously. These distinct multiple feelings can be of opposite valence, with (...) one pleasant and the other unpleasant. We provide examples that inform theories of emotions and discuss the important role observational methodology plays in the effort to understand inner experience including feelings. (shrink)

Introspection, or looking inward to observe one's experience, is inherent in many methods used to study feelings, the experiential component of emotion. Challenges of introspection make faithful, high-fidelity descriptions of feelings difficult to attain. A method that (1) cleaves to a specific moment, (2) cleaves to pristine inner experience, (3) brackets presuppositions, and (4) utilizes an iterative process may be particularly well suited to this task. We review some contemporary introspective methods from the perspective of these four methodological constraints, finding (...) that Descriptive Experience Sampling (DES) addresses the constraints most fully. We present DES findings on feelings to highlight the unique contributions careful introspective methods make to emotion science. High-fidelity descriptions of feelings are necessary for a complete understanding of emotion. (shrink)