Control-Value Theory: From Achievement Emotion to a General Theory of Human Emotions

Abstract In its original version, control-value theory describes and explains achievement emotions. More recently, the theory has been expanded to also explain epistemic, social, and existential emotions. In this article, I outline the development of the theory, from preliminary work in the 1980s to early versions of the theory and the recent generalized control-value theory. I provide summaries of the theory’s evidence-based propositions on antecedents, outcomes, and regulation of emotions, including the fundamentally important role of control and value appraisals across different types of human emotions that are relevant to education (and beyond). The theory includes descriptive taxonomies of emotions as…