Table 1.

Comparison of results from four qualitative methods in analyzing emotions.

Methodological approach	Participant observation	Practitioner interviews	Retrospective autoethno	Experimental autoethno
Scope and data
Activities	4	8	7	2
Years	10	3	40	2
Scale	>4000 person-days	38 expert practitioners	50 critical incidents	60 incidents triggered
Principal findings
Individuals differ in fear and thrill responses	*	*
Same individual may have different responses on different occasions	*	*
Three measures of past emotional intensity correlate only weakly			*
Fear boosts performance, panic paralyses	*	*
Pre-event fear differs from fear during event		*	*	*
Fear increases with immediacy of risk, and time to contemplate it			*
Fear must be faced, assessed, and overcome in order to act	*	*	*	*
Thrill can occur during and/or after event	*	*	*	*
Thrill can occur without fear, and fear without thrill		*	*	*
Below a lower threshold, thrill can occur without fear	*	*	*	*
Between a lower and upper threshold, thrill increases with fear		*	*
Beyond the upper threshold, thrill vanishes but fear remains			*
Perceived danger generates intense focus and awareness		*	*	*
Fear can disappear during intense concentration and focus		*	*	*
Absence of emotion extends only during most intense concentration			*	*
Under high risk, emotional sequence is fear, focus, thrill/relief/triumph		*	*	*

* Finding demonstrated by method concerned.