Are you an EPFL student looking for a semester project?
Work with us on data science and visualisation projects, and deploy your project as an app on top of Graph Search.
Concept
Affect (psychology)
Summary
Affect, in psychology, refers to the underlying experience of feeling, emotion, attachment, or mood.
The modern conception of affect developed in the 19th century with Wilhelm Wundt. The word comes from the German Gefühl, meaning "feeling".
A number of experiments have been conducted in the study of social and psychological affective preferences (i.e., what people like or dislike). Specific research has been done on preferences, attitudes, impression formation, and decision-making. This research contrasts findings with recognition memory (old-new judgments), allowing researchers to demonstrate reliable distinctions between the two. Affect-based judgments and cognitive processes have been examined with noted differences indicated, and some argue affect and cognition are under the control of separate and partially independent systems that can influence each other in a variety of ways (Zajonc, 1980). Both affect and cognition may constitute independent sources of effects within systems of information processing. Others suggest emotion is a result of an anticipated, experienced, or imagined outcome of an adaptational transaction between organism and environment, therefore cognitive appraisal processes are keys to the development and expression of an emotion (Lazarus, 1982).
Affective states vary along three principal dimensions: valence, arousal, and motivational intensity.
Valence is the subjective spectrum of positive-to-negative evaluation of an experience an individual may have had. Emotional valence refers to the emotion's consequences, emotion-eliciting circumstances, or subjective feelings or attitudes.
Arousal is objectively measurable as activation of the sympathetic nervous system, but can also be assessed subjectively via self-report.
Motivational intensity refers to the impulsion to act; the strength of an urge to move toward or away from a stimulus and whether or not to interact with said stimulus. Simply moving is not considered approach (or avoidance) motivation
It is important to note that arousal is different from motivational intensity.
Official source
About this result
This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.
Ontological neighbourhood
Related courses (14)
HUM-239: Psychology of emotion
On s'intéresse ici à nos réactions émotionnelles : comment elles émergent ? Quelles sont les théories du domaine ? Comment elles influencent notre quotidien ? Nous nous pencherons aussi sur les phénom
AR-485: Political economy of design
Political Economy of Design (PED) seeks to position and discuss architecture in relation to the world of production, economic interests and community benefits or decisions, at a local and global scale
HUM-478: Emotion and value I
Most of us aspire to live meaningful lives. Yet, many of us would struggle to explain what a meaningful life is. This course provides philosophical tools and frameworks useful to understand our aspira
Related lectures (34)
Critical Thinking & Environmental Psychology
Covers critical thinking, theoretical behavior explanations, emotional origins, methodological research considerations, environmental psychology, cognitive biases, and moral licensing.
Economic Growth and Happiness
Explores the link between economic growth and happiness, showing that life satisfaction does not always increase with higher income levels.
Stress and Learning: Effects and Implications
Examines the effects of stress on learning and the importance of teacher-student relationships on engagement and achievement.
Related publications (204)
Related people (31)
Related units (5)
Related concepts (26)
Affective spectrum
The affective spectrum is a spectrum of affective disorders (mood disorders). It is a grouping of related psychiatric and medical disorders which may accompany bipolar, unipolar, and schizoaffective disorders at statistically higher rates than would normally be expected. These disorders are identified by a common positive response to the same types of pharmacologic treatments. They also aggregate strongly in families and may therefore share common heritable underlying physiologic anomalies.
Feeling
Feelings are subjective self-contained phenomenal experiences. According to the APA Dictionary of Psychology, a feeling is "a self-contained phenomenal experience"; and feelings are "subjective, evaluative, and independent of the sensations, thoughts, or images evoking them". The term feeling is closely related to, but not the same as, emotion. Feeling may for instance refer to the conscious subjective experience of emotions. The study of subjective experiences is called phenomenology.
Negative affectivity
Negative affectivity (NA), or negative affect, is a personality variable that involves the experience of negative emotions and poor self-concept. Negative affectivity subsumes a variety of negative emotions, including anger, contempt, disgust, guilt, fear, and nervousness. Low negative affectivity is characterized by frequent states of calmness and serenity, along with states of confidence, activeness, and great enthusiasm. Individuals differ in negative emotional reactivity.