Affect theory is a theory that seeks to organize
affects, sometimes used interchangeably with
emotion
Emotions are mental states brought on by neurophysiological changes, variously associated with thoughts, feelings, behavioral responses, and a degree of pleasure or displeasure. There is currently no scientific consensus on a definition. ...
s or subjectively experienced feelings, into discrete categories and to typify their physiological, social, interpersonal, and internalized manifestations. The conversation about affect theory has been taken up in
psychology
Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries betwe ...
,
psychoanalysis
PsychoanalysisFrom Greek: + . is a set of theories and therapeutic techniques"What is psychoanalysis? Of course, one is supposed to answer that it is many things — a theory, a research method, a therapy, a body of knowledge. In what might b ...
,
neuroscience
Neuroscience is the scientific study of the nervous system (the brain, spinal cord, and peripheral nervous system), its functions and disorders. It is a multidisciplinary science that combines physiology, anatomy, molecular biology, development ...
,
medicine
Medicine is the science and practice of caring for a patient, managing the diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, treatment, palliation of their injury or disease, and promoting their health. Medicine encompasses a variety of health care pract ...
,
interpersonal communication
Interpersonal communication is an exchange of information between two or more people. It is also an area of research that seeks to understand how humans use verbal and nonverbal cues to accomplish a number of personal and relational goals.
Inter ...
,
literary theory
Literary theory is the systematic study of the nature of literature and of the methods for literary analysis. Culler 1997, p.1 Since the 19th century, literary scholarship includes literary theory and considerations of intellectual history, mo ...
,
critical theory
A critical theory is any approach to social philosophy that focuses on society and culture to reveal, critique and challenge power structures. With roots in sociology and literary criticism, it argues that social problems stem more from soci ...
,
media studies
Media studies is a discipline and field of study that deals with the content, history, and effects of various media; in particular, the mass media. Media Studies may draw on traditions from both the social sciences and the humanities, but mostly ...
, and
gender studies
Gender studies is an interdisciplinary academic field devoted to analysing gender identity and gendered representation. Gender studies originated in the field of women's studies, concerning women, feminism, gender, and politics. The field ...
, among other fields. Hence, affect theory is defined in different ways, depending on the discipline.
Affect theory is originally attributed to the
psychologist
A psychologist is a professional who practices psychology and studies mental states, perceptual, cognitive, emotional, and social processes and behavior. Their work often involves the experimentation, observation, and interpretation of how indi ...
Silvan Tomkins
Silvan Solomon Tomkins (June 4, 1911 – June 10, 1991) was a psychologist and personality theorist who developed both affect theory and script theory. Following the publication of the third volume of his book ''Affect Imagery Consciousness'' in ...
, introduced in the first two volumes of his book ''Affect Imagery Consciousness'' (1962). Tomkins uses the concept of ''affect'' to refer to the "biological portion of emotion," defined as the "hard-wired, preprogrammed, genetically transmitted mechanisms that exist in each of us," which, when triggered, precipitate a "known pattern of biological events". However, it is also acknowledged that, in adults, the affective experience is a result of interactions between the innate mechanism and a "complex matrix of nested and interacting ideo-affective formations."
Affect theory in psychology
Silvan Tomkins's nine affects
According to the psychologist
Silvan Tomkins
Silvan Solomon Tomkins (June 4, 1911 – June 10, 1991) was a psychologist and personality theorist who developed both affect theory and script theory. Following the publication of the third volume of his book ''Affect Imagery Consciousness'' in ...
, there are nine primary
affects. Tomkins characterized affects by low/high intensity labels and by their
physiological expression:
Positive:
* Enjoyment/Joy (reaction to success/impulse to share) – smiling, lips wide and out
* Interest/Excitement (reaction to new situation/impulse to attend) – eyebrows down, eyes tracking, eyes looking, closer listening
Neutral:
*
Surprise/Startle (reaction to sudden change/resets impulses) – eyebrows up, eyes blinking
Negative:
*
Anger
Anger, also known as wrath or rage, is an intense emotional state involving a strong uncomfortable and non-cooperative response to a perceived provocation, hurt or threat.
A person experiencing anger will often experience physical effects, su ...
/
Rage (reaction to threat/impulse to attack) –
frown
A frown (also known as a scowl) is a facial expression in which the eyebrows are brought together, and the forehead is wrinkled, usually indicating displeasure, sadness or worry, or less often confusion or concentration.
The appearance of a fr ...
ing, a clenched jaw, a red face
*
Disgust
Disgust (Middle French: ''desgouster'', from Latin ''gustus'', "taste") is an emotional response of rejection or revulsion to something potentially contagious or something considered offensive, distasteful, or unpleasant. In ''The Expression o ...
(reaction to bad taste/impulse to discard) – the lower lip raised and protruded, head forward and down
* Dissmell (reaction to bad smell/impulse to avoid – similar to distaste) – upper lip raised, head pulled back
* Distress/Anguish (reaction to loss/impulse to mourn) –
crying
Crying is the dropping of tears (or welling of tears in the eyes) in response to an emotional state, or pain. Emotions that can lead to crying include sadness, anger, and even happiness. The act of crying has been defined as "a complex secretom ...
, rhythmic sobbing, arched eyebrows, mouth lowered
*
Fear
Fear is an intensely unpleasant emotion in response to perceiving or recognizing a danger or threat. Fear causes physiological changes that may produce behavioral reactions such as mounting an aggressive response or fleeing the threat. Fear ...
/Terror (reaction to danger/impulse to run or hide) – a frozen stare, a pale face, coldness,
sweat
Perspiration, also known as sweating, is the production of fluids secreted by the sweat glands in the skin of mammals.
Two types of sweat glands can be found in humans: eccrine glands and apocrine glands. The eccrine sweat glands are distribut ...
, erect hair
*
Shame
Shame is an unpleasant self-conscious emotion often associated with negative self-evaluation; motivation to quit; and feelings of pain, exposure, distrust, powerlessness, and worthlessness.
Definition
Shame is a discrete, basic emotion, d ...
/
Humiliation
Humiliation is the abasement of pride, which creates mortification or leads to a state of being humbled or reduced to lowliness or submission. It is an emotion felt by a person whose social status, either by force or willingly, has just decr ...
(reaction to failure/impulse to review behaviour) – eyes lowered, the head down and averted,
blushing
Blushing is the reddening of a person's face due to psychological reasons. It is normally involuntary and triggered by emotional stress associated with passion, embarrassment, shyness, fear, anger, or romantic stimulation.
Severe blushing is ...
Prescriptive applications
According to Tomkins, optimal mental health involves maximizing positive affects and minimizing negative affects.
Affect should also be properly expressed so to make the identification of affect possible to others.
Affect theory is also used prescriptively in investigations about intimacy and
intimate relationship
An intimate relationship is an interpersonal relationship that involves physical or emotional intimacy. Although an intimate relationship is commonly a sexual relationship, it may also be a non-sexual relationship involving family, friends, or ...
s. Kelly describes relationships as agreements to work collaboratively toward maximizing positive affect and minimizing negative affect. Like the "optimal mental health" blueprint, this blueprint requires that members of the relationship express affect to one another in order to identify progress.
These blueprints can also describe natural and implicit goals. For example, Donald Nathanson uses the "affect" to create a narrative for one of his patients:
I suspect that the reason he refuses to watch movies is the sturdy fear of enmeshment in the affect depicted on the screen; the affect mutualization for which most of us frequent the movie theater is only another source of discomfort for him. ... His refusal to risk the range of positive and negative affect associated with sexuality robs any possible relationship of one of its best opportunities to work on the first two rules of either the Kelly or the Tomkins blueprint. Thus, his problems with intimacy may be understood in one aspect as an overly substantial empathic wall, and in another aspect as a purely internal problem with the expression and management of his own affect.
Tomkins claims that "
Christianity
Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global pop ...
became a powerful universal religion in part because of its more general solution to the problem of anger, violence, and suffering versus love, enjoyment, and peace.".
Affect theory is also referenced heavily in Tomkins's
script theory
Script theory is a psychological theory which posits that human behaviour largely falls into patterns called "scripts" because they function analogously to the way a written script does, by providing a program for action. Silvan Tomkins created s ...
.
Attempts to typify affects in psychology
Humor is a subject of debate in affect theory. In studies of humor's physiological manifestations, humor provokes highly
characteristic facial expressions. Some research has shown evidence that humor may be a response to a conflict between negative and positive affects, such as fear and enjoyment, which results in spasmodic contractions of parts of the body, mainly in the stomach and diaphragm area, as well as contractions in the upper cheek muscles. Further affects that seem to be missing for Tomkins's taxonomy include relief, resignation, and confusion, among many others.
The affect joy is observed through the display of
smiling
A smile is a facial expression formed primarily by flexing the muscles at the sides of the mouth. Some smiles include a contraction of the muscles at the corner of the eyes, an action known as a Duchenne smile.
Among humans, a smile expresses ...
. These affects can be identified through immediate
facial reactions that people have to a stimulus, typically well before they could process any real response to the stimulus.
The findings from a study on negative affect arousal and white noise by Stanley S. Seidner "support the existence of a negative affect arousal mechanism through observations regarding the devaluation of speakers from other Spanish ethnic origins".
Critical theory
Affect theory is explored in
philosophy
Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. Some ...
,
psychoanalytic theory
Psychoanalytic theory is the theory of personality organization and the dynamics of personality development that guides psychoanalysis, a clinical method for treating psychopathology. First laid out by Sigmund Freud in the late 19th century, psyc ...
,
gender studies
Gender studies is an interdisciplinary academic field devoted to analysing gender identity and gendered representation. Gender studies originated in the field of women's studies, concerning women, feminism, gender, and politics. The field ...
, and
art theory
Aesthetics, or esthetics, is a branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of beauty and taste (sociology), taste, as well as the philosophy of art (its own area of philosophy that comes out of aesthetics). It examines aesthetic values, ...
.
Eve Sedgwick
Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick (; May 2, 1950 – April 12, 2009) was an American academic scholar in the fields of gender studies, queer theory (queer studies), and critical theory. Sedgwick published several books considered groundbreaking in the field ...
and
Lauren Berlant
Lauren Gail Berlant (October 31, 1957 – June 28, 2021) was an American scholar, cultural theorist, and author who is regarded as "one of the most esteemed and influential literary and cultural critics in the United States." Berlant was the Geo ...
have been called "affect theorists" who write from critical theory perspectives. Many other critical theorists have relied heavily on affect theory, including
Elizabeth Povinelli
Elizabeth A. Povinelli is Franz Boas Professor of Anthropology and Gender Studies at Columbia University, where she has also been the Director of the Institute for Research on Women and Gender and the Co-Director of the Centre for the Study of L ...
. Affect theory is drawn from by
Marxist
Marxism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a Materialism, materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand S ...
autonomists
The Autonomists (french: Autonomistes; it, Autonomisti) was a Christian-democratic Italian political party active in the Aosta Valley.
It was founded in 1997 by the union of the regional Italian People's Party with For Aosta Valley, and some ...
including
Franco Berardi
Franco "Bifo" Berardi (born 2 November 1949) is an Italian Marxist philosopher, theorist and activist in the autonomist tradition, whose work mainly focuses on the role of the media and information technology within post-industrial capitalism. ...
,
Michael Hardt
Michael Hardt (born 1960) is an American political philosopher and literary theorist. Hardt is best known for his book ''Empire'', which was co-written with Antonio Negri.
Hardt and Negri suggest that several forces which they see as dominat ...
and
Antonio Negri
Antonio "Toni" Negri (born 1 August 1933) is an Italian Spinozistic- Marxist sociologist and political philosopher, best known for his co-authorship of ''Empire'' and secondarily for his work on Spinoza.
Born in Padua, he became a political ...
. And by
Marxist feminists
Marxist feminism is a philosophical variant of feminism that incorporates and extends Marxist theory. Marxist feminism analyzes the ways in which women are exploited through capitalism and the individual ownership of private property. According ...
including
Selma James
Selma James (born Selma Deitch; formerly Weinstein; August 15, 1930) is an American writer, and feminist and social activist who is co-author of the women's movement book ''The Power of Women and the Subversion of the Community'' (with Mariarosa ...
and
Silvia Federici
Silvia Federici (born in Parma, Italy, 1942) is a scholar, teacher, and feminist activist based in New York. She is a professor emerita and teaching fellow at Hofstra University in New York State, where she was a social science professor. She al ...
, who consider the cognitive and material manifestations of particularized gendered, performed roles including
caregiving
A caregiver or carer is a paid or unpaid member of a person's social network who helps them with activities of daily living. Since they have no specific professional training, they are often described as informal caregivers. Caregivers most commo ...
. Critical theorist
Sara Ahmed
Sara Ahmed (30 August 1969) is a British-Australian writer and scholar whose area of study includes the intersection of feminist theory, lesbian feminism, queer theory, affect theory, critical race theory and postcolonialism. Her seminal wor ...
describes affect as "sticky" in her essay "Happy Objects" to explain the sustained connection between "ideas, values, and objects.".
In line with these theorists, many scholars identify the role of affect in shaping social values, gender ideals, and collective groups. Affect is seen as instrumental for events and symbols that produce shared identities, and is therefore central in contemporary politics. Affect is also treated as central in capitalist systems, including people's attachment to commodities and "dreams" of class mobility. In addition, the non-discursive and non-deliberative attributes of affect may produce social interactions and experiences that are non-reducible to specific endpoints, and at times may allow people to experience new modes of existence separated from their main life goals.
Interpersonal communication
This nonverbal mode of conveying feelings and influence is held to play a central role in intimate relationships. The Emotional Safety model of couples therapy seeks to identify the affective messages that occur within the couple's emotional relationship (the partners' feelings about themselves, each other, and their relationship); most importantly, messages regarding (a) the security of the attachment and (b) how each individual is valued.
One practical application of affect theory has been its incorporation into
couples therapy
Couples therapy (also couples' counseling, marriage counseling, or marriage therapy) attempts to improve romantic relationships and resolve interpersonal conflicts.
History
Marriage counseling originated in Germany in the 1920s as part of the eu ...
. Two characteristics of affects have powerful implications for intimate relationships:
#According to Tomkins, a central characteristic of affects is affective resonance, which refers to a person's tendency to resonate and experience the same affect in response to viewing a display of that affect by another person, sometimes thought to be "contagion". Affective resonance is considered to be the original basis for all
human communication
Human communication, or anthroposemiotics, is a field of study dedicated to understanding how humans Communication, communicate. Humans ability to communicate with one another would not be possible without an understanding of what we are refere ...
(before there were words, there was a smile and a
nod).
#Also according to Tomkins, affects provide a sense of urgency to the less powerful drives. Thus, affects are powerful sources of
motivation
Motivation is the reason for which humans and other animals initiate, continue, or terminate a behavior at a given time. Motivational states are commonly understood as forces acting within the agent that create a disposition to engage in goal-dire ...
. In Tomkins' words, affects make good things better and bad things worse.
Criticism
Some scholars have taken issue with the claims and methodologies of affect theorists. Ruth Leys has objected to affect theory's implications for artistic and literary criticism, as well as to its appropriation in some forms of trauma theory.
Aubrey Anable has also criticised affect theory for its imprecision, claiming that its "language of intensity, becoming, and in-betweenness and its emphasis on the unpresentable give it a maddening incoherence, or shade too easily into purely subjective responses to the world".
Jason Josephson Storm
Jason Ānanda Josephson Storm (''né'' Josephson) is an American academic, philosopher, social scientist, and author. He is currently Professor and Chair in the Department of Religion and Chair in Science and Technology Studies at Williams Colle ...
, a professor of
religious studies, argued that affect theory in the
humanities
Humanities are academic disciplines that study aspects of human society and culture. In the Renaissance, the term contrasted with divinity and referred to what is now called classics, the main area of secular study in universities at the t ...
has failed to distinguish itself from
poststructuralism
Post-structuralism is a term for philosophical and literary forms of theory that both build upon and reject ideas established by structuralism, the intellectual project that preceded it. Though post-structuralists all present different critiques ...
and ignores empirical evidence that affects are
culturally constructed.
See also
*
Selective exposure theory
Selective exposure is a theory within the practice of psychology, often used in media and communication research, that historically refers to individuals' tendency to favor information which reinforces their pre-existing views while avoiding contra ...
*
Mood management theory
*
Affect consciousness
References
External links
Tomkins Institute
{{Baruch Spinoza
Psychoanalytic theory
Spinozism
Neo-Spinozism