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Affect, 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 ...
, refers to the underlying experience of
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 ...
,
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. ...
or
mood.
History
The modern conception of affect developed in the 19th century with
Wilhelm Wundt
Wilhelm Maximilian Wundt (; ; 16 August 1832 – 31 August 1920) was a German physiologist, philosopher, and professor, known today as one of the fathers of modern psychology. Wundt, who distinguished psychology as a science from philosophy and ...
. 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
In psychology, economics and philosophy, preference is a technical term usually used in relation to choosing between alternatives. For example, someone prefers A over B if they would rather choose A than B. Preferences are central to decision theo ...
,
attitudes,
impression formation
Impression formation in social psychology refers to the processes by which different pieces of knowledge about another are combined into a global or summary impression. Social psychologist Solomon Asch is credited with the seminal research on impr ...
, and
decision-making
In psychology, decision-making (also spelled decision making and decisionmaking) is regarded as the Cognition, cognitive process resulting in the selection of a belief or a course of action among several possible alternative options. It could be ...
. This research contrasts findings with
recognition memory
Recognition memory, a subcategory of declarative memory, is the ability to recognize previously encountered events, objects, or people.Medina, J. J. (2008)The biology of recognition memory. ''Psychiatric Times''. When the previously experienced eve ...
(old-new judgments), allowing researchers to demonstrate reliable distinctions between the two. Affect-based judgments and
cognitive
Cognition refers to "the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses". It encompasses all aspects of intellectual functions and processes such as: perception, attention, thought, ...
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
Zajonc or Zayonc ( ) is a surname. It is a spelling variant of Zając, meaning " hare" in Polish. Notable people with the surname include:
* Arthur Zajonc (born 1949), professor of physics at Amherst College in Massachusetts
* Miroslav Zajonc or ...
, 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).
Dimensions of affect
Affective states vary along three principal dimensions:
valence, arousal, and
motivational intensity Motivational intensity is defined as the strength of the tendency to either approach a positive situation or event or to move away from a negative situation or event.
Separation of motivational intensity and valence
In psychology, the term '' va ...
.
* 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
The sympathetic nervous system (SNS) is one of the three divisions of the autonomic nervous system, the others being the parasympathetic nervous system and the enteric nervous system. The enteric nervous system is sometimes considered part of th ...
, but can also be assessed subjectively via
self-report
A self-report study is a type of survey, questionnaire, or poll in which respondents read the question and select a response by themselves without any outside interference. A ''self-report'' is any method which involves asking a participant abou ...
.
* Motivational intensity refers to the
impulsion
Impulsion is the movement of a horse when it is going forward with controlled power. Related to the concept of collection, impulsion helps a horse effectively use the power in its hindquarters. To achieve impulsion, a horse is not using speed, b ...
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. While arousal is a construct that is closely related to motivational intensity, they differ in that motivation necessarily implies action while arousal does not.
Affect display
Affect is sometimes used to mean
affect display, which is "a facial, vocal, or gestural behavior that serves as an indicator of affect" (APA 2006).
Affects
In psychology, affect brings about an
organism
In biology, an organism () is any living system that functions as an individual entity. All organisms are composed of cells (cell theory). Organisms are classified by taxonomy into groups such as multicellular animals, plants, and ...
's interaction with
stimuli
A stimulus is something that causes a physiological response. It may refer to:
* Stimulation
** Stimulus (physiology), something external that influences an activity
** Stimulus (psychology), a concept in behaviorism and perception
* Stimulus (eco ...
.
Affect can influence cognitive scope (the breadth of cognitive processes). Initially, it was thought that positive affects broadened whereas negative affects narrowed cognitive scope.
However, evidence now suggests that affects high in motivational intensity narrow cognitive scope whereas affects low in motivational intensity broaden it. The construct of cognitive scope could be valuable in cognitive psychology.
Affect tolerance
According to a research article about affect tolerance written by psychiatrist Jerome Sashin, "Affect tolerance can be defined as the ability to respond to a stimulus which would ordinarily be expected to evoke affects by the subjective experiencing of feelings." Essentially it refers to one's ability to react to emotions and feelings. One who is low in affect tolerance would show little to no reaction to emotion and feeling of any kind. This is closely related to
alexithymia
Alexithymia is a personality trait characterized by the inability to identify and describe emotions experienced by oneself. The core characteristic of alexithymia is marked dysfunction in emotional awareness, social attachment, and interpersonal ...
.
"Alexithymia is a subclinical phenomenon involving a lack of emotional awareness or, more specifically, difficulty in identifying and describing feelings and in distinguishing feelings from the bodily sensations of emotional arousal" At its core, alexithymia is an inability for an individual to recognize what emotions they are feeling—as well as an inability to describe them. According t
Dalya Samurand colleagues, people with alexithymia have been shown to have correlations with increased suicide rates, mental discomfort, and deaths.
Affect tolerance factors, including anxiety sensitivity, intolerance of uncertainty, and emotional
distress tolerance, may be helped by
mindfulness
Mindfulness is the practice of purposely bringing one's attention to the present-moment experience without evaluation, a skill one develops through meditation or other training. Mindfulness derives from ''sati'', a significant element of Hind ...
. Mindfulness refers to the practice of being hyper aware of one's own feelings, thoughts, sensations, and the stimulus of the environment around you—not in an anxiety-inducing way, but in a gentle and pleasant way. Mindfulness has been shown to produce "increased subjective well-being, reduced psychological symptoms and emotional reactivity, and improved behavioral regulation."
Relationship to behavior and cognition
The affective domain represents one of the three divisions described in modern
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 ...
: the other two being the
behavior
Behavior (American English) or behaviour (British English) is the range of actions and mannerisms made by individuals, organisms, systems or artificial entities in some environment. These systems can include other systems or organisms as wel ...
al, and the
cognitive
Cognition refers to "the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses". It encompasses all aspects of intellectual functions and processes such as: perception, attention, thought, ...
. Classically, these divisions have also been referred to as the "ABC's of psychology", However, in certain views, the ''cognitive'' may be considered as a part of the affective, or the ''affective'' as a part of the cognitive; it is important to note that "cognitive and affective states …
remerely analytic categories."
Instinctive and cognitive factors in causation of affect
"Affect" can mean an instinctual reaction to stimulation that occurs before the typical cognitive processes considered necessary for the formation of a more complex emotion.
Robert B. Zajonc
Robert Bolesław Zajonc (Help:IPA/English, /ˈzaɪ.ənts/ Help:Pronunciation respelling key, ''ZY-ənts''; Polish: Help:IPA/Polish, zajɔnt͡s November 23, 1923 – December 3, 2008) was a Poland, Polish-born American Social psychology, soci ...
asserts this reaction to stimuli is primary for human beings and that it is the dominant reaction for non-human organisms. Zajonc suggests that affective reactions can occur without extensive perceptual and cognitive encoding and be made sooner and with greater confidence than cognitive judgments (Zajonc, 1980).
Many theorists (e.g. Lazarus, 1982) consider affect to be post-cognitive: elicited only after a certain amount of cognitive processing of information has been accomplished. In this view, such affective reactions as liking, disliking, evaluation, or the experience of
pleasure
Pleasure refers to experience that feels good, that involves the enjoyment of something. It contrasts with pain or suffering, which are forms of feeling bad. It is closely related to value, desire and action: humans and other conscious anima ...
or