psychological affect

Affect, in psychology, refers to the underlying experience of feeling, emotion or mood.

History

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).

Dimensions of affect

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. 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's interaction with stimuli.

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 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 Samur
and 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 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: the other two being the behavioral, and the cognitive. 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 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 or displeasure