Affect is a fundamental psychological concept that captures the broad experience of feeling. It is a scientific term used across psychology and neuroscience to categorize emotional conditions. Understanding affect allows researchers to map how internal feelings influence our thoughts, actions, and overall well-being. This pervasive sense of feeling is a continuous element of human experience, even when we are not experiencing a strong, conscious reaction.
Defining Affective State
An affective state is the general, subjective emotional condition a person experiences at any given moment. It represents the internal “emotional temperature” that underlies our perceptions and interactions with the world. This state is a neurophysiological construct, meaning it is a product of complex interactions within the central nervous and endocrine systems. It provides a continuous readout of the body’s internal state, which is then interpreted as a feeling or disposition.
Affective states are not always consciously felt; they can exist as non-conscious biases that color our judgment and reactions. The term functions as an umbrella category encompassing all types of emotional experiences. It is considered the raw, foundational feeling component that serves as the substrate for more specific experiences like emotions or moods. This foundational state significantly influences how we process information and engage with our social and physical environments.
Distinguishing Affect from Emotion and Mood
The terms affect, emotion, and mood are distinct concepts in psychological science, differentiated primarily by their intensity and duration. Affect is the broadest category, referring to the entire range of feeling experiences, including both emotions and moods. It is the general capacity for feeling that can be positive or negative.
An emotion is a specific, intense, and relatively short-lived response to a definite stimulus or event. Emotions are typically accompanied by high levels of physiological arousal and distinct, observable expressions.
Mood, in contrast, is a more diffuse, lower-intensity emotional state that lasts for a longer duration, sometimes hours or even days. A mood often lacks a clear, identifiable cause. Moods are more pervasive and act as a background emotional tone that influences a person’s general outlook and thought processes.
The Dimensions of Affect
Researchers use a two-dimensional framework, often called the circumplex model of affect, to map and measure human feelings. This model posits that all affective states can be located on a circular space defined by two independent axes.
The first dimension is valence, which represents the pleasantness or unpleasantness of the feeling, ranging from positive (joy) to negative (distress). The second dimension is arousal, which measures the intensity or energy level associated with the state, ranging from high to low activation. High arousal states involve heightened physiological activity, while low arousal states are marked by calmness or lethargy. By combining these two dimensions, researchers can precisely plot any feeling.
A feeling of excitement, for example, is characterized by high arousal and positive valence. Contentment is found in the low arousal, positive valence quadrant. Negative feelings also span this model, with anger and fear being high arousal, negative valence states, while sadness and boredom are classified as low arousal, negative valence states. This framework provides a consistent language for studying how different internal feelings manifest and impact behavior.
How Affect Influences Cognition and Behavior
A person’s affective state profoundly shapes how they process information and make decisions. Positive affect, such as feeling happy, tends to promote faster decision-making and a reliance on general knowledge rather than systematic, detailed thinking. This state is also associated with greater cognitive flexibility and increased creativity.
Conversely, a negative affective state, like anxiety or mild sadness, often promotes more effortful, vigilant, and systematic processing of information. This state can narrow an individual’s attentional focus, leading to preferential attention toward potential threats or negative stimuli in the environment. The affective state essentially acts as a “go” or “stop” signal for current inclinations.
Affect also influences memory recall through a phenomenon known as mood-congruent memory. This effect suggests that people are more likely to recall memories that match their current affective state. For instance, someone in a positive state is more likely to remember positive events from their past. This influence on memory, attention, and processing style demonstrates the pervasive real-world impact of one’s internal feeling state on daily functioning and behavior.