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The term “affect” refers to an overarching category comprising both emotions and moods. Emotions are generally elicited by discrete events and are often transient. In contrast, moods are not necessarily induced by particular events and may be more enduring. Both emotions and moods involve internal feeling states, physiological arousal, and behavioral tendencies, making their distinctions blurred. In this entry, “affect” is used as a general term that encompasses all of these experiences. Affective experiences may vary on several dimensions, including their valence (i.e., pleasantness: positive vs. negative affect) and arousal (i.e., activation: high vs. low). This entry focuses on positive affect (PA), which broadly refers to pleasant emotional experiences such as joy, contentment, excitement, and elation. Negative affect is described as a separate topic entry in this Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual...
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References
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Luong, G., Wrzus, C. (2017). Positive Affect. In: Zeigler-Hill, V., Shackelford, T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_545-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_545-1
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