What are ‘positive’ affect and emotion?

Positive affect and emotion have become major topics in behavioral science, of growing importance in basic and applied research. A broad review of the literature reveals multiple, theoretically distinct constructs associated with the terms ‘positive affect’ and ‘positive emotion,’ sometimes conflated across this body of work. This article differentiates three primary constructs — subjectively pleasant affect; approach or appetitive motivation; and emotion states evoked by opportunities and rewards in the environment — and summarizes the major theoretical perspective with which each is intertwined. While these versions of positivity often coincide in lived emotional experience, we highlight examples of divergence

• Publication year

  2021

• Venue

  Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences

• Publication date

  2021-06-01

• Fields of study

  Not labeled

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1016/j.cobeha.2021.03.007
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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