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A premature consensus: are happiness and sadness truly opposite affects?

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Abstract

Within the debate on the structure of affect, a consensus began emerging in the last decade regarding the bipolarity of happiness–sadness. We argue that this consensus is premature. Focusing on the psychometrics of momentary affect, particularly happiness and sadness, and using a simulation study, a large-scale data set, and 2 experiments manipulating affect, we plot a map of affective space that departs from the consensus. One key departure is the finding that happiness and sadness are not bipolar opposites. Another is that nonuniform skewness plays a major role in studies of affective structure, but can be addressed with appropriate analyses.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported in part by a contract with the US Army Research Institute (MDA903-93-K-0008) and an AASERT grant from the US Department of Defense (DAAHO4-95-1-0213). The views, opinions, and findings contained in this paper are those of the authors and should not be construed as an official Department of the Army position, policy, or decision, unless so designated by other official documentation. We benefited greatly from helpful comments made by Doug Billings, Jim Cranford, Wendi Gardner, Nilly Mor, Suzanne Pineles, Ulrich Schimmack, David Watson, Iftah Yovel, and several anonymous reviewers on earlier drafts of this manuscript, and from editorial suggestions made by Klaus Scherer.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Psychology Department, Barnard College, Columbia University, 3009 Broadway, New York, New York, 10027, USA

    Eshkol Rafaeli

  2. Psychology Department, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, USA

    William Revelle

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  1. Eshkol Rafaeli
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  2. William Revelle
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Correspondence to Eshkol Rafaeli.

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Rafaeli, E., Revelle, W. A premature consensus: are happiness and sadness truly opposite affects?. Motiv Emot 30, 1–12 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11031-006-9004-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11031-006-9004-2

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