In psychology, affect is an emotion or subjectively experienced feeling. Affect theory is a branch of psychoanalysis that attempts to organize affects into discrete categories and connect each one with its typical response. So, for example, the affect of joy is observed through the reaction of smiling. These affects can be identified through immediate facial reactions that people have to a stimulus, typically well before they could process any real response to the stimulus.
Affect theory is attributed to Silvan Tomkins and is introduced in the first two volumes of his book Affect Imagery Consciousness.[1][2] The word affect, as used in Tomkins theory, specifically refers to the "biological portion of emotion," that is, to "hard-wired, preprogrammed, genetically transmitted mechanisms that exist in each of us" which, when triggered, precipitates a "known pattern of biological events,"[3] although it is also acknowledged that, in adults, the affective experience is a result of both the innate mechanism and a "complex matrix of nested and interacting ideo-affective formations."[4]
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These are the nine affects, listed with a low/high intensity label for each affect and accompanied by its biological expression:[5]
Positive:
Neutral:
Negative:
The nine affects can be used as a blueprint for optimal mental health. According to Tomkins, optimal mental health requires the maximization of positive affect and the minimization of negative affect.[1] Affect should also be properly expressed so to make the identification of affect possible.[6]
Affect theory can also be used as a blueprint for intimate relationships. Kelly describes relationships as agreements to mutually work toward maximizing positive affect and minimizing negative affect.[7] Like the "optimal mental health" blueprint, this blueprint requires members of the relationship to express affect to one another in order to identify progress.
These blueprints can also describe natural and implicit goals. Nathanson, for example, uses the "affect" to create a narrative for one of his patients:[6]
and:
Tomkins applies affect theory to religion noting that "Christianity became a powerful universal religion in part because of its more general solution to the problem of anger, violence, and suffering versus love, enjoyment, and peace."[8] The implication is that the optimization of affect motivates the adoption of religion.
Affect theory is also referenced heavily in Tomkins's Script Theory.
Affect theory's use in psychoanalysis and therapy is limited, though it has gained widespread use in psychoanalytic theory, particularly through the work of Eve Sedgwick and Lauren Berlant, who have written extensively about affect. In the seminal work on negative affect arousal and white noise by Stanley S. Seidner, the findings from the study support the existence of a negative affect arousal mechanism through observations regarding the devaluation of speakers from other ethnic origins."[9]
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