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An ancient, simplistic view of emotion was that positive-negative was the most interesting dimension. Magda Arnold (1969; see references chapter of this book) argued that active-passive was a more powerful conceptualization. This links the topics of emotion and motivation.

Eddie Harmon-Jones studied this issue with anger emotion. He asked whether it neurobiologically related to negative emotions or with active emotions. Is it more like the inaction of anxiety and depression or like the action tendencies associated with joy and love? Anger activates the left prefrontal cortex, like other action-oriented emotions (Harmon-Jones, Vaughn-Scott, Mohr, Sigelman, & Harmon-Jones, 2004).

This was supported by Drake and Myers (2006).