Affect (psychology)
Affect refers to the experience of feeling or emotion. Affect is a key part of the process of an organism's interaction with stimuli. The word also refers sometimes to affect display, which is "a facial, vocal, or gestural behavior that serves as an indicator of affect". The affective domain represents one of the three divisions described in modern psychology: the cognitive, the conative, and the
affective. Classically, these divisions have also been referred to as the "ABC of psychology", in that case using the terms "affect", "behavior", and "cognition". In certain views, the
conative may be considered as a part of the affective, or the
affective as a part of the cognitive. Affective states are considered psycho-physiological constructs and are split up into three main categories: valence, arousal, and motivational intensity. Valence is the positive-to-negative evaluation of the subjectively experienced state. Emotional valence is defined as referring to the emotion’s consequences, eliciting circumstances, or subjective feel or attitude. Arousal is by the activation of the sympathetic nervous system and can be measured subjectively.