Affect (psychology)

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In psychology, affect is the scientific term used to describe a subject's externally displayed mood.<ref>Merriam-Webster definition</ref> The use of this term grew out of a developing understanding on the part of researchers and clinical psychologists that subjects, including emotionally disturbed ones, could display a mood they were not sincerely feeling (perhaps to win release from an asylum). The use of the term "affect" allows for rigorous accuracy: by noting that a subject displays, for example, "high affect," the observer is not passing judgment on whether the subject is genuinely feeling happiness or not. Given the complexity of human emotion, it is in any case impossible to define precisely at what point an emotion becomes "genuine." Finally, as a usage note, grammatical convention holds that an individual self-report a "good mood" but never a "good affect." An outside observer can choose to declare that another individual is in a "good mood" (general colloquial usage) or "displays a high affect" (scientific usage).

All human beings, insofar as they live within the bounds of cultural rules, outwardly display emotions they may not be sincerely feeling. For example, it is considered entirely appropriate for the second-place winner of the Miss America beauty pageant to express happiness after the first-place winner is announced, even though the runner-up must surely be feeling only disappointment. Very few individuals would call this outward display of happiness to be anything other than good sportsmanship or manners. Another key point is that individuals vary tremendously in how much affect they display, depending on individual personality and cultural conventions. It is entirely possible that an individual considered to have borderline pathological blunted affect in one culture may be considered merely "serious" in another. Even within a culture, individuals of one city or region may be widely considered to display certain types of emotion, even to an almost continuous degree.

The difference between the externally observable affect and the internal mood has been implicitly accepted in art and indeed, within language itself. The word "giddy," for example, carries within it the connotation that the characterized individual may be displaying a happiness that the speaker/observer believes either insincere or short-living. The common usage of the word "affect" is solely as a verb or adjective ("affected"): here, the idea that the emotion expressed is not entirely sincere is implicit. "Affect a sadness you do not feel," one might be instructed before attending the funeral of an enemy. "She seems a bit affected" would be an entirely natural sentence in colloquial English to express the judgment that a person is "putting on airs."

[edit] Examples in fiction

Examination of drama, from the time of the ancient Greeks to today, includes many examples of individuals being required to affect emotions contrary to their internal feelings, sometimes in tragic contexts and sometimes for humor. Scholars today still debate whether Hamlet's apparent insanity was real or merely a ruse adopted under life-or-death necessity. In contemporary film, Woody Allen's The Curse of the Jade Scorpion, includes a scene where a character (CW Briggs) is hypnotized into becoming "relaxed and happy" at the snap of a finger. When prompted, the character immediately launches into stereotypical New Yorker rapid speech and affected crankiness, thereby showing the scriptwriter's firm handle on the difference between mood and affect.