Facets of Affective Experiences: A Framework for Investigations of Trait Affect

Abstract

Research on the relation between personality and affect is concerned with the nature of affect dispositions. The authors propose that the general notion of trait affect is too broad and propose a more refined framework that differentiates facets of affect-related traits. Each facet is a combination of a type (e.g., mood, emotion), an aspect (e.g., frequency, intensity, duration), and a quality (e.g., pleasure, displeasure) of affective experiences. Previous research on the relation between pleasant trait affect and unpleasant trait affect has yielded inconsistent results. In the present article, the authors demonstrate that these inconsistencies are resolved once the theoretical distinctions between facets are recognized. In particular, they show that the facets “frequency of pleasant emotions” and “frequency of unpleasant emotions” are positively correlated. In contrast, the amount of time that people are in a pleasant mood is negatively correlated with the amount of time that people are in an unpleasant mood.