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Positive Affect

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Encyclopedia of Quality of Life and Well-Being Research

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Synonyms

Pleasure; Positive emotions

Definition

Affect

The term affect is used in different ways. It can be taken as an overarching term containing all the concepts in a hierarchy of more specific understanding. Feelings, in the sense of a continuous stream of experiences that always are present in a conscious human being, constitute the most particular element in this hierarchy. At the next two levels are emotions and then moods, complied as a combination of feelings and other elements with different degrees of specificity, intensity, and duration. The least particular element in this hierarchy is affective style/emotional traits. The term affect can also be used in a more restricted sense, to denote one or more of the four levels of the hierarchy. Hence, affect can refer to an emotional trait, a mood, an emotion, or a feeling state or to combinations of these concepts, such as both moods and emotions.

Positive

The term positivecan be used to denote a subjective or ethical good, a...

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, University of Tromsø, Tromsø, Norway

    Joar Vittersø

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  1. Joar Vittersø
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Correspondence to Joar Vittersø .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Dipartimento di Scienze Statistiche, Sapienza Università di Roma, Roma, Roma, Italy

    Filomena Maggino

Section Editor information

  1. Department of Political Science, University of Naples Federico II, Naples, Italy

    Mara Tognetti

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Vittersø, J. (2023). Positive Affect. In: Maggino, F. (eds) Encyclopedia of Quality of Life and Well-Being Research. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-17299-1_2211

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