Motivation and emotion/Tutorials/Measuring emotion

Tutorial 08: Measuring emotion
This is the eighth tutorial for the motivation and emotion unit of study.

Overview

This tutorial discusses:

• measurement of emotion
• Positive and Negative Affect Scale

How can emotion be measured?

Figure 1. Electroencephalography (EEG) detects electrical activity in different areas of the brain using electrodes attached to the skull.

Figure 2. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is an advanced method of neuroimaging which can be used to assess emotion based on blood flow.

• Behaviour (e.g., body language)
• Facial expression (e.g. specific combinations of muscle activation)
• Neural activation (e.g., functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI))
• Physiological arousal (e.g., pupil dilation, eye tracking, skin conductance, brain activity (EEG (see Figure 1), fMRI (see Figure 2))

These methods are quite resource intensive (especially fMRI). They are also based on what is externally observable or physiologically scannable. But emotion is also fundamentally phenomenological/subjective. So, another mesurement option is to ask people to introspect and self-report.

Self-report

Emotion can be measured using idiographic (pictorial) self-report tools such as the Self-Assessment Manikin (SAM; Bradley & Lang, 1994).

Some commonly used, general self-report measures of emotion include:

• Depression Anxiety and Stress Scale (DASS) (Wikipedia)
• Kessler 10 (K-10; nsw.gov.au)
• Profile of Mood States (POMS) (Wikipedia)
• Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) (Wikipedia)

See also: Affect measures (Wikipedia)

PANAS

The Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS; Watson & Clark, 1999) is the most widely used self-report measure in emotion research.

Your profile

Activity: PANAS Complete this short version of the PANAS (20-items; Google Form) Include a code word if you would like to know your individual results Discuss PANAS strengths, temporal framing, psychometrics, factor structure, and distributions

Strengths

Strengths of the PANAS include:

• Simplicity – based on 1-word emotion descriptors
• Factor structure – Short (20-item) and long (60-item) versions
• Flexibility
  • Temporal framing – from present state to general
  • Domain – General or specific
• Availability – Free to use

Temporal framing

• Moment (you feel this way right now, that is, at the present moment)
• Today (you have felt this way today)
• Past few days (you have felt this way during the past few days)
• Week (you have felt this way during the past week)
• Past few weeks (you have felt this way during the past few weeks)
• Year (you have felt this way during the past year)
• General (you generally feel this way that is, how you feel on average)

Psychometrics

• Correlations between PA and NA range between -.12 (Today) and -.23 (Year) (Watson et al., 1988). The negative correlation indicates that when one dimension is higher the other one tends to be lower, but this relationship is very weak (1% to 5% shared variance). So, it is best to consider PA and NA as independent dimensions of affective experience.
• Test-retest reliability – how stable is this measure of emotion over time? Based on Watson et al. (1988):
  • PA (ranges between .54 (Moment) and .68 (General)
  • NA (ranges between .45 (Moment) and .71 (General)

Factor structure

There are short (20-item) and long (60-item) versions of the PANAS.

Short (20 items; 2 factors; see Table 2)

• Positive affect (10 items)
• Negative affect (10 items)

Table 2

PANAS-20 Positive and Negative Affect Items

Positive affect	Negative affect
Active	Afraid
Alert	Ashamed
Attentive	Distressed
Determined	Guilty
Enthusiastic	Hostile
Excited	Irritable
Inspired	Jittery
Interested	Nervous
Proud	Scared
Strong	Upset

Long (60 items; 11 factors)

• Basic negative emotions
  • Fear (5 items): afraid, frightened, jittery, nervous, scared, shaky
  • Hostility (6 items): angry, disgusted, hostile, irritable, loathing, scornful
  • Guilt (6 items): angry at self, ashamed, blameworthy, disgusted with self, guilty
  • Sadness (5 items): alone, angry, blue, downhearted, sad
• Basic positivity emotions
  • Joviality (8 items): cheerful, delighted, energetic, enthusiastic, excited, happy, joyful, lively
  • Self-Assurance (6 items): bold, confident, daring, fearless, proud, strong
  • Attentiveness (5 items): alert, attentive, concentrating, determined
• Other affective states
  • Shyness (4 items): bashful, sheepish, shy, timid
  • Fatigue (4 items): drowsy, sleepy, sluggish, tired
  • Serenity (3 items): at ease, calm, relaxed
  • Surprise (3 items): amazed, astonished, surprised

Distributions

• Examine class distributions for positive affect (PA) and negative affect (NA)
• Compare with USA university norms (see Table 1):
  • PA = 3 to 3.5
  • NA = 1.5 to 2

Table 1

PANAS-20 Positive and Negative Affect Norms

Source	N	PA	NA
Watson et al. (1988)	660	2.97	1.48
Watson & Clark (1994)	3622	3.57	1.95

Topic development feedback

1. Check the chapter's "discuss" page for written feedback
2. Priorities:
   • Address the topic (sub-title question)
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   • Learning features (bells and whistles):
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     • examples/case studies
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Recording

• Tutorial 08 (2024)

See also

Wikipedia

• Electroencephalography
• Functional magnetic resonance imaging
• Positive and Negative Affect Schedule

Lecture

• Aspects of emotion

Tutorials

• Core emotions (Previous tutorial)
• 20 emotions (Next tutorial)

References

Bradley, M. M., & Lang, P. J. (1994). Measuring emotion: The self-assessment manikin and the semantic differential. Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, 25(1), 49–59. https://doi.org/10.1016/0005-7916(94)90063-9

Watson, D., & Clark, L. A. (1994). The PANAS-X: Manual for the positive and negative affect schedule-expanded form.

Watson, D., Clark, L. A., & Tellegen, A. (1988). Development and validation of brief measures of positive and negative affect: the PANAS scales. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54(6), 1063–1070. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.54.6.1063