292 Emotion, Affect, and Mood in Social Judgments
accounted for declined, though not to zero. For example, the
variance accounted for by pleasure and arousal in a scale of
anger was .80, .63, and .68 in the three conditions, respec-
tively. Thus, pleasure and arousal remained a part of strong,
clear emotions, but other components played a larger role.
Core affect also guides behavior. Core affect leads us to
expose ourselves to affect-congruent situations (Bower &
Forgas, 2000), thereby playing a role in action preparation and
behavioral choice. Pleasure-displeasure influences our way of
assessing resources when planning or deciding on action.
Pleasure and displeasure are thus not restricted to emotional
behavior and are currently found in the explanation of differ-
ent kinds of action, including aggression (Berkowitz, 1993),
eating (Pinel, Assanand, & Lehman, 2000), sex (Abramson, &
Pinkerton, 1995), and drug abuse (Solomon, 1977). The di-
mension of arousal is one’s state of readiness for action. For
example, feeling enthused (high pleasure and arousal) gives a
person a sense of optimism in choosing goals and plans.
Arousal has been the basic component of the most popular sit-
uationist theory of emotion in social psychology (Schachter,
1964). The existence of core affect complements rather than
contradicts the characterization of emotions as action patterns,
provided that action patterns too are thought to be parts of
rather than the whole of or essential to emotion.
Core affect provides a way of comparing qualitatively dif-
ferent scenarios by representing them on a single dimension,
thereby solving a common human problem: The events en-
countered and the choices available are often qualitatively
different. Occasionally, one chooses between the larger and
smaller dessert, but more often the choice is between two
qualitatively different options: dessert or a film. The dimen-
sion of pleasure-displeasure is a psychological currency that
provides a yardstick for such comparisons (e.g., Mellers,
2000).
A final advantage of thinking in terms of core affect is that
the psychology of emotion is more easily integrated with the
rest of psychology. The concept of emotion has led writers to
think of emotions as stemming from a separate faculty. In con-
trast, the concept of core affect is compatible with a growing
body of evidence that links it to other psychological processes.
For example, core affect has been found to guide cognitive
processes such as attention, perception, thinking, judgment,
mental simulation, and retrieval from memory (e.g., Baron,
1987; Blaney, 1986; Bower, 1992; Eich, 1995; Forgas, 1995;
Forgas, Bower, & Krantz, 1984; Izard, Wehmer, Livsey, &
Jennings, 1965; Mayer, Gaschke, Braverman, & Evans, 1992;
Schiffenbauer, 1974). Pleasure and displeasure facilitate the
accessibility of positive and negative material respectively;
the more pleasant core affect is, the more positive are evalua-
tive judgments (Schwarz & Clore, 1988) and the more
optimistic is one’s simulation of the future (Sanna, 1998).
Arousal could also have a similar effect; high or low arousal
facilitates the accessibility of high and low arousal material
respectively (Clark, Milberg, & Ross, 1983; for a dissenting
opinion see Bower & Forgas, 2000). Core affect also influ-
ences the quality and type of cognitive processing. Arousal af-
fects the quality of cognitive performance (Humphreys &
Revelle, 1984) and attention selectivity (Easterbrook, 1959;
Eysenck, 1982). Pleasure affects heuristic processing and
problem solving (see Aspinwall, 1998; Isen, 1993; Lerner &
Keltner, 2000; Niedenthal, Halberstadt, & Setterlund, 1997;
Park & Banaji, 2000; Schwarz & Bless, 1991).A VOCABULARY FOR A SCIENTIFIC
FRAMEWORK FOR EMOTIONCore affectis not simply another term foremotion,and a vari-
ety of additional concepts are needed to deal with those events
calledemotion. Some of these new concepts are generated by
thinking in terms of core affect, and others are simply bor-
rowed from other branches of psychology. Core affect is thus
a departure point for a new vocabulary in the study of emotion.
It can be used to define some common terms and to generate a
set of secondary concepts that covers various emotion-related
events.
Moodis defined as prolonged core affect without an ob-
ject, and affect regulationis any attempt to alter core affect
directly. Individuals typically (though not always) seek plea-
sure and avoid displeasure. Individuals also seek a level of
arousal appropriate to the task at hand (e.g., looking for
pleasant relaxation when stressed, but for excitement when
bored). Exercise, coffee, cigarettes, looking for particular
companions, and listening to music are at least in part ways
of regulating core affect.Affective QualityJust as the objects and events in our perceptual world emerge
into consciousness already interpreted, they emerge affec-
tively interpreted. Core affect should be distinguished
from the affective qualities of the stimuli we perceive on at
least two grounds. First, unlike core affect, which is object-
less, affective quality is linked to a particular stimulus. Sec-
ond, phenomenologically, core affect resides in the person
who feels it, whereas affective quality resides in the stimulus;
it is the odor that is pleasant (a fragrance) or unpleasant (a
stench). Although core affect and affective quality are usually
linked, each can change without the other: Core affect can be
altered chemically, and a depressed patient can acknowledge