Pleasure-Arousal Theory and the Intensity of Emotions

Four main views of emotion intensity and quality within the pleasure-arousal theory of emotions are described, and it is argued that only 1 of them is conceptually and empirically tenable. This view assumes that the quality of emotions, or at least the quality of their "affective core," is determined by the proportion of, and their intensity by the absolute degrees of, experienced pleasure of displeasure (P) and activation or deactivation (A). Results from 2 unidimensional scaling studies, in which a total of 69 affects were rated for the degree of P and A experienced at low, typical, and high intensities, were by and large in accord with this position. To overcome a remaining problem of the theory, namely, that it does not allow one to distinguish among more than a few basic groups of emotions, a "hybrid" cognitive-P-A theory of emotion is proposed, according to which emotions are appraisal-caused patterns of P and A.

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