Doug NollI'm called in when human dynamics are getting in the way of strategic leadership execution.

Affect Labeling 101

10 Dec 2025 · 1 min

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Affect is the overall feeling you experience, measured by valence (positive, neutral, negative) and arousal (low to high). Humans are born with nine basic affective states: interest, happiness, surprise, fear, distress, anger, disgust, and shame. Learning to label them helps you understand what you're actually feeling.

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So affect is the general sense of feeling that you experience throughout the day, pleasantness versus unpleasantness primarily. And it has two components: valence, so it's either positive or it's neutral or it's negative, three valences, and arousal, low intensity, medium intensity, high intensity. We have 9 affect, we're born with 9 affect and 3 valences, positive, neutral, and negative. And we have 2 positive affect, which is called interest, excitement, and happiness, joy. The neutral affect is surprise, startle. And the negative affects are fear, terror, distress, anguish, anger, rage. Disgust, dismell— it's the feeling we get when we smell spoiled milk— and shame, humiliation.