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Type Journal Article
Scope Discipline-based scholarship
Title On the relationship between valence and arousal in samples across the globe
Organization Unit
Authors
  • Michelle Yik
  • Chiel Mues
  • Irene N L Sze
  • Peter Kuppens
  • Francis Tuerlinckx
  • Kim De Roover
  • Felity H C Kwok
  • Shalom H Schwartz
  • Jan Cieciuch
  • Willibald Ruch
  • Alexander Georg Stahlmann
Item Subtype Original Work
Refereed Yes
Status Published in final form
Language
  • English
Journal Title Emotion
Publisher American Psychological Association
Geographical Reach international
ISSN 1528-3542
Volume 23
Number 2
Page Range 332 - 344
Date 2023
Abstract Text Affect is involved in many psychological phenomena, but a descriptive structure, long sought, has been elusive. Valence and arousal are fundamental, and a key question–the focus of the present study–is the relationship between them. Valence is sometimes thought to be independent of arousal, but, in some studies (representing too few societies in the world) arousal was found to vary with valence. One common finding is that arousal is lowest at neutral valence and increases with both positive and negative valence: a symmetric V-shaped relationship. In the study reported here of self-reported affect during a remembered moment (N = 8,590), we tested the valence-arousal relationship in 33 societies with 25 different languages. The two most common hypotheses in the literature–independence and a symmetric V-shaped relationship–were not supported. With data of all samples pooled, arousal increased with positive but not negative valence. Valence accounted for between 5% (Finland) and 43% (China Beijing) of the variance in arousal. Although there is evidence for a structural relationship between the two, there is also a large amount of variability in this relation.
Official URL https://doi.org/10.1037/emo0001095
Digital Object Identifier 10.1037/emo0001095
Other Identification Number merlin-id:22907
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Keywords valence, arousal, subjective experience, structure of affect, culture