Abstract
The concept of quality of affect is used to develop variables descriptive of how a person is feeling. The extent of marked positive affect, the extent of marked negative affect and the modal hedonic level or modal quality of affect are presented as three components of a quality of affect measure. Alternative two-component measures are also developed. Findings based on interviews with a sample of Washington County, Maryland adults are presented. Selfevaluated happiness was found to have a strong positive relationship with quality of affect. However, while the quality of affect measures are designed to give equal weight to positive affect and negative affect, self-evaluated happiness was found to be related more strongly to positive affect than to negative affect.
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The data for this study were collected in collaboration with the Training Center for Public Health Research of the Johns Hopkins University.
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Brenner, B. Quality of affect and self-evaluated happiness. Soc Indic Res 2, 315–331 (1975). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00293251
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00293251