Emotional categorisation

The naming of emotions within an experience can be useful, but a more detailed analysis of emotional content could involve characterising the nature and influence of the emotions experienced.

Emotional categorisation schemes usually involve mapping emotions along various dimensions.

See Ekman's Atlas of Emotions (or watch the film Inside Out).

Valence, arousal and dominance are common dimensions.

Valence (positive vs negative)

This is based on the degree to which the emotion is perceived to be pleasant (e.g. happy) or unpleasant (e.g. sad).

I don't always find this helpful because pleasantness/unpleasantness is a subjective evaluation. For all I know, you might enjoy feeling angry even though anger is usually classified as a negative emotion (see Directionality below).

Arousal (activating vs deactivating)

Based on the degree to which the emotion promotes action (alertness or focus) or inaction (ease or distractedness).

Similarly, I often find it more helpful to think about equilibrium versus disequilibrium emotions. Equilibrium emotions prompt you to keep doing what your doing whether that is being active or inactive. Disequilibrium emotions prompt you to do something different — switching from inaction to action (or vice versa) or changing the nature of the action/inaction (see Changing vs reinforcing below). Arousal is conflating purpose with strength of emotion.

Dominance vs submission

The extent to which emotions are linked to perceptions of autonomy or compliance.

This might be conflating two concepts. An individual-environment interaction concept (internal vs external locus of control) and a social interaction concept (agency vs communion).

Temporal focus (prospective vs retrospective)

Based on the extent to which your emotion is linked to something in the past (e.g. regret) or the future (e.g. apprehension).

This is sometimes called object focus but I find that inaccurate and ambiguous.

Object focus

What the emotion is connected to or associated with. This could be:

an action or event
an outcome or goal
a physical object or location
a concept, ideal or belief (meaning schema)
another person or group
oneself

Directionality (approach vs avoidance)

The extent to which the emotion produces behaviours that are directed toward (approach) or away from (avoidance) the associated object.

This is somewhat similar to valence but different in that it focuses on resulting observable behaviours prompted by the emotion rather than subjective evaluations of the emotion. With valence, anger is a negative emotion but, with directionality, anger can be an approach emotion (fight rather than flight).

It could be argued that some emotions are 'directionless' in that they encourage us to stay where we are, e.g. contentment, satisfaction, lethargy, etc.

Changing vs reinforcing

The extent to which the emotion generates behaviours that are intended to produce change (promote learning or new behaviours) or preserve the status quo (reinforce existing behaviours) in relation to the object (or the self).

Proactive vs reactive (locus of control)

The extent to which the emotions are generated by internal approach or avoidance motivations (internal locus of control) or by external events, circumstances and other people's actions (or possibly as a reaction to other emotions, e.g. anger arising from fear [leading to hate, suffering and the dark side]) (external locus of control).

Agency vs communion

The extent to which the emotions are linked to a desire for autonomy and control over one's environment or a desire for connection and belonging in relation to others.

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