Motivation and emotion/Tutorials/Measuring emotion

Tutorial 08: Measuring emotion
This is the eighth tutorial for the motivation and emotion unit of study.

Overview

This tutorial discusses:

measurement of emotion
the Positive and Negative Affect Scale
topic development feedback and book chapter marking criteria

How can emotion be measured?

Emotion research requires measurement. How can emotion be measured?

Behaviour (e.g., body language, eye tracking, key strokes)
Facial expression (e.g. specific combinations of muscle activation)
Neural activity:
- Electroencephalography (EEG; see Figure 1)
- functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI; see Figure 2))
Physiological arousal (e.g., pupil dilation, skin conductance, heart rate, physical activity)

Characteristics of these methods:

Resource intensive (especially fMRI) - needs equipment, expertise, software etc.
Based on what is externally observable or physiologically scannable. But emotion is also fundamentally phenomenological/subjective.

So, another measurement option is to ask people to introspect and self-report.

Self-report

Emotion can be self-reported qualitatively (open-ended questions with linguistic responses) or quantitatively (close-ended question with rating scales). Open-ended responses can be manually, or increasingly automatically, analysed about their emotional content to identify themes and meanings.

Closed-ended self-report approaches to measurement emotion can be:

Ideographic (pictorial) such as the: Self-Assessment Manikin (SAM; Bradley & Lang, 1994)
- Valence (happy-sad)
- Arousal (high-low)
- Dominance (small-big)
Discrete/numerical such as:
- Depression Anxiety and Stress Scale (DASS) (Wikipedia)
- Kessler 10 (K-10; nsw.gov.au)
- Profile of Mood States (POMS) (Wikipedia)
- Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) (Wikipedia)

The DASS and K10 are commonly used as screening tools such as by a general practitioner who is concerned about a patient's psychological distress. So, these tools measure the degree of aversive emotionality. The scores can be compared with norms to help gauge the level of distress. These tools are also sometimes used in research.

The POMS and PANAS are commonly used in psychological research about emotion. The PANAS is more popular because its:

simple
flexible
freely available

PANAS

The Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS; Watson & Clark, 1999) is the most widely used self-report measure in emotion research.

Your profile

Activity: PANAS

Complete this short version of the PANAS (20-items; Google Form)
Include a code word if you would like to know your individual results
Discuss PANAS strengths, temporal framing, psychometrics, factor structure, and distributions

Strengths

Strengths of the PANAS include:

Simplicity – based on 1-word emotion descriptors
Factor structure – Short (20-item) and long (60-item) versions
Flexibility
- Temporal framing – from present state to general
- Domain – General or specific
Availability – Free to use

Temporal framing

Moment (you feel this way right now, that is, at the present moment)
Today (you have felt this way today)
Past few days (you have felt this way during the past few days)
Week (you have felt this way during the past week)
Past few weeks (you have felt this way during the past few weeks)
Year (you have felt this way during the past year)
General (you generally feel this way that is, how you feel on average)

Psychometrics

Correlations between PA and NA range between -.12 (Today) and -.23 (Year) (Watson et al., 1988). The negative correlation indicates that when one dimension is higher the other one tends to be lower, but this relationship is very weak (1% to 5% shared variance). So, it is best to consider PA and NA as independent dimensions of affective experience.
Test-retest reliability – how stable is this measure of emotion over time? Based on Watson et al. (1988):
- PA (ranges between .54 (Moment) and .68 (General)
- NA (ranges between .45 (Moment) and .71 (General)

Factor structure

There are short (20-item) and long (60-item) versions of the PANAS.

Short (20 items; 2 factors; see Table 2)

Positive affect (10 items)
Negative affect (10 items)

Table 2

PANAS-20 Positive and Negative Affect Items


Positive affect	Negative affect
Active	Afraid
Alert	Ashamed
Attentive	Distressed
Determined	Guilty
Enthusiastic	Hostile
Excited	Irritable
Inspired	Jittery
Interested	Nervous
Proud	Scared
Strong	Upset

Long (60 items; 11 factors)

Basic negative emotions
- Fear (5 items): afraid, frightened, jittery, nervous, scared, shaky
- Hostility (6 items): angry, disgusted, hostile, irritable, loathing, scornful
- Guilt (6 items): angry at self, ashamed, blameworthy, disgusted with self, guilty
- Sadness (5 items): alone, angry, blue, downhearted, sad
Basic positivity emotions
- Joviality (8 items): cheerful, delighted, energetic, enthusiastic, excited, happy, joyful, lively
- Self-Assurance (6 items): bold, confident, daring, fearless, proud, strong
- Attentiveness (5 items): alert, attentive, concentrating, determined
Other affective states
- Shyness (4 items): bashful, sheepish, shy, timid
- Fatigue (4 items): drowsy, sleepy, sluggish, tired
- Serenity (3 items): at ease, calm, relaxed
- Surprise (3 items): amazed, astonished, surprised

Distributions

Examine class distributions for positive affect (PA) and negative affect (NA)
Compare with USA university norms (see Table 1):
- PA = 3 to 3.5
- NA = 1.5 to 2

Table 1

PANAS-20 Positive and Negative Affect Norms


Source	N	PA	NA
Watson et al. (1988)	660	2.97	1.48
Watson & Clark (1994)	3622	3.57	1.95

Topic development feedback

Check
- "discuss" page for written feedback
- UCLearn for marks
- follow-up if unsure
Priorities:
- Address the topic: title → sub-title → focus questions → headings
- Avoid too much background information; focus directly on the topic; cut to the chase
- Balance coverage of theory and research (ideally integrated); often there is too much theory and too little research; use the best research, including systematic/meta-analytic reviews

Book chapter marking criteria

Familiarse yourself with the book chapter guidelines which include the marking criteria:

Overview (5%)
- Scenario
- Describe problem (1-2 paragraphs)
- Focus questions
Theory (20%)
- Apply top theories to the problem
Research (25%)
- Use best research to weigh evidence
Integration (10%)
- Synthesise theory and research
Conclusion (5%)
- What are the take-home messages? (i.e., answers to sub-title and/or focus questions)
Style (20%)
- Professional quality written expression (sentence structure, paragraph structure, spelling, grammar, APA style) (e.g., use Studiosity, genAI, and peer review)
Learning features (5%) - options:
- Wiki links (to the most relevant Wikipedia page or book chapter) when key words are mentioned for the first time
- Figures and tables
- Scenarios/case studies/examples
- Quizzes
- Feature boxes etc.
Social contribution (10%)
- Edits
- Comments
- Discussion posts
- Direct links to evidence (see Making and summarising social contributions)
- Marking based on
  - Quantity
  - Quality
  - Timeliness

Recording

Tutorial 08 (2025)

References

Bradley, M. M., & Lang, P. J. (1994). Measuring emotion: The self-assessment manikin and the semantic differential. Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, 25(1), 49–59. https://doi.org/10.1016/0005-7916(94)90063-9

Watson, D., & Clark, L. A. (1994). The PANAS-X: Manual for the positive and negative affect schedule-expanded form.

Watson, D., Clark, L. A., & Tellegen, A. (1988). Development and validation of brief measures of positive and negative affect: the PANAS scales. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54(6), 1063–1070. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.54.6.1063