448 v. AFFECTI vE PROCESSES
ences and personality. We discuss evidence 
that emotions serve crucial social as well as 
intraindividual functions; that our emotion -
al repertoire contains far more than six dis -
tinct emotions; that universal mechanisms 
such as emotion-  antecedent appraisal, neu -
rotransmitter activity supporting emotional 
experience, and visceral awareness can give 
rise to variation in individual emotional ex -
perience; and that the experience of emo -
tion itself is dynamic and complex, allow -
ing for highly idiosyncratic patterns across 
emotions and over time. Building on these 
empirical foundations, we advance two con -
ceptual approaches to the systematic study 
of emotions’ role in person × environment 
interactions, and close our chapter with em -
pirical examples of these lines of thought.
Mapping the  Domain: 
Definitions  of Emotion, Affect, Mood, 
and Emotional  Traits
Imagine that one friend asks another, “Are 
you happy?” On the surface this may seem 
a straightforward question. Upon closer 
analysis, however, it can refer to a variety of 
affective experiences. Is the person generally 
happy with his or her life? Is he or she in a 
good mood today? Is he or she experiencing a 
brief burst of positive emotion, joy, mirth, or 
gratitude in response to a particular event? 
The affective realm is broad and begins in 
evaluations of the overall goodness or bad -
ness of a stimulus or target (Russell, 2003). 
Affective experiences can be studied at four 
levels of analysis (Kahneman, 1999; Rosen -
berg, 1998); distinguishing among these is 
important for integrating prior research and 
generating future directions in the study of 
emotion and personality.
At the broadest level, emotional traits  
refer to general styles of emotional respond -
ing that persist within the individual across 
context and time (R. Larsen & Ketelaar, 
1989; Rosenberg, 1998; Shiota, Keltner, & 
John, 2006; Silvia, 2008a, 2008b). People 
with particular trait-like emotional tenden -
cies, toward anger for example, are likely to 
show an ongoing subjective, expressive, and 
physiological profile that resembles that of 
the momentary emotional state (Lerner & 
Keltner, 2001; Malatesta, 1990; Rosenberg, 1998). The anger-prone individual is gener -
ally more likely to show attentional bias to -
ward others’ facial expressions of anger, to 
interpret others behavior as reflecting hos -
tile intent, to react with angry expressions 
in the face and voice, to show more hostile 
behavior in social interactions, and to show 
higher levels of systolic blood pressure (e.g., 
Martin, Watson, & Wan, 2000; Schum, Jor -
gensen, Verhaeghen, Sauro, & Thibodeau, 
2003; Van Honk et al., 2001; Wilkowski 
& Robinson, 2007). People who experi -
ence trait-like gratitude tend to feel grate -
ful across contexts and time, and are more 
likely to express this emotion, for example, 
in linguistic acts of appreciation (Gordon, 
Impett, Kogan, Oveis, & Keltner, 2012; Mc -
Cullough, Emmons, & Tsang, 2002). Con -
siderable progress has been made in map -
ping the correlates of different emotional 
traits, including those of embarrassment, 
shame, and guilt (Tangney, 1990; Tracy & 
Robins, 2007), positive emotions (e.g., awe, 
love, joy, pride, and compassion; Shiota et 
al., 2006), and negative emotions (e.g., fear, 
disgust, and anger; Lerner & Keltner, 2000, 
2001).
At a second level of analysis, affect  is a 
global, subjective state, characterized pri -
marily by the intensity of overall positive 
and/or negative feeling (Russell, 2003; Wat -
son & Tellegen, 1985). Moods  are typically 
defined as lasting, persistent periods of some 
affect state. Affect and mood need not be 
about anything in particular; they do not 
presume an intentional object  or explicit, 
situational causes (recognized or not). Rath -
er, one may have an overall feeling of energy 
and well-being or simply wake up on the 
wrong side of the bed.
Emotions,  which represent a third level of 
analysis, are briefer, more context-  specific, 
and thought to be evoked in response to a 
particular situation or intentional object 
(Ekman, 1992; Keltner & Lerner, 2010). 
For example, anger, an emotion, is a quick 
but short-term reaction to a specific event (a 
slight at work, or offending content found 
on Twitter); whereas irritability, a less fo -
cused and longer-  lasting negative state with -
out an immediate cause, is better described 
as a mood. Unlike affect, which is defined 
by global positive and/or negative feeling, 
emotional episodes are typically labeled 