Levels of Analysis and the Organization of Affect

Abstract

This article presents a framework for the organization of affective processes, including the affective traits, moods, and emotions. Section 1 introduces the levels-of-analysis approach, defines the three levels of affect, presents criteria for ordering these levels hierarchically in terms of simple and complex temporally driven processes, and examines the interrelations among the various levels of affect, including an in-depth analysis of affective trait–emotion relationships. Section 2 offers an application of the hierarchical view to research on affect–cognition interactions, including a brief review of affect congruency effects and a discussion of the conceptual and empirical challenges to such research necessitated by consideration of the differences among the levels of affect.

Lying because we care: Compassion increases prosocial lying.

“…We approach compassion at three levels (Han, Lerner, & Keltner, 2007;Rosenberg, 1998): as an experimentally-induced state experienced toward the potential target of a prosocial lie, or integral compassion; as an enduring emotional trait; and as an experimentally-induced state elicited by stimuli unrelated to the potential target of a prosocial lie, or incidental compassion.…”

“…Trait emotions are enduring aspects of a person's personality that show stability over time and reflect elevated baseline levels of an emotion, increased tendencies to experience an emotion, and/or a decreased threshold for triggering the experience of an emotion (Rosenberg, 1998;Shiota, Keltner, & John, 2006).…”

Changing personality traits: Some considerations from psychotherapy process-outcome research for intervention efforts on intentional personality change.

“…A first intervention strategy aims at directly targeting and altering personality traits at the broadest level. Changes at higher levels always affect the lower levels by top-down processes (Rosenberg, 1998) (Figure 1).…”

“…This level involves rapid fluctuations over short periods of time as a function of internal aspects (e.g., motives and goals) and external situations (e.g., stress in a given situation) (Fleeson, 2001;Hooker & McAdams, 2003). The second conceptual model was originally developed to describe affective processes with a focus on the temporal dimension (Rosenberg, 1998). This model includes three levels of analysis that range from broad and enduring affective traits (e.g., trait anxiety) over intermediate moods (e.g., anxious mood) to emotions in given situations (e.g., anxiety in an anxiety-provoking CHANGING PERSONALITY TRAITS 6 situation).…”

“…However, the opportunity clearly exists for bottom-up influences from momentary emotions to affective traits via moods. Frequent experiences of certain emotions may become more habitual in terms of moods and eventually may impart changes at the trait level (Rosenberg, 1998). This idea is consistent with the newly developed theoretical framework TESSERA (Triggering situations, Expectancy, States/State Expressions, and ReActions) that suggests that long-term personality development at the level of personality traits occurs due to repeated shortterm, situational processes at the level of states/state expressions (Wrzus & Roberts, 2016).…”