Are Valence and Arousal Separable in Emotional Experience?

• Published in: Emotion (Washington, D.C.) Vol. 15; no. 1; pp. 35 - 44
• Main Authors: Kron, Assaf, Pilkiw, Maryna, Banaei, Jasmin, Goldstein, Ariel, Anderson, Adam Keith
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States American Psychological Association 01-02-2015
• Subjects: Adult; Affective Valence; Arousal - physiology; Bayes Theorem; Consciousness - physiology; Emotions; Emotions - physiology; Female; Galvanic Skin Response; Human; Humans; Life Experiences; Male; Models, Psychological; Photic Stimulation; Physiological Arousal; Pleasure - physiology; Self Report; self reports; valence; EDA; models of emotions; arousal
• ISSN: 1528-3542; 1931-1516
• DOI: 10.1037/a0038474

The bipolar valence-arousal model of conscious experience of emotions is prominent in emotion research. In this work, we examine the validity of this model in the context of feelings elicited by visual stimuli. In particular, we examine whether arousal has a unique contribution over bivariate valence (separate measures for pleasure and displeasure) in explaining physiological arousal (electrodermal activity, EDA) and self-reported feelings at the level of item-specific responses across and within individuals. Our results suggest that self-reports of arousal have neither an advantage in predicting EDA nor make a unique contribution when valence is present in the model. Acceptance of the null hypothesis was confirmed with the use of the Bayesian information criterion. Arousal also showed no advantage over valence in predicting global feelings, but demonstrated a small unique component (1.5% to 4% of variance explained). These results have practical implications for both experimental design in the study of emotions and the underlying bases of their conscious experience.