PLEASURE-AROUSAL THEORY AND THE INTENSITY OF EMOTIONS

Four main views of emotion intensity and quality within the pleasure-a rousal theory of emotions are described, and it is argued that only 1 of them is conceptually and empirically tenable. This view assumes tha t the quality of emotions, or at least the quality of their ''affectiv e core,'' is determined by the proportion of, and their intensity by t he absolute degrees of, experienced pleasure of displeasure (P) and ac tivation or deactivation (A). Results from 2 unidimensional scaling st udies, in which a total of 69 affects were rated for the degree of P a nd A experienced at low, typical, and high intensities, were by and la rge in accord with this position. To overcome a remaining problem of t he theory, namely, that it does not allow one to distinguish among mor e than a few basic groups of emotions, a ''hybrid'' cognitive-P-A theo ry of emotion is proposed, according to which emotions are apprasal-ca used patterns of P and A.