The present study provides evidence that valence focus and arousal foc
us are important processes in determining whether a dimensional or a d
iscrete emotion model best captures how people label their affective s
tates. Individuals high in valence focus and low in arousal focus fit
a dimensional model better in that they reported more co-occurrences a
mong like-valenced affective states, whereas those lower in valence fo
cus and higher in arousal focus fit a discrete model better in that th
ey reported fewer co-occurrences between like-valenced affective state
s. Taken together, these findings suggest that one static, nomothetic
theory may not accurately describe the subjective affective experience
of all individuals.