PANAS positive activation is associated with anger.
As a prototypic negative emotion, anger would seem to have little in common with positive activation, as measured by the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS; D. Watson, L. A. Clark, & A. Tellegen, 1988). However, growing evidence suggests that both anger and positive affect are associated with approach motivation. This suggests the counterintuitive hypotheses that positive affect should be increased by anger-evoking situations, and that positive affect and anger should be directly correlated in such situations. Four studies tested and supported these hypotheses. Discussion focuses on the implications of these results.
Department of Psychology, Texas A&M University, 4235 TAMU, College Station, TX 77843, USA. eddiehj@gmail.com
Eddie
E
Harmon-Jones
Cindy
C
Harmon-Jones
Lyn
L
Abramson
Carly K
CK
Peterson
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000339:Affect; D000786:Anger; D004644:Emotions; D005163:Factor Analysis, Statistical; D005260:Female; D006240:Happiness; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008960:Models, Psychological; D009042:Motivation; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D011581:Psychological Tests; D012044:Regression Analysis; D014481:United States