Positive emotions—such as joy and gratitude—express a favorable evaluation or feeling. Negative emotions—such as anger and guilt—express the opposite. Keep in mind that emotions can’t be neutral. Being neutral is being nonemotional. When we group emotions into positive and negative categories, they become mood states because we are now looking at them more generally instead of isolating one particular emotion.

Excited is a pure marker of high positive affect, while boredom is a pure marker of low positive affect. Nervous is a pure marker of high negative affect; relaxed is a pure marker of low negative affect. Finally, some emotions—such as contentment and sadness—are in between. You’ll notice this does not include all emotions. Some, such as surprise, don’t fit well because they’re not as clearly positive or negative.

So we can think of positive affect as a mood dimension consisting of positive emotions such as excitement, enthusiasm, and elation at the high end (high positive affect). Negative affect is a mood dimension consisting of nervousness, stress, and anxiety at the high end (high negative affect). Some people (we might call them emotional or intense) may experience quite a bit of high positive and high negative affect in a short period of time. Others experience little of either or one much more predominately than the other.