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Affect displays are the verbal and non-verbal displays of affect (emotion).McCornack, Steven, and Joseph Ortiz. Choices & connections: an introduction to communication. 2nd ed., Bedford/St. Martins, 2017. These displays can be through facial expressions, and body language, volume and tone of voice, laughing, crying, etc. Affect displays can be altered or faked so one may appear one way, when they feel another (e.g., smiling when sad). Affect can be conscious or non-conscious and can be discreet or obvious.Batson, C.D., Shaw, L. L., Oleson, K. C. (1992). "Emotion". Differentiating affect, mood and emotion: Toward functionally based conceptual distinctions. Newbury Park, CA: Sage. The display of positive emotions, such as smiling, laughing, etc., is termed "positive affect", while the display of more , such as crying and tense gestures, is called "negative affect".
Affect is important in psychology as well as in communication, mostly when it comes to interpersonal communication and non-verbal communication. In both psychology and communication, there are a multitude of theories that explain affect and its impact on humans and quality of life.
LazarusLazarus, R. S. (1982). Thoughts on the Relations between Emotions and Cognition. American Physiologist, 37(10), pp. 1019–1024 on the other hand considers affect to be post-cognitive. That is, affect is elicited only after a certain amount of cognitive processing of information has been accomplished. In this view, an affective reaction, such as liking, disliking, evaluation, or the experience of pleasure or displeasure, is based on a prior cognitive process in which a variety of content discriminations are made and features are identified, examined for their value, and weighted for their contributions.Brewin, C. R. (1989). Cognitive Change Processes in Psychotherapy. Psychological Review, 96(45), pp. 379–394
A divergence from a narrow reinforcement model for emotion allows for other perspectives on how affect influences emotional development. Thus, temperament, cognitive development, socialization patterns, and the idiosyncrasies of one's family or subculture are mutually interactive in non-linear ways. As an example, the temperament of a highly reactive, low self-soothing infant may "disproportionately" affect the process of emotion regulation in the early months of life.Griffiths, P. E. (1997). What Emotions Really Are: The Problem of Psychological Categories. The University of Chicago Press: Chicago
Affective responses, on the other hand, are more basic and may be less problematic in terms of assessment. Brewin has proposed two experiential processes that frame non-cognitive relations between various affective experiences: those that are prewired dispositions (i.e., non-conscious processes), able to "select from the total stimulus array those stimuli that are casually relevant, using such criteria as perceptual salience, spatiotemporal cues, and predictive value in relation to data stored in memory",Brewin, C. R. (1989). Cognitive Change Processes in Psychotherapy. Psychological Review, 96(45), pp. 379–394 and those that are automatic (i.e., subconscious processes), characterized as "rapid, relatively inflexible and difficult to modify... (requiring) minimal attention to occur and... (capable of being) activated without intention or awareness" (1989 p. 381).
The arousal response is illustrated in studies focused on reward systems that control food-seeking behavior.Balliene, B. W. (2005). Dietary Influences on Obesity: Environment, Behavior and Biology. Physiology & Behavior, 86 (5), pp. 717–730 Researchers focused on learning processes and modulatory processes that are present while encoding and retrieving goal values. When an organism seeks food, the anticipation of reward based on environmental events becomes another influence on food seeking that is separate from the reward of food itself. Therefore, earning the reward and anticipating the reward are separate processes and both create an excitatory influence of reward-related cues. Both processes are dissociated at the level of the amygdala and are functionally integrated within larger neural systems.
Positive affect and negative affect represent independent domains of emotion in the general population, and positive affect is strongly linked to social interaction. Positive and negative daily events show independent relationships to subjective well-being, and positive affect is strongly linked to social activity. Recent research suggests that "high functional support is related to higher levels of positive affect".Blechman, E. A. (1990). Emotions and the Family. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates: Hillsdale, NJ The exact process through which social support is linked to positive affect remains unclear. The process could derive from predictable, regularized social interaction, from leisure activities where the focus is on relaxation and positive mood, or from the enjoyment of shared activities.
In the early 2000s over the period of about seven years, a study was done on about 200 children whose mother had "a history of juvenile-onset unipolar depressive disorder" or simply, depression as children themselves. In the cases of unipolar depression, a person generally displays more negative affect and less positive affect than a person without depression. Or, they are more likely to show when they are sad or upset, than when they are excited or happy. This study that was published in 2010 discovered that the children of mothers that have unipolar depression, had lower levels of positive affect when compared to the control group. Even as the children grew older, while the negative affect began to stay the same, the children still showed consistently lower positive affect. This study suggests that "Reduced PA positive may be one source of developmental vulnerability to familial depression..." meaning that while having family with depression, increases the risk of children developing depression, reduced positive affect increases the risk of this development. But knowing this aspect of depression, might also be able to help prevent the onset of depression in young children well into their adulthood.Olino, Thomas M., et al. "Developmental trajectories of positive and negative affect in children at high and low familial risk for depressive disorder." Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, vol. 52, no. 7, June 2010, pp. 792–799., doi:10.1111/j.1469-7610.2010.02331.x.
/ref> Flat being the most severe in where there is very little to absolutely no show of emotions. Restricted and blunted are, respectively, less severe. Disorders involving these reduced affect displays most commonly include schizophrenia, post traumatic stress disorder, depression,
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People have been known to display positive emotions in various settings. Service workers often engage in emotional labor, a strive to maintain positive emotional expressions despite difficulties in working conditions or rude customers, in order to conform to organizational rules. Such strategic displays are not always effective, since if they are detected, lower customer satisfaction results.
Perhaps the most notable attempt to feign negative emotion could be seen with Nixon's madman theory. Nixon's administration attempted to make the leaders of other countries think Nixon was insanity, and that his behavior was irrational and volatile. Fearing an unpredictable American response, leaders of hostile Communist Bloc nations would avoid provoking the United States. This diplomatic strategy was not ultimately successful.
The effectiveness of the strategic display depends on the ability of the expresser to remain undetected. It may be a risky strategy since if detected, the person's original intent could be discovered, undermining the future relationship with the target.
According to the appraisal theory of emotions, the experience of emotions is preceded by an evaluation of an object of significance to that individual. When individuals are seen to display emotions, it serves as a signal to others of an event important to that individual. Thus, deliberately altering the emotion display toward an object could be used make the targets of the strategic emotion think and behave in ways that benefit the original expresser. For example, people attempt to hide their expressions during a poker game in order to avoid giving away information to the other players, i.e., keep a Blank expression.
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