AFFECT AND MOOD

AFFECT AND MOOD
Affect refers to emotional state that is most evident in a person at a given time. Someone who is jovial may at times experience the emotion of sadness. Someone with sad effect, conversely, may express an affective display of happiness-that is they may smile. But the underlying display of a sad person or a jovial person returns to that affect in the absence of any perceived stiumli.
It may be said that mood or affect are more static or constant, while emotions are often changing. While mood or affect may be elevated or depressed despite present stimuli, emotions are more dependent on the situation or perception of stimuli.
Mood, like emotion, is an affective state. However, an emotion tends to have a clear focus (I.e., its cause is self-evident), while mood tends to be more unfocused and diffused. Unlike instant reactions that produce affect or emotion, and that change with expectations of future pleasure or pain, moods, being diffused and unfocused, and thus harder to cope with, can last for days, weeks, months, or even years.
Positive affect and negative affect represent independent domains of emotion in the general population, and positive affect is strongly linked to social interaction. Recent research suggests that high functional support is related to higher levels of positive affect.