PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE Research Article ON THE BROAD APPLICABILITY OF THE AFFECTIVE CIRCUMPLEX: Representations of Affective Knowledge Among Schizophrenia Patients Ann M. Kring,1 Lisa Feldman Barrett,2 and David E. Gard1 1University of California, Berkeley, and 2Boston College Abstract—Studies of affective experience are guided by the assump- by Osgood, Suci, & Tannenbaum, 1957). Although not all information tion that the structure of affect generalizes across people. Yet this as- about emotion is captured by the circumplex model, it is a useful tool sumption has not been tested among educationally and economically for representing the core features of declarative knowledge about af- diverse community residents or among individuals with psychopathol- fect-related stimuli. ogy. This study explicitly examined the broad applicability of the va- Despite the evidence supporting its broad replicability, the valence- lence-arousal circumplex and whether schizophrenia patients and arousal model, like so many other phenomena, has not been verified in nonpatients have comparable knowledge structures of affective phe- populations often neglected in psychological research. Indeed, very nomena. Patients and nonpatients completed similarity ratings of 120 little research has verified the applicability of the affective circumplex pairs of affect words. Similarity judgments were analyzed separately among individuals with lower educational attainment and socioeco- for each group using a multidimensional scaling procedure, and solu- nomic realization than the college students so often used in research. It tions were compared. Results revealed the same two-dimensional va- would be tempting to assume that the model is robust and generaliz- lence-arousal solution for schizophrenia patients and nonpatients, able across many populations, were it not for the fact that contextual although there were subtle differences between the groups. These find- and sampling variables have a profound impact on research findings, ings provide additional evidence that the circumplex model is a useful often in the most unexpected ways. Moreover, despite the burgeoning formalism for representing affective phenomena across diverse popu- interest in affective disturbances associated with mental disorders lations, and they bolster confidence in existing interpretations of (Kring & Bachorowski, 1999), no research has examined whether the schizophrenia patients’ reports of affective experience. affective circumplex applies to mentally disordered populations, even though such applicability is often assumed. This issue is particularly germane to the study of emotion disturbances in schizophrenia. Human interaction with the world, whether disordered or norma- tive, is guided by a ubiquitous system: affect. Across many domains of psychological research, investigators have utilized dimensional mod- AFFECTIVE EXPERIENCE IN SCHIZOPHRENIA els of affect to ground their inquiries. Dimensional models of affect Consistent with historical observations (e.g., Bleuler, 1911/1950), have a long history in psychology. A dimensional approach was intro- a number of recent studies have found that, compared with nonpa- duced by Wundt’s (1912/1924) introspections, and several dimen- tients, schizophrenia patients exhibit very few outward displays of sional models exist in modern-day accounts of affect (e.g., Cacioppo, emotion despite reporting equivalent or greater amounts of experi- Gardner, & Berntson, 1999; Lang, 1995; Watson & Tellegen, 1985). enced emotion (e.g., Berenbaum & Oltmanns, 1992; Kring & Earnst, One of the most well-replicated models is the valence-arousal affec- 1999; Kring & Neale, 1996). Further, there has been remarkable con- tive circumplex (Feldman Barrett & Russell, 1998; Remington, Fabri- sistency across studies and laboratories with respect to self-reported gar, & Visser, 2000; Russell, 1980; Russell & Feldman Barrett, 1999). affective experience; specifically, patients report experiencing more Valence refers to the hedonic quality (pleasure or displeasure) of, and unpleasant emotion in response to emotionally evocative stimuli than arousal (or activation) to the felt activation associated with, affect- do nonpatients (Kring & Earnst, 1999, in press). related stimuli. The valence-arousal structures have been replicated Despite the consistency in findings, two fundamental issues remain across cultures, people of different ages, and different types of affec- unresolved. First, many researchers question whether schizophrenia tive stimuli, and have been used to organize biological measurements patients can accurately complete a self-report measure of their affec- related to emotion (e.g., Lang, 1995). Given this replicability, the af- tive experience, presumably because their cognitive impairments may fective circumplex has been thought of as a multipurpose, mathemati- preclude them from doing so. Second, the valence-arousal circumplex cal formalism for representing affective phenomena as combinations has not been explicitly identified in schizophrenia patients, although it of these two independent dimensions. When they are derived from is often assumed to apply. These two issues are intertwined, insofar as similarity ratings of affect words, valence and arousal dimensions are inferences about the veracity of schizophrenia patients’ reports of thought to represent the basic aspects of semantic knowledge about af- their experience are based on the untested assumption that schizophre- fect (an interpretation consistent with the semantic differential work nia patients’ representations of affective phenomena are faulty. Thus, the more fundamental question of how patients represent af- fective knowledge is perhaps the most important question to address. An investigation of whether schizophrenia patients’ affective knowl- First authorship is shared between Ann Kring and Lisa Feldman Barrett. Address correspondence to Ann Kring, Department of Psychology, 3210 Tol- edge differs significantly from nonpatients’ provides a necessary plat- man Hall, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720, e-mail: form for understanding and interpreting affect-related phenomena in [email protected], or to Lisa Feldman Barrett, Department of Psy- schizophrenia, especially if declarative knowledge about affect influ- chology, 427 McGuinn Building, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA 02167, ences how people represent their own affective experience and process e-mail: [email protected]. affect-related stimuli (Feldman, 1995; Feldman Barrett, 1998, 2001; VOL. 14, NO. 3, MAY 2003 Copyright © 2003 American Psychological Society 207 PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE Affect in Schizophrenia Russell, 1980). For example, finding that schizophrenia patients pos- chart review. None of the schizoaffective patients were experiencing a sess the same knowledge representations of affective phenomena as current mood episode. Nonpatient control participants were inter- nonpatients would justify continued examination and comparison of viewed to determine that they had no personal or family history of patients’ and nonpatients’ reports of their felt experience within a psychopathology. common frame of reference. Table 1 provides demographic information for all participants and Early attempts to examine semantic knowledge about affect in additional clinical information for the patients. Both parametric and schizophrenia focused on the idea that affective words interfered with nonparametric comparisons indicated that the patient and nonpatient other types of cognitive processing, thereby exacerbating the thinking groups did not differ significantly in sex, age, or years of education. disturbance often observed in schizophrenia (e.g., Lebow & Epstein, Control participants were more likely to be married, ␹2(1, N ϭ 18) ϭ 1963), although empirical investigations failed to support this notion 5.66, p Ͻ .017, and to be of non-White ethnicity, ␹2(1, N ϭ 18) ϭ 2.92, (Chapman & Chapman, 1975; Chapman, Chapman, & Daut, 1974). In p Ͻ .088. All but 1 of the patients were taking neuroleptic medica- another line of research, two studies explicitly examined schizophre- tions, including Zyprexa (n ϭ 5), Risperdal (n ϭ 1), Trilafon (n ϭ 2), nia patients’ similarity judgments of affective words (Neufeld, 1975, Haldol (n ϭ 1), and Navane (n ϭ 1). 1976) using an individual difference multidimensional scaling (MDS) technique (INDSCAL). Overall, patients’ similarity judgments were Similarity Ratings more similar than dissimilar to nonpatients’ judgments, and tended to yield valence and arousal dimensions (along with a dominance-type di- Following a procedure that has been used in other studies (Feldman, mension). It is difficult to generalize broadly from these two studies, 1995; Feldman Barrett, 1998, 2001; Feldman Barrett & Laurenceau, however, because of methodological considerations. First, neither study 2001), participants rated the similarity of all possible pairs of 16 emo- adequately sampled all combinations of valence and arousal, so the tion terms that equally represent all octants of the affective circumplex replicability and interpretability of the resulting dimensional solution (120 word pairs). The terms used were excited, lively, cheerful, pleased, is limited. Second, similarity judgments from nonpatient control par- calm, relaxed, idle, still, dulled, bored, unhappy, disappointed, ner- ticipants were combined with the judgments from schizophrenia vous, fearful, alert, and aroused. Participants were asked to rate the patients to