The affective dimensional structure of emotions: A comparative study on anger and fear

The study presented in this paper is mainly based on the theoretical framework namely circumplex model of affect put forward by Russell & Feldman Barrett (1999). The aim of the present paper is to study in detail how subjects experience fear and anger in terms of affective dimensions, by presenting two modalities of imaged scenarios: (I) an imagining situation induced by the experimenter, and (2) an imagining situation selected by the subject (free recall) for each emotion. Results showed that subjects scored similar patterns of affective core feelings for both emotions in the modality of free recall. However, there were significant differences between fear and anger for the modality of induced emotions regarding degree of realism and arousal. Anger situation was imaged more realistic than fear one, while anxiety situation scored as more activated than anger one. Our data support the Russell & Feldman Barrett s model with regard to the arousal affective dimension but not in relation to the pleasure affective dimension, due to anger and fear did not reflect significant differences regarding along the pleasant-unpleasant positional dimension.