Dictionary: affective   (ə-fĕk'tĭv)

1. Influenced by or resulting from the emotions.
2. Concerned with or arousing feelings or emotions; emotional.

adjective

Relating to, arising from, or appealing to the emotions: emotional, emotive. See feelings.

affective, pertaining to emotional effects or dispositions (known in psychology as ‘affects’). Affective criticism or affectivism evaluates literary works in terms of the feelings they arouse in audiences or readers (see e.g. catharsis). It was condemned in an important essay by W. K. Wimsatt and Monroe C. Beardsley (in The Verbal Icon, 1954) as the affective fallacy, since in the view of these New Critics such affective evaluation confused the literary work's objective qualities with its subjective results. The American critic Stanley Fish has given the name affective stylistics to his form of reader‐response criticism. See also intentional fallacy.

Its affective quality is the feature of an experience which renders it pleasurable or desirable, or the reverse, or which gives it a distinctive emotional tone.

It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Affect (psychology). (Discuss)

Affective refers to the aspect of mind that is characterized by states and processes such as emotion, feeling, mood, motivation, or attitude.^[1][2] The word is most commonly used in psychology and psychiatry. It represents one of the three classical divisions of psychology: cognitive, conative, and affective.

One current psychological theory, the lateralization of brain function, holds that one half of the brain deals mainly with the affective or emotional, while the other half deals mainly with the cognitive or rational, leaving conative functions homeless.

References

1. ^ See The Affective System: a webpage by Dr. William Huitt.
2. ^ See Affective science: affective determinants include motives, attitudes, moods, and emotions.

See also

• Affective science
• Affect
• Affective spectrum

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