Affect, emotions, moods, how to differentiate?
Updated: May 21, 2020
It is very important through our life path to understand the difference between affect, emotion and our mood.
Knowing this difference will make our life path easier for us. We will be able to understand other people more easily and accept their differences. We will be more satisfied, and others around us.
Affect
Affect indicates a wide range of our feelings and emotional states of people. So for affect, we can say that it is the current "state" in which the man is. When we say that a person has been in an affect we usually think of the emotion of anger or rage. Sometimes it happens that we experience an intensely strong state of affect, where our perception narrows and we can not think rationally and correctly.
We have heard the phrase "anger blinded him" many times. This phrase just indicates to us that the person is in a state of affect. Sometimes people in this condition can hurt someone, due to a strong loss of consciousness.
Emotions We talked about emotions on the blog "Emotions and how to recognize them", where you can find answers about our basic emotions that we experience.
Mood
Moods are emotional states that are less intense than affect, but last longer. In relation to emotions, moods last longer. Our moods arise without any concrete reason (without a clear stimulus). Moods can affect our thoughts and interpretations of ourselves and the events around us. So there are days when we wake up in a good mood and when we feel good and in relation to that mood we observe that day. While, of course, there are those days when we wake up not in the mood.
When our mood goes into a feeling of lethargy for a long period of time and we feel bad, it would be best to ask for advice or help if we cannot overcome such feelings on our own.
When you are in a bad mood, don't listen to them, play your favorite song, dance, sing, say something nice to yourself, go for a walk ... There are many ways you can do it yourself to improve your mood, if you don't succeed, ask help. The moment you feel positive moods, embrace them!
Stay well and in a good mood, laugh, be happy, but also cry and that is what your spirit needs.
We are here for you "The Business Psychology" team.