Affective space is bipolar.

TLDR

Prior research has reported affect as monopolar, possibly due to methodological biases against bipolarity. After correcting for response format and acquiescence biases, pleasure–displeasure and arousal–sleepiness constitute a two‑dimensional bipolar affect space that accounts for nearly all reliable variance in Thayer’s four activation factors and depression, while dominance and submissiveness could not be evaluated.

Abstract

Numerous previous studies found monopolar rather than bipolar dimensions of affect (defined as emotion represented in language), but may have included methodological biases against bipolarity. The present study of self-report data (N = 150) on 11 affect scales showed that response format and acquiescence response style significantly shifted correlations between hypothesized opposites away from showing bipolarity. When these biases were taken into account, pleasure was found to be the bipolar opposite of displeasure and arousal of sleepiness. In turn, pleasure-displeasure and degree of arousal formed a twodimensional bipolar space that accounted for almost all of the reliable variance in Thayer's four factors of activation plus a measure of depression. Dominance and submissiveness factors were also included in the study, but invalidity of the scales used precluded any conclusions regarding their bipolarity.