Affective meanings can be measured with semantic differentials yielding a three-number profile indicating how the concept is positioned on evaluation, potency, and activity (EPA).
Affect control theory has inspired assembly of dictionaries of EPA sentiments for thousands of concepts involved in social life – identities, behaviours, settings, personal attributes, and emotions.
Sentiment dictionaries have been constructed with ratings of respondents from the US, Canada, Northern Ireland, Germany, Japan, China and Taiwan.
[4] Events modify impressions on all three EPA dimensions in complex ways that are described with non-linear equations obtained through empirical studies.
[9] On entering a scene an individual defines the situation by assigning identities to each participant, frequently in accord with an encompassing social institution.
[12] Confirming sentiments associated with negatively evaluated identities – like bully, glutton, loafer, or scatterbrain – generates deviant behavior.
[13] Affect control theory's sentiment databases and mathematical model are combined in a computer simulation program[14] for analyzing social interaction in various cultures.
Based on cybernetic studies by Pavloski[19] and Goldstein,[20] that utilise perceptual control theory, Heise[21] hypothesizes that emotion is distinct from stress.
[24] Affect control theory has been used in research on emotions, gender, social structure, politics, deviance and law, the arts, and business.
Affect Control Theory has been explored through Qualitative measures in interviewing the family, friends, and loved ones of individuals who were murdered, looking at how the idea of forgiveness changes based on their interpretation of the situation.