[1] These displays can be through facial expressions, gestures and body language, volume and tone of voice, laughing, crying, etc.
In both psychology and communication, there are a multitude of theories that explain affect and its impact on humans and quality of life.
[3] Affect can be taken to indicate an instinctual reaction to stimulation occurring before the typical cognitive processes considered necessary for the formation of a more complex emotion.
In this view, an affective reaction, such as liking, disliking, evaluation, or the experience of pleasure or displeasure, is based on a prior cognitive process in which a variety of content discriminations are made and features are identified, examined for their value, and weighted for their contributions.
Thus, temperament, cognitive development, socialization patterns, and the idiosyncrasies of one's family or subculture are mutually interactive in non-linear ways.
As an example, the temperament of a highly reactive, low self-soothing infant may "disproportionately" affect the process of emotion regulation in the early months of life.
[7] In relation to perception, a type of non-conscious affect may be separate from the cognitive processing of environmental stimuli.
Brewin has proposed two experiential processes that frame non-cognitive relations between various affective experiences: those that are prewired dispositions (i.e., non-conscious processes), able to "select from the total stimulus array those stimuli that are casually relevant, using such criteria as perceptual salience, spatiotemporal cues, and predictive value in relation to data stored in memory",[12] and those that are automatic (i.e., subconscious processes), characterized as "rapid, relatively inflexible and difficult to modify... (requiring) minimal attention to occur and... (capable of being) activated without intention or awareness" (1989 p. 381).
When this occurs, a non-conscious affective process takes the form of two control mechanisms; one mobilization, and the other immobilization.
Within the human brain, the amygdala regulates an instinctual reaction initiating this arousal process, either freezing the individual or accelerating mobilization.
The arousal response is illustrated in studies focused on reward systems that control food-seeking behavior.
Unlike instant reactions that produce affect or emotion, and that change with expectations of future pleasure or pain, moods, being diffused and unfocused, and thus harder to cope with, can last for days, weeks, months, or even years.
Recent research suggests that "high functional support is related to higher levels of positive affect".
This study that was published in 2010 discovered that the children of mothers that have unipolar depression, had lower levels of positive affect when compared to the control group.
[18] There are some diseases, physical disabilities and mental health disorders that can change the way a person's affect displays are conveyed.
This is beginning to be corrected though, through "Facial Reanimation Surgery" which is proving not only to successfully improve a patient's affect displays, but also bettering their psychological health.
Fearing an unpredictable American response, leaders of hostile Communist Bloc nations would avoid provoking the United States.