Differential Emotions Scale

[2] The DES helps measure mood based on Carroll Izard's differential emotions theory, [3] The DES consists of thirty items, three for each of the ten fundamental emotions as visualized by Izard: interest, joy, surprise, sadness, anger, disgust, contempt, fear, shame/ shyness, and guilt, which are represented on 5-point Likert scale.

[8] The first significant evidence that supports the DET is based on Ekman's (1971)[9] neurocultural theory (recognition of facial expression and emotion).

Research was done on American, English, French, and Greek subjects, who were asked to verbally describe a series of fundamental emotion photographs of cross-cultural and standardised facial expressions.

This provided background support and allowed for further development upon the DES by helping generate a set of words for the different emotions that could be understood across cultures.

[11] The 49 items of the DES-IV help measure 12 basic emotions (interest, joy, surprise, sadness, anger, disgust, contempt, hostility, fear, shame, shyness and guilt).

Due to the subjective-experience component of this system, this therefore leads to the many concerns and criticism as to whether or not this will hinder the reliability and validity of the results attained.

Results of an exploratory analysis may be able to provide a heuristic and suggestive value, which can then be helpful in the generation of hypotheses that are able to carry out more objective testing.

Confirmatory factor analyses provides a direct test of a specific model, therefore making it the primary source in determining the validity of DES.

[16] Although Izard's theory and differential scale have been used in multiple studies, it has also been criticised to that it is too narrow and focuses too much on negative emotions rather than keeping a balance.