Self-Ratings of Mood and Emotion: Predictors of Between-Word Variance

Abstract

Between-word differences in self-ratings of mood were addressed when 57 subjects participated in three experiments in which they were required to rate their moods (state) or characteristic emotions (trait) in two or three different ways (including rating, ranking, re-rating, and paired comparisons). Two lists of affect words were employed in the experiments, and results from a series of correlation analyses demonstrate that the best single predictor of between-words differences in self-ratings for emotional words is the group mean rating for each word (rs of the order of .75), while the best single predictor of the group mean is, in turn, the independently scaled Pleasantness value of the word (rs of the order of .85). The Personalness of the emotional word was somewhat related to self-ratings, while Arousal, the “second dimension” of emotion, bore no consistent relationship to between-words variance in self-ratings. Correlations were calculated for both subjects × words and words × subjects matrices. Results are interpreted as strongly supporting the dominant status of group means and affective dimensions associated with words in the prediction of between-words variance in ratings. The independence of between-words variance and between-subjects variance in psychometric testing is noted with reference to the results of the present experiment.