page_title: Emotional granularity
section_title: Valence and arousal
hierarchical_section_title: Emotional granularity / Valence and arousal
caption_attribution_description: English: Psychologist Russell's model of arousal and valence
context_page_description: Emotional granularity is an individual's ability to differentiate between the specificity of their emotions. An individual with high emotional granularity would be able to discriminate between their emotions that all fall within the same level of valence and arousal, labeling their experiences with discrete emotion words. Someone with low emotional granularity would report their emotions in global terms, usually of pleasure or displeasure. It is unknown whether these differences of granularity among individuals stem from an inability of some to verbally label the discrete emotions they feel inside, or whether some people are simply unaware of the distinctions between specific emotions.
context_section_description: Emotions can be mapped out on a chart modeling the range of arousal (high to low) and valence (pleasure to displeasure) that is experienced during a particular emotion. For example, in the top right corner are the emotions with high arousal and high valence, which include excited, astonished, delighted, happy, and pleased. These emotions are all examples of positive emotions that are high in arousal. In the opposite corner is the low valence and low arousal section, containing miserable, depressed, bored, and tired as some examples.
  Using the latter as an example, one with high emotional granularity would be able to differentiate between feeling depressed, bored, tired, and miserable. An individual exhibiting low emotional granularity would clump together all low arousal and negative emotions.  Perhaps in an experiment testing one's emotional granularity, as explained in the following section, a participant would be given hypothetical scenarios to see their ability to distinguish between emotions. For example, researchers would present a traumatic situation to see whether it induces anger, fear, frustration, or more than one of these emotions, indicating whether that the participant is able to produce discrete emotion labels, or instead clumps together these high arousal/negative emotions.
  One influence on emotional granularity is language, because one's ability to access emotional language in their memory impacts their labels when making emotional judgments. The speed and accuracy that one exhibits when verbalizing discrete emotion labels for oneself or another depends on the available emotion words.
caption: Valence–arousal circumplex chart
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