Watson, D., & Clark, L. A. (1984). Negative affectivity: the disposition to experience aversive emotional states. Psychological bulletin, 96(3), 465.
This paper uses an interesting method. They took several “different” constructs that all intercorrelated highly and grouped them together.
Summary
Negative Affectivity is a “mood-dispositional dimension.” High-NA individuals exhibit poor self-esteem and are distressed, even in non-stressful situations. Affect states for high-NA individuals include worry, tension, feelings of nervousness, anger, scorn, revulsion, guilt, self-dissatisfaction, a sense of rejection and some sadness. High negative affectivity is also associated with rumination. This trait is theoretically orthogonal to positive affect states like joy or enthusiasm or excitement, meaning that a high-NA person can still experience joy. Thus, NA does not mean constant negative affect, but simply that a person is more likely to experience negative affect. Additionally, high-NA do not have larger increases in distress (in relation to a stressor) than do low-NA individuals, rather their baseline stress or discomfort level is simply higher. Finally, NA appears to be relatively stable, even after 10 years.
Application
My previous conception of affect had been that positive affect and negative affect were bipolar. Several studies are cited showing the benefit of measuring negative affect separately from positive affect. Breaking apart bipolar scales has occurred to me before, most especially for construal (and “construal ambidexterity”). NA correlates with a large range of measures, though generally has “low and nonsignificant correlations with positive affect.” It might be an interesting practice to test bipolar scales additionally as two separate, unidimensional scales and see if the psychometrics of the scales are better that way. Screening potential hires for NA seems like an ethical violation.
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