Affect

When used as a descriptor or adjective, affect means a change, and usually refers to an emotion or symptom. Affected, when used in a description, refers to fake or intentionally assumed behaviour (a changed behaviour), i.e., an affected accent.

In general, to affect refers to the influence a change has on something else. In this sense, it is often confused with to effect, which generally means either "to cause/make/create a change" or to the result of a change. When used as a verb, "effect" refers to the cause of a change, or as a synonym for "created" or "made" ("The governor effected a change in policy"); while "affect" refers to the consequences of that change ("The new policy really affected our family").

As a noun, "affect" may refer to an emotion or to a psychological/psychiatric state (see below). As an adjective, it may refer to an assumed pretense: "Her affected accent really had an effect on me"; "Her affected accent really affected my view of her".

Affect may refer to:

• Affect (philosophy)
• Affect (psychology)
  • Blunted affect or affective flattening, a reduction in emotional reactivity.
  • Labile affect, the unstable display of emotion.
  • Affect display, signs of emotion, such as facial expression, vocalization, and posture
  • Affective science, the scientific study of emotion
• Affect (linguistics), the grammar of expressing affect
• Affective computing, an area of research in computer science aiming to simulate emotional processes.
• Affekt, a German term often used in musical and other aesthetic theory
  • Doctrine of the affections, an important theory in the aesthetics of music

See also

• Affection