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LIT-1458: Levels of valence

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StatusActive — read 2026-10-23 (NOTE-1108): in full, from the publisher's open-access PDF (Frontiers, CC licence). Worth reading as the component process model's own statement that valence is several things. Five appraisal checks are each valenced (pleasantness, goal conduciveness, power, self-congruence, moral goodness), and these "micro-valences" are integrated, by weighted sums or by lexicographic and elimination rules, into a one-dimensional "macro-valence" that serves as the common currency for choice. It separates intrinsic pleasantness from goal conduciveness and grounds the split in Berridge. It bears directly on the objection that the record's potential account tracks 'wanting', not 'liking' (CLAIM-438).
Tagsemotion-and-affect, motivation, cognition
SupportsCLAIM-433 — The potential account of valence is an account of goal-conduciveness valence, not of intrinsic pleasantness: on the component process model's separation of levels of valence, the ordering that prevails ranks states by need satisfaction and goal attainment, the potential's strength tracks 'wanting' and its sign tracks goal conduciveness, while 'liking' is a separate appraisal with its own ordering; so the wanting–liking dissociation is two valence systems coming apart, as that separation predicts, and the objection that the account is not about pleasure is conceded rather than answered, CLAIM-437 — 'Wanting' and 'liking' are saliences relative to different, overlapping processes, pursuit and consummation, each ranking states by their bearing on its own concerns; valence is then relative to a perspective, every perspective in the negotiation has its own, the system's valence is that of the perspective whose ordering is the negotiation's potential, and ambivalence is strong saliences of opposite sign with no potential absorbing them
Cited as “paper” byNOTE-1108 — Levels of valence

Graph View

Vera Shuman, David Sander & Klaus R. Scherer (2013), Frontiers in Psychology 4:261 — DOI-10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00261

Key takeaways

  • Multifaceted valence (pp. 1–3). In the component process model, “qualitatively different types of valence are proposed based on appraisals of (un)pleasantness, goal obstructiveness/conduciveness, low or high power, self-(in)congruence, and moral badness/goodness” (p. 1).
  • Pleasantness is not goal conduciveness (p. 2). Intrinsic pleasantness is “a strong, genetically determined association of particular objects with (dis)pleasure”. “Goal conduciveness is a second, qualitatively different, type of valence.” Needs fix goal conduciveness directly but only “set thresholds for pleasantness”. The split is grounded in Berridge: “pleasure is independent of goal conduciveness. The sensual enjoyment of an object and the goal striving toward an object rely on different brain mechanisms (e.g., Berridge, 2003).”
  • Mixed feelings (p. 3) arise by three routes: conflict within one check, between checks, or between levels of processing of one check.
  • Macro-valence (pp. 4–7) is one-dimensional, the “integrative ‘common currency’ to compare alternatives for choices” (p. 1), always present and possibly objectless, like core affect.
  • Integration rules (pp. 8–9). Micro-valences combine by a weighted sum, or by tallying, lexicographic, elimination-by-aspects or one-clever-cue rules, for which “no trade-offs between micro-valences are required” (p. 8). Some micro-valence may “generally dominate” the rest, moral goodness being the candidate (p. 9).
  • Levels interact over time (pp. 9–12), as a nonlinear dynamic system. Macro-valence feeds back on later appraisals. Emotions are attractor states. Emotions can themselves be appraised, so their valence is not fixed (p. 12).

Standing in the record

Filed on 2026-10-23 for the record’s potential account of valence (CLAIM-440, TERM-076) and the objection to it (CLAIM-438). NOTE-1108 sets out what it does to both. In short, it gives the record a principled taxonomy for conceding the objection in part, but not a rescue of “hedonic”. It also uses “dominance” for the PAD axis (p. 4), which is one reason the record now says “potential”.

No instruction for machine-learning practice; nothing here belongs in the anthology.

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