Affect Grid

What it measures

A two-dimensional affect assessment based on Russell's (1980) Circumplex Model of Affect, operationalised as a single 9x9 grid yielding independent Pleasure and Arousal coordinates. Pleasure and Arousal are extracted from the grid position as two separate scores. Extremely brief — reducing response burden to near zero compared to PANAS or multi-item scales — making it ideal for repeated affect assessments, in-store intercepts, experience sampling, and within-subjects experimental designs. The Affect Grid has been extensively applied in consumer research to assess real-time responses to advertisements, retail atmospheres, product encounters, brand stimuli, and service experiences. Russell's circumplex model is the theoretical backbone of much retail atmospherics research (including Donovan & Rossiter, 1982).

Representative items

• [Single 9x9 grid instruction]: Place a mark in the square that best describes how you are feeling right now. Moving from left to right, feelings change from unpleasant to pleasant. Moving from bottom to top, feelings change from low arousal (sleepy) to high arousal (excited).

Citation

Russell, J.A., Weiss, A., & Mendelsohn, G.A. (1989). Affect grid: A single-item scale of pleasure and arousal. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 57(3), 493–502.