The Structural Ambivalence of Emotional Valence: An Introduction

Emotions are complex phenomena. We all have an intuitive understanding of what they are because we experience them in everyday life. They occur in response to triggering situations in the external environment and play a major role in our perception, cognition, and motivation. Despite their paramount importance in our lives, attempts to provide a general definition or complete taxonomy of emotions have failed. Not only is the general essence of emotions poorly understood, several affective properties are also still a matter of debate. Among these, a central and still much discussed feature is the valence of emotions, that is, their positive or negative character . Since polarity-based explanations have failed to provide a satisfactory account of emotional valence, the time has come to take a pluralistic perspective seriously. Positive and negative elements melt together in every single emotion. Acknowledging their structural ambivalence seems to be the most appropriate scientific attitude. Nevertheless, highlighting the structural complexity of emotions cannot be the last word on this topic; merely acknowledging their ambivalence does not allow us to comprehend how and why such states appear to be negative. Emotions are ambivalent because they are polymorphous and context-sensitive; precisely for this reason, they are difficult to grasp. To reach a balanced unbiased view of emotions, we must not overlook or reduce their complexity, but rather accept and describe all of their facets.