Positive and Negative Affect Scale (PANAS)

The PANAS treats positive and negative feelings as two separate things rather than opposite ends of one scale. A person can be having a day that is both — excited and anxious at once — and a single mood rating cannot show that.

Twenty words describe feelings. Ten are positive: interested, excited, strong, enthusiastic, proud, alert, inspired, determined, attentive, active. Ten are negative: distressed, upset, guilty, scared, hostile, irritable, ashamed, nervous, jittery, afraid. Each is rated from very slightly or not at all to extremely. The ten in each set sum separately, giving two scores from 10 to 50. The instructions specify the timeframe — right now, the past week, or in general — which is what lets the same twenty words measure either a passing mood or a lasting disposition.

• Positive Psychology overview

Licensing Notes: The scale is reproduced widely across university, clinical, and research sites without a posted fee. .

Learn More: The PANAS-X (60 items) breaks affect into eleven specific states including fear, hostility, guilt, sadness, joviality, and fatigue. The PANAS-C (27 items) was developed for children, though its discriminant validity remains a documented weakness.