Sub-domains
Negative Affect (NA): is a phrase used to describe unpleasant feelings or emotions, which exist on a continuum ranging from common and normal feelings of sadness, fear, and anger to more extreme feelings along the same continuum. NA is understood as comprising important underlying disositions ("Trait NA" - e.g., neuroticism, negative emotional style) and more transient negative feeling states ("State NA"). Circumplex models describe emotional "space" in terms of two dimensions: whether the affect is positive or negative ("hedonic direction" or "valence") and the extent to which the person's experience of the affect is activated. In fact, activated affect (in either hedonic director) may be key for our understanding of the role of affect in health.
Positive Affect (PA): has been characterized as happiness, contentment, positive energy, sociability, and interest in pleasurable or achievement-relevant activities (Watson & Tellegen, 1985). Pressman and Cohen (2005) define positive affect as "feelings that reflect a level of pleasurable engagement with environment such as happiness, joy, excitement, enthusiasm and contentment." The absence of positive feelings (e.g. boredom) is an important manifestation of low positive affect, distinct from negative affect which may or may not be present.
Stress & Coping: focuses on individual perceptions about the nature of events and their relationship to the perceived coping resources of an individual (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984). In general, psychological stress is said to occur when an individual perceives that environmental or internal demands that are personally meaningful exceed his or her adaptive capacity. Operationally, psychological stress is defined by an individual's reporting adaptive capacity overload. However, it has been defined by the presence of a stressor deemed taxing by consenus, for example, the death of a close other. The psychological definition of stress integrates the nature of the environmental threat and the coping capacities of the individual.
Social Relationships: There are several dimensions of social relationships, including their structure, extent and quality. Embedded within social relationships are several related yet distinguishable concepts including social support, loneliness and social netowrk integration. Social support is defined as the amount of quality of resources that an individual receives from social networks, especially the extent to which an individual views social networks as available to provide aid in times of need. These resources can be categorized into emotional, informational and material support and are thought to act as stress buffers - protecting people from the potential pathogenic effects of stressful events.