Psychology

Toward the desegregation of thought and affect in psychological theorizing

Document Type

Article

Abstract

This article interrogates the historical segregation of thought and affect in psychological theorizing. I note how, across a range of theoretical approaches to the study of thinking, the relations between thought and affect have been either negated or ignored or underemphasized. In the context of the recent 'turn to affect' in the social sciences, which has been seen as offering a new paradigm for conceptualizing social and psychological phenomena, this elision is all the more striking, and a selective overview of current writings illustrative of this literature is presented. Yet, reciprocally, it is noteworthy that the 'turn to affect' literature has not addressed the relation between affect and thought, and hence that it contributes to the theoretical segregation that I argue is problematic. I then discuss some recent proposals within psychology that, in each of their specific ways, dissolve the theoretical dualism between thinking and affect, and offer an integrative reformulation that synthesizes the affective, intellectual, and psychosocial constituents of thought, as well as some works outside of psychology that can be viewed as illustrating the fusion of thought and affect. I argue for an approach that recognizes the biographical intertwining of the affective and intellectual life of the epistemic agent and the way in which both are shaped by processes of social constitution and by transgenerational influences.

Publication Title

Social and Personality Psychology Compass

Publication Date

2016

Volume

10

Issue

1

First Page

3

Last Page

10

DOI

10.1111/spc3.12230

Keywords

psychological theorizing, transgenerational influences, psychosocial constituents, social constitution, thought, affect

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