The emotional feeling, tone, and mood attached to a thought, including its external manifestations. [L. affectus, state of mind, fr. afficio, to have influence on]
- blunted a. a disturbance in mood seen in schizophrenic patients manifested by shallowness and a severe reduction in the expression of feeling.
- flat a. absence of or diminution in the amount of emotional tone or outward emotional reaction typically shown by others or oneself under similar circumstances; a milder form is termed blunted a..
- inappropriate a. emotional tone or outward emotional reaction out of harmony with the idea, object, or thought accompanying it.
- labile a. rapid shifts in outward emotional expressions; often associated with organic brain syndromes such as intoxication.
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af·fect 'af-.ekt n the conscious subjective aspect of an emotion considered apart from bodily changes compare FEELING (3)
af·fect ə-'fekt, a- vt to produce an effect upon esp to produce a material influence upon or alteration in <paralysis \affected his limbs>
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n. (in psychiatry)
1. the predominant emotion in a person's mental state.
2. the emotion associated with a particular idea.
• affective adj.
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af·fect (afґekt) the external expression of emotion attached to ideas or mental representations of objects; cf. mood. affective adjMedical dictionary. 2011.