Quantitive evaluation of the affective characteristic of Chinese words

Objective To understand affective characteristic of Chinese words. Method 1300 adjectives and nouns of Chinese words were rated in five point scale by 65 participants in three dimensions: emotional valence,arousal and familiarity. Results Neither age effect nor gender effect were found for the word scores in each scale of each dimension. The correlation coefficients between each two dimensions were significant (P＜0.01):0. 787 for valence-arousal, 0. 550 for valence-familiarity and 0. 600 for arousal-familiarity.Conclusion The affective vocabulary system of Chinese words can be used as a tool in future emotional research. Key words: Emotion; Psychometrics; Chinese emotional vocabulary system