Comparing your “happy” to my “happy”: how to assess the individual affective space

= 103), emotional adjectives were arranged or rated on a computer monitor with subsequent calculation of a dissimilarity matrix of each item's emotional impact. These matrices showed good test-retest reliabilities for each method, while clear differences emerged in the exploratory analyses. Dimensionality analyses using multidimensional scaling showed two, respectively three, dimensions yielding an ideal solution to represent the data in the SAM, with some participants using up to five dimensions in the MAT. Quantifying the affective spaces as polygons revealed the highest correlation of surface areas in the MAT, indicating that MAT might be particularly useful when focusing on emotion differentiation. By developing an instrument measuring the individual affective space, we propose applying the personalised medicine approach to emotions and, eventually, transferring the results to psychiatry and psychotherapy for better treatments.