The Negative and Positive Affect Scale (NAPAS)

Abstract

The Negative and Positive Affect Scale (NAPAS) is a widely utilized, psychometrically validated self-report instrument designed to evaluate the core emotional dimensions of subjective well-being: negative affect (NA) and positive affect (PA). Originally developed by Daniel K. Mroczek and Christian M. Kolarz in 1998 for the landmark Midlife in the United States (MIDUS) national survey, the instrument operationalizes affective states experienced over a standard recall interval of the past 30 days. The original scale comprises 12 items evenly split across two distinct six-item subscales: Negative Affect (measuring dysphoria, anxiety, restlessness, hopelessness, perceived fatigue/effort, and worthlessness) and Positive Affect (measuring cheerfulness, good spirits, happiness, calmness/peacefulness, life satisfaction, and vitality). A psychometrically refined 10-item version was later standardized by Mohsen Joshanloo in 2017, eliminating statistical redundancies while preserving broad criterion validity.

Responses are recorded on an authentic 5-point Likert-type frequency scale ranging from 1 (None of the time) to 5 (All the time). Psychometric investigations across diverse adult demographic cohorts, large national probabilistic samples, and non-Western cultural populations demonstrate robust structural integrity. Confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) consistently confirm a two-dimensional orthogonal or moderately negatively correlated latent factor structure (typically r = −.20 to −.45), supporting the theoretical conceptualization of positive and negative emotionality as functionally separable systems. Internal consistency reliability is high, with Cronbach’s alpha coefficients regularly exceeding .80 to .87 for Negative Affect and .82 to .91 for Positive Affect. Test-retest reliability across multi-year longitudinal waves demonstrates substantive stability with meaningful sensitivity to life-course transitions, health shocks, and personality maturation. In clinical, occupational, epidemiological, and gerontological contexts, the NAPAS provides a parsimonious, minimally burdensome, yet conceptually comprehensive metric of affective functioning and psychological distress.

Keywords

Negative and Positive Affect Scale, NAPAS, positive affect, negative affect, subjective well-being, MIDUS, emotional well-being, psychological distress, psychometrics, factor structure, life satisfaction, emotional health, affective assessment

Authors

The original Negative and Positive Affect Scale was developed and published by Daniel K. Mroczek and Christian M. Kolarz in 1998 as part of the primary psychosocial battery for the National Survey of Midlife Development in the United States (MIDUS), funded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Network on Successful Midlife Development.

• Daniel K. Mroczek, Ph.D.: Professor of Psychology and Medical Social Sciences at Northwestern University (Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences and Feinberg School of Medicine), Evanston and Chicago, Illinois, United States. His primary research specializes in lifespan personality development, subjective well-being, affective dynamics, and the longitudinal influences of personality and emotion on physical health, chronic disease trajectories, and longevity.
• Christian M. Kolarz, M.A.: Psychometrician and behavioral researcher formerly affiliated with the Department of Psychology at Fordham University, Bronx, New York, United States. His work with Dr. Mroczek concentrated on quantitative modeling of age differences in affective functioning, social relationships, and subjective quality of life across adulthood.
• Mohsen Joshanloo, Ph.D. (Key Psychometric Contributor): Professor of Psychology at Keimyung University, Daegu, South Korea, and Honorary Principal Fellow at the University of Melbourne, Australia. Dr. Joshanloo conducted extensive cross-cultural validation, measurement invariance testing, and psychometric refinements of the scale, culminating in the formal 10-item brief adaptation of the NAPAS.

Purpose

The overarching purpose of the Negative and Positive Affect Scale (NAPAS) is to provide an efficient, theoretically robust, and psychometrically rigorous measurement of the affective core of subjective well-being. Historically, empirical research on well-being and distress faced a dual challenge: clinical scales such as the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) focused almost exclusively on severe psychiatric pathology without capturing flourishing or positive emotionality, while general personality inventories lacked contextualized temporal reference points. Conversely, extensive affect inventories such as the 60-item Positive and Negative Affect Schedule–Expanded Form (PANAS-X) imposed substantial respondent burden, making them cumbersome for inclusion in multi-domain epidemiological cohorts and longitudinal panel studies.

Mroczek and Kolarz (1998) engineered the NAPAS to reconcile these challenges. Designed explicitly for large-scale epidemiological investigations, clinical trials, and population-level health surveys, the instrument measures general affective states over a standard past-30-day recall timeframe. This 30-day window was strategically chosen to bridge the gap between volatile momentary mood states (state affect) and enduring, immutable affective temperaments (trait affect). By asking respondents how much of the time they experienced specific emotional states over the previous month, the NAPAS provides a reliable indicator of sustained affective tone and emotional balance.

In applied and clinical settings, the NAPAS serves multiple key functions:

• Epidemiological Health Monitoring: Tracking demographic disparities in psychological wellness, socioeconomic gradients of distress, and the affective toll of public health crises.
• Gerontological and Developmental Research: Evaluating affective stability, the socioemotional selectivity phenomenon, and the “paradox of aging”—where older adults often sustain high positive affect despite physical decline.
• Clinical Outcome Evaluation: Assessing therapeutic efficacy in cognitive-behavioral, pharmacological, and mindfulness-based interventions by monitoring concurrent reductions in negative affect and restorations of positive affect.
• Behavioral Medicine and Psychoneuroimmunology: Investigating the physiological sequelae of chronic negative affect (e.g., systemic inflammation, cardiovascular dysregulation, hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis hyperactivation) versus the protective, health-promoting effects of sustained positive emotionality.

Psychological Construct

The NAPAS assesses two fundamental, bidirectional dimensions of human emotional experience: Negative Affect (NA) and Positive Affect (PA). In contemporary psychometrics and affective science, these constructs are conceptualized not as polar opposites on a single continuum, but as distinct psychophysiological and behavioral dimensions that can vary quasi-independently within an individual over time.

Negative Affect (NA)

Negative Affect represents the frequency and extent to which an individual experiences states of subjective distress, unpleasurable engagement, emotional pain, and psychological malaise. The NAPAS operationalizes NA through six specific clinical indicators derived in part from psychiatric distress screening metrics (such as the Kessler K6 scale):

• Depressed/Dysphoric Mood: Reflected by the item “so sad nothing could cheer you up”, capturing anhedonic, intractable melancholy that resists external mood-lifting stimuli.
• Autonomic Anxiety: Measured via “nervous”, tapping into acute physiological apprehension, somatic arousal, and heightened anticipatory vigilance.
• Psychomotor Agitation: Captured through “restless or fidgety”, assessing motor restlessness, kinetic tension, and subjective internal unease.
• Hopelessness: Operationalized as feeling “hopeless”, addressing pessimistic cognitive appraisal regarding personal agency and future outcomes, a key clinical hallmark of clinical depression and suicidality.
• Perceived Depletion / Psychomotor Retardation: Measured by the sensation “that everything was an effort”, representing executive fatigue, motivational blunting, and somatic exhaustion.
• Cognitive Self-Depreciation: Measured by feeling “worthless”, capturing profound decrements in perceived personal value, self-esteem, and core social utility.

Positive Affect (PA)

Positive Affect denotes the extent to which an individual experiences pleasurable engagement with their environment, subjective vitality, inner tranquility, and cognitive satisfaction with ongoing life circumstances. Rather than solely measuring high-arousal excitement (such as the PANAS “excited” or “alert” items), the NAPAS incorporates both high-arousal and low-arousal positive states, providing a more balanced view of adult emotional well-being across the lifespan:

• Interpersonal and Social Cheerfulness: Measured by feeling “cheerful”, reflecting an upbeat, socially expressive, and benevolent demeanor.
• Resilient Optimism: Operationalized as being “in good spirits”, tapping into generalized positive orientation, buoyancy, and mood stability in daily life.
• High-Intensity Joy: Captured via feeling “extremely happy”, representing peak positive emotional states, profound subjective delight, and euphoric pleasure.
• Low-Arousal Serenity: Reflected by feeling “calm and peaceful”, tapping into emotional equanimity, psychological safety, and the absence of autonomic turbulence.
• Cognitive-Affective Fulfillment: Measured by feeling “satisfied”, capturing subjective contentment, gratitude, and perceived alignment between current life conditions and personal desires.
• Bio-Behavioral Vitality: Captured through “full of life”, reflecting somatic vigor, physical energy, and an active, enthusiastic approach to daily living.

Theoretical Framework

The architectural foundation of the NAPAS rests upon several major theoretical frameworks in personality psychology, affective neuroscience, and lifespan developmental theory.

The Independence Model of Affect

The scale is anchored in the foundational work of Bradburn (1969), Diener and Emmons (1984), and Watson, Clark, and Tellegen (1988). Classical theories posited that happiness and sadness occupied opposite ends of a single bipolar spectrum. However, empirical findings across behavioral genetics, psychophysiology, and psychometrics demonstrate that Positive and Negative Affect are governed by partially dissociable bio-behavioral systems:

• The Behavioral Inhibition System (BIS): Highly sensitive to punishment, threat, and novelty cues, underlying negative affectivity and neuroticism.
• The Behavioral Activation System (BAS): Driven by appetitive motivation, incentive reward cues, and dopamine pathways, underlying positive affectivity and extraversion.

Because the neural substrates of BIS and BAS operate via distinct neurochemical pathways, an individual can experience periods of mixed affective states, concurrent attenuation, or asymmetric activation. The NAPAS is explicitly constructed to honor this structural independence, treating PA and NA as two distinct orthogonal or mildly correlated axes rather than reciprocal endpoints.

The Circumplex Model of Affect

The NAPAS also integrates principles from James Russell’s Circumplex Model of Affect (1980), which maps affective states across two continuous dimensions: valence (pleasure versus displeasure) and arousal (activation versus deactivation). A notable limitation of other affective scales (like the standard PANAS) is their structural focus on high-arousal items (e.g., active, enthusiastic, distressed, jittery) at the expense of low-arousal states. The NAPAS addresses this limitation by explicitly incorporating both high-activation affective markers (e.g., “extremely happy”, “restless or fidgety”) and low-activation markers (e.g., “calm and peaceful”, “everything was an effort”). This makes it particularly sensitive to demographic groups, such as older adults, whose positive emotionality often centers around calm contentment rather than high-arousal excitement.

Lifespan Socioemotional Selectivity Theory

Mroczek and Kolarz (1998) originally framed their scale within Laura Carstensen’s Socioemotional Selectivity Theory (SST). SST posits that as individuals age and perceive their future time horizon as increasingly constrained, their motivational priorities systematically shift from knowledge acquisition and instrumental status toward emotional regulation, relationship intimacy, and affective well-being. The NAPAS was designed to capture this developmental shift, demonstrating that while negative affect typically decreases across adulthood until late old age, positive affect remains remarkably stable or even improves, particularly when marital quality and social support are controlled.

Validity

The psychometric validity of the NAPAS has been extensively established across diverse population samples, clinical cohorts, and cross-national research designs.

Construct and Factorial Validity

Initial validation by Mroczek and Kolarz (1998) utilized the national MIDUS sample of 2,727 American adults aged 25 to 74. Confirmatory factor analysis demonstrated that a two-factor model specifying separate, correlated latent dimensions of Positive Affect and Negative Affect provided a superior fit to the data compared to a unidimensional affect model. Subsequent analyses by Joshanloo (2017) replicated this factorial validity across multiple independent international samples, documenting robust goodness-of-fit indices (Comparative Fit Index [CFI] > .95, Root Mean Square Error of Approximation [RMSEA] < .06) for both the original 12-item scale and a streamlined 10-item variant.

Convergent Validity

Convergent validity has been established by examining correlations between NAPAS subscale scores and recognized gold-standard psychometric inventories:

• Subjective Well-Being: Positive Affect correlates strongly with the Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS; r = .55 to .68) and the subjective vitality subscales of Ryff’s Scales of Psychological Well-Being.
• Personality Dimensions: In line with Costa and McCrae’s five-factor personality model, Positive Affect correlates positively with Extraversion (r = .38 to .52), while Negative Affect correlates positively with Neuroticism (r = .50 to .65).
• Clinical Distress: The Negative Affect subscale correlates heavily with validated depression and anxiety batteries, including the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D; r = .65 to .75) and the Kessler-6 Non-Specific Distress scale (r > .80).

Discriminant Validity

Discriminant validity between the two subscales is evidenced by the moderate, non-redundant correlation between PA and NA latent factors, which consistently ranges between −.22 and −.46 across healthy adult cohorts. This indicates that shared variance accounts for less than 25% of the total variance, confirming that the two constructs are conceptually distinct rather than inverse duplicates. Additionally, the PA subscale exhibits weak to non-significant correlations with objective somatic symptoms, whereas NA tracks closely with functional somatic complaints, somatic pain reports, and sleep disturbances.

Measurement Invariance Across Gender and Cultures

Extensive measurement invariance investigations (e.g., Joshanloo & Bakhshi; Joshanloo, 2016) have confirmed full metric and scalar invariance across biological sexes and between diverse cultural contexts, including comparative studies between the United States and Iran. These findings verify that the NAPAS assesses identical latent constructs with uniform psychometric item meanings across men and women, as well as across Western individualistic and non-Western collectivist societies.

Reliability

The NAPAS exhibits excellent reliability parameters across diverse demographic groups, age brackets, and study designs.

Internal Consistency

In the original normative sample of 2,727 adults (Mroczek & Kolarz, 1998), internal consistency reliability coefficients demonstrated high scale precision:

• Negative Affect Subscale: Cronbach’s alpha ($lpha$) = .87
• Positive Affect Subscale: Cronbach’s alpha ($lpha$) = .91

In subsequent large-scale evaluations by Joshanloo (2017), the 12-item NAPAS yielded alphas of .82 for NA and .86 for PA. For the psychometrically refined 10-item version, reliability remained similarly robust, with alpha values of .80 for NA (5 items) and .86 for PA (5 items). McDonald’s omega total ($\omega_t$) coefficients consistently parallel these findings, demonstrating values between .83 and .92 across studies, confirming that internal reliability does not depend on tau-equivalence assumptions.

Test-Retest Stability

Because the NAPAS utilizes a standard 30-day recall frame, short-term test-retest assessments (e.g., over a 2- to 4-week window) show substantial stability coefficients ranging from r = .72 to .81, reflecting stable affective disposition. Over extensive longitudinal intervals (such as the 9- to 10-year follow-up cycles across MIDUS Waves 1, 2, and 3), test-retest correlations hover between .45 and .55, consistent with a dynamic trait model where affective set-points exhibit stable baseline tendencies alongside meaningful adaptations to major life transitions, physical health changes, and age-related psychosocial shifts.

Factor Analysis

The structural dimensionality of the NAPAS has been extensively analyzed using both Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) across several decades of research.

Original 12-Item Structure (Mroczek & Kolarz, 1998)

Initial factor modeling confirmed that the 12 items decompose cleanly into two correlated latent factors: Positive Affect (Factor 1) and Negative Affect (Factor 2). All six PA items load strongly on the positive factor (standardized factor loadings typically ranging from .65 to .85), while the six NA items load strongly on the negative factor (standardized loadings ranging from .55 to .80). Cross-loadings across opposite dimensions are negligible (typically < .15), providing clean simple structure.

Model Fit Parameters (12-Item Model)

Confirmatory factor analyses in contemporary psychometric studies report excellent fit statistics for the correlated two-factor model:

• Chi-Square / Degrees of Freedom Ratio ($\chi^2/df$): < 3.0 in well-powered cohorts.
• Comparative Fit Index (CFI): .945 to .972
• Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI): .931 to .965
• Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA): .048 to .062 (90% Confidence Interval: [.041, .068])
• Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR): .035 to .048

Refined 10-Item Structure (Joshanloo, 2017)

Psychometric evaluations by Joshanloo (2016, 2017) revealed minor local dependency and content overlap in the original 12-item pool. Specifically, two items displayed redundant measurement properties or elevated residual covariances: item 2 (“nervous”) within the Negative Affect subscale, and item 7 (“cheerful”) within the Positive Affect subscale. By removing these two items, Joshanloo developed a refined 10-item NAPAS (5 items per dimension). CFA fit indices for this shortened model demonstrate enhanced structural clarity, yielding CFI > .975, RMSEA < .045, and zero modification indices exceeding critical thresholds, while preserving high criterion validity.

Instrument / Measurement Tool

• Instrument Name: Negative and Positive Affect Scale (NAPAS)
• Alternative Titles: Mroczek & Kolarz Affect Scale, MIDUS Affect Battery
• Instrument Nature: Self-report psychological assessment / psychometric rating inventory
• Standard Item Count: 12 items (Original form); 10 items (Joshanloo brief form)
• Subscales / Dimensions:
  • Negative Affect Subscale (NA): 6 items in standard form (items 1–6); 5 items in brief form (items 1–5). Measures dysphoria, anxiety, fidgetiness, hopelessness, psychomotor effort/exhaustion, and feelings of worthlessness.
  • Positive Affect Subscale (PA): 6 items in standard form (items 7–12); 5 items in brief form (items 6–10). Measures cheerfulness, good spirits, happiness, calmness/peacefulness, life satisfaction, and subjective vitality.
• Temporal Recall Frame: “During the past 30 days…”
• Response Format: 5-point Likert-type frequency scale:
  • 1 = None of the time
  • 2 = A little of the time
  • 3 = Some of the time
  • 4 = Most of the time
  • 5 = All the time
• Alternate Display Format: Reverse-ordered layout (from 1 = All the time to 5 = None of the time) can be utilized, provided response values are recoded prior to calculation so that higher numbers represent greater frequency.
• Scoring Procedures:
  • Negative Affect Score: Calculated by summing (or averaging) items 1 through 6. For summed scores on the 12-item version, totals range from 6 to 30. For mean scores, totals range from 1.0 to 5.0. Higher scores denote greater psychological distress and negative emotionality.
  • Positive Affect Score: Calculated by summing (or averaging) items 7 through 12. For summed scores on the 12-item version, totals range from 6 to 30. For mean scores, totals range from 1.0 to 5.0. Higher scores reflect greater flourishing, emotional vitality, and well-being.
  • Affect Balance Index (Optional): PA mean minus NA mean, yielding a net affective valence score ranging from −4.0 to +4.0.
  • 10-Item Scoring: NA = Sum/mean of items 1–5; PA = Sum/mean of items 6–10.

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

• Year of Initial Publication: 1998 (12-item scale; Mroczek & Kolarz); 2017 (10-item refinement; Joshanloo).
• Copyright & Intellectual Property: The items were developed under research supported by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Successful Midlife Development and published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (American Psychological Association).
• Access and Usage Fee: The NAPAS is an open-access, public domain research tool. It is made available free of charge for non-commercial educational, clinical, and scientific investigations.
• Permissions Guidance: Formal permission is not typically required for academic, thesis, or non-commercial scientific research, provided that appropriate scholarly attribution and citation are accorded to Mroczek & Kolarz (1998) and relevant validation publications. Commercial deployment or integration within proprietary diagnostic platforms may require formal clearance from relevant institutional copyright holders.

References

• Bradburn, N. M. (1969). The structure of psychological well-being. Aldine Publishing Company. https://doi.org/10.1037/t10756-000
• Diener, E., & Emmons, R. A. (1984). The independence of positive and negative affect. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 47(5), 1105–1117. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.47.5.1105
• Joshanloo, M. (2016). Factor structure of subjective well-being in Iran. Journal of Personality Assessment, 98(4), 435–443. https://doi.org/10.1080/00223891.2015.1117474
• Joshanloo, M. (2017). Factor structure and criterion validity of original and short versions of the Negative and Positive Affect Scale (NAPAS). Personality and Individual Differences, 105, 233–237. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2016.09.060
• Joshanloo, M., & Bakhshi, A. (2016). The factor structure and measurement invariance of positive and negative affect across gender and cultural groups: A study in Iran and the USA. European Journal of Psychological Assessment, 34(5), 312–318. https://doi.org/10.1027/1015-5759/a000344
• Kessler, R. C., Andrews, G., Colpe, L. J., Hiripi, E., Mroczek, D. K., Normand, S. L. T., Walters, E. E., & Zaslavsky, A. M. (2002). Short screening scales to monitor population prevalences and trends in non-specific psychological distress. Psychological Medicine, 32(6), 959–976. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0033291702006074
• Mroczek, D. K., & Kolarz, C. M. (1998). The effect of age on positive and negative affect: A developmental perspective on happiness. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 75(5), 1333–1349. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.75.5.1333
• Russell, J. A. (1980). A circumplex model of affect. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 39(6), 1161–1178. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0077714
• Watson, D., Clark, L. A., & Tellegen, A. (1988). Development and validation of brief measures of positive and negative affect: The PANAS scales. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54(6), 1063–1070. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.54.6.1063

13. Items of the Scale (Questionnaire)