J Korean Neuropsychiatr Assoc.  2010 Sep;49(5):468-479.

Development of the Korean Affective Word List

• Kim BR
• Lee E
• Kim HH
• Park JY
• Kang JI
• An SK

Abstract

OBJECTIVES
As interest in the field of affective science continues to increase, research into the arousal of emotions by the use of facial stimuli, event pictures, and stimulus words is now being actively pursued. The purpose of this study was to develop a Korean Affective Word List for eliciting emotional reactions.
METHODS
The preliminary selection process was more carefully divided into the primary process when the words were extracted which the author thought elicited the emotions of happiness, sadness, fear, anger, and disgust from the Korean-Language Dictionary according to vocabulary frequency, the secondary process when the words were extracted which the Affective Words Selection Committee judged elicited only a single category of emotion. The affective words selected in the two-stage preliminary process were then presented to normal, young subjects, who were asked to allocate each word on the basis of their emotional reaction to one of the following emotional categories: happiness, sadness, fear, anger, disgust, and surprise. After the selected words caused the intended-emotional response with inter-rater agreement in more than 80%, a total of 166 words were selected except surprise. The complementary selection process was carried out following the preliminary process in order to make up for the lack of surprise words and the relative want of anger words.
RESULTS
A total of 184 words were finally selected: 83 words for happiness, 36 for sadness, 24 for fear, 10 for anger, 20 for disgust, and 11 for surprise.
CONCLUSION
These Korean affective words are expected to be widely used for eliciting emotions in future Korean research on emotion.

Keyword

Emotion; Affective words; Korean; Happiness; Sadness; Fear; Threat; Anger; Disgust; Surprise

MeSH Terms

Anger
Arousal
Happiness
Vocabulary