PAD emotional state model

The PAD emotional state model is a psychological model developed by Albert Mehrabian and James A. Russell (1974 and after) to describe and measure emotional states. PAD uses three numerical dimensions, Pleasure, Arousal and Dominance to represent all emotions. Its initial use was in a theory of environmental psychology, the core idea being that physical environments influence people through their emotional impact. It was subsequently used by Peter Lang and colleagues to propose a physiological theory of emotion. It was also used by James A. Russell to develop a theory of emotional episodes (relatively brief emotionally charged events). The PA part of PAD was developed into a circumplex model of emotion experience, and those two dimensions were termed 'core affect'. The D part of PAD was re-conceptualized as part of the appraisal process in an emotional episode (a cold cognitive assessment of the situation eliciting the emotion). A more fully developed version of this approach is termed the psychological construction theory of emotion.PAD uses three-dimensional scales which in theory could have any numerical values. The dimensional structure is reminiscent of the 19th century work of Wilhelm Wundt who also used a three-dimensional system and also the 20th century work of Charles E. Osgood.The abbreviated model has also been used in organizational studies where the emotions towards specific entities or products marketed by them are measured.