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The Positive And Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) gives you an idea of your natural mix of happiness and unhappiness by measuring one’s general levels of positive and negative mood — or affect — and whether you tend to experience higher or lower positive and negative emotional states than average. There is neither “right” or “wrong” outcome, nor “best” or “worse”. Each outcome has its advantages and drawbacks. Knowing your mix will allow you, if you so choose, to best use it for effect and impact pending a situation and the way you tend to be.

To take the assessment, find a time when you feel relatively neutral about life, and not when you are more stressed or happy than normal. Then answer 20 questions about how deeply you feel a series of emotions.

Answer in general, or on average — not at this very moment. Use the text below or this PDF if you’d like to do it on a printout.

You have five possible answers for each emotion:

1 = very slightly or not at all
2 = a little
3 = moderately
4 = quite a bit
5 = extremely

Assign the scores above to the following 20 emotions:

1. Interested _______

2. Distressed _______

3. Excited _______

4. Upset _______

5. Strong _______

6. Guilty _______

7. Scared _______

8. Hostile _______

9. Enthusiastic _______

10. Proud _______

11. Irritable _______

12. Alert _______

13. Ashamed _______

14. Inspired _______

15. Nervous _______

16. Determined _______

17. Attentive _______

18. Jittery _______

19. Active _______

20. Afraid _______

Tallying results

Calculate your positive affect by summing your scores for questions 1, 3, 5, 9, 10, 12, 14, 16, 17, and 19.
Calculate your negative affect by summing your scores for questions 2, 4, 6, 7, 8, 11, 13, 15, 18, and 20.

Which PANAS type are you?

Remember, there is neither “right” or “wrong” outcome, nor “best” or “worse”. Each outcome has its advantages and drawbacks. Knowing your mix will allow you, if you so choose, to best use it for effect and impact pending a situation and the way you tend to be.

Unless you are the highly unusual person who is right at the average on both positive (33.3) and negative (about 17.4), you will fall into one of four quadrants.

If you have above-average positive affect (>33.3) and above-average negative affect (>17.4),
you’re a “Mad Scientist” who is always spun up about something.
If you’re above-average positive (>33.3) and below-average negative (<17.4),
you’re a “Cheerleader” who celebrate the good in everything and don’t dwell on the bad.
If you’re below-average positive (<33.3) and above-average negative (>17.4),
you’re a “Poet” who has trouble enjoying good things, but know when there’s a threat lurking.
If you’re below-average positive (< 33.3) and below-average negative (<17.4),
you’re a “Judge” who is sober and cool about everything.

Further interpreting the results

While there is no “best” or “worst”, “good” or “bad”, “right” or “wrong” PANAS type to be, you may doubt that or wish you were another type you perceive to be “better”. There is no easy way to possibly convince you otherwise, but perhaps an example of why it is bad if everyone were each type would convince you why all four types are needed, and quite possibly equally.

If everyone were a Cheerleader and only saw the bright side of everything, we’d keep making the same mistakes repeatedly, which would be awful.
Judges, meanwhile, keep us safe from what unrestrained and endless impulsivity may sometimes, or ultimately, lead to.
Poets keep us alert to threats, even if everything might seem like a threat at times when some aren’t and would just slow down progress or prevent it all together.
Finally, Mad Scientists keep life interesting by making everything grandiose, good and bad, when a lot, if not most things, clearly aren’t.

Every PANAS type has its advantages and disadvantages for all and each situation. Part of knowing your PANAS type is to know where you might fit best or be able to use your PANAS strengths best, and to avoid circumstances where your PANAS type isn’t naturally suited as it’d be more work, and more risk of negative outcomes, to achieve the level of goodness for outcomes in circumstances where your PANAS type belongs more naturally.

More information

You can find more information on the PANAS, outcomes, meaning, and use, on these sites and pages within them:

A few weeks ago, I had mused about writing my own book about running while writing what I thought of the book, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, by Haruki Murakami. I certainly have enough stories for one, and hope to still have enough for one going forward as I begin a new phase of my distance running with a new style of running. However, I’m not sure where it’d all fit into my writing and/or life plans, this running book I’m thinking about. To test those waters then, and/or perhaps just to make notes in case I write one, I will be dropping the occasional running vignette for my writings on this blog. Here’s the first one.