UniqueMixture, if it's not that complicated than feel free to explain. I'm not interested in being right, I'm interested in learning the material with sufficient solidity that I can then use it in practice.
Skylights; Sorry, I should have been more specific, but it was late. None of these tests or scales cover any kind of pathology. All of this is studying behaviors, traits, and trends that are within in range of healthy psychological states.
So, the scale that the book and my professor covered kind of said that people live on a continuum between Positive affective and Negative affective as a way of life. That is, some people are more prone to noticing only positive emotions and are very optimistic, other people, who are still healthy, are prone to feel more negative emotions are are less optimistic. So, what we're discussing here is someone's emotional set point, at least, that's what I assume we're trying to test. The set point being the general stable average of what someone's emotions over time turn out to be. Is the person, on average over an extended period of time, more happy, more anxious, more pessimistic, more optimistic? This is where a double scale begins to confuse me. I thought we were judging a two qualities on a scale to judge a set point. Both the book and the lecture covered Hedonic balance on a scale of positive to negative and Affective style intensity on a scale from high to low. Then we were told to take two tests, one regarding affective style intensity and the other being the other being the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule which clearly is grading positive and negative emotions but which offers two scores, one being the score from 10-50 on Positive Affect and the other being the score from 10-50 on Negative Affect, and write a short paper about them and how they correlate to the text/lectures. I am not entirely clear on how they correlate because someone could, theoretically, receive a 50 on both negative affect and positive affect and be within healthy psychological standards but one cannot receive a mark on both ends of the hedonic scale unless one is suffering from a pathology such as bipolar. The PANAS, if it is relating to the hedonic scale is made so that everyone receives pathological results because the lowest score you could receive on either is a 10 (though that's unlikely since virtually everyone feels both annoyed and interested and happy and sad each week), thus putting everyone on both sides of the scale.
To which I can only say; "..huh?"