The English lexicon of interpersonal affect: Love, etc.

Three studies were conducted to determine some aspects of the semantic structure of words referring to positive interpersonal affect. Two studies determined dimensions of difference and families of related words on the basis of the target persons associated with each. These results were compared with those from sorting on the basis of overall similarity of meaning. There was close agreement among the three studies, using different samples of words, indices of similarity, and judges. The relation of the similarity structure of the words to the dimensions of affective experience and to discrete, basic, emotion is discussed.