The Need for Affect: Individual Differences in the Motivation to Approach or Avoid Emotions Gregory R. Maio Cardiff University Victoria M. Esses University of Western Ontario ABSTRACT The present research developed and tested a new individual- difference measure of the need for affect, which is the motivation to approach or avoid emotion-inducing situations. The first phase of the research developed the need for affect scale. The second phase revealed that the need for affect is related to a number of individual differences in cognitive processes (e.g., need for cognition, need for closure), emotional processes (e.g., affect intensity, repression-sensitization), behavioral inhibition and activation (e.g., sensation seeking), and aspects of personality (Big Five dimensions) in the expected directions, while not being redundant with them. The third phase of the research indicated that, compared to people low in the need for affect, people high in the This research was supported by a research grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. We thank Mike Ashton and Geoff Haddock for their suggestions regarding this research, Erik Woody and two anonymous reviewers for their comments on an earlier version of this paper, and Tamara Armstrong and Mark Bernard for their assistance with data coding. Correspondence may be sent to Gregory R. Maio, School of Psychology, P. O. Box 901, Cardiff University, Cardiff, Wales, UK, CF10 3YG, (maio@cardiff.ac.uk) or to Victo- ria M. Esses, Department of Psychology, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada N6A 5C2 (vesses@julian.uwo.ca). Journal of Personality 69:4, August 2001. Copyright © 2001 by Blackwell Publishers, 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA, and 108 Cowley Road, Oxford, OX4 1JF, UK.