Emotional Drift

the most robust effect found across these studies was AC effects on emotional valence, reliably generating an ‘emotional drift,’ i.e., predictable change in their emotional state, including in participants with anhedonic symptoms

Schoeller defines emotional drift as a technically precise, predictable directional change in emotional valence produced by aesthetic chills, distinguishing it from random affective fluctuation and extending it even to anhedonic populations.

Schoeller, Felix, The neurobiology of aesthetic chills: How bodily sensations shape emotional experiences, 2024thesis

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Aesthetic chills cause an emotional drift in valence and arousal

Jain et al. introduce emotional drift as the organising claim of their empirical study, asserting that the chills response produces measurable, bidimensional shifts in both valence and arousal.

Jain, Abhinandan, Aesthetic chills cause an emotional drift in valence and arousal, 2023thesis

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manipulation of interoceptive signals should influence further the emotional drift in valence and arousal reported by participants in this study, in line with the recent framework outlined in Schoeller et al. (2022a)

Jain et al. embed emotional drift within an embodied, interoceptive model of emotion, hypothesising that wearable simulation of somatic chills markers would amplify the drift effect, linking peripheral physiology to affective state change.

Jain, Abhinandan, Aesthetic chills cause an emotional drift in valence and arousal, 2023thesis

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participants who experienced chills during the experiment reported significantly more positive emotional valence and greater arousal for their experience

The empirical findings confirm the directional character of emotional drift, showing that chills-experiencing subjects cluster in the high-valence, high-arousal quadrant, validating the construct’s predictive specificity.

Jain, Abhinandan, Aesthetic chills cause an emotional drift in valence and arousal, 2023supporting

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participants who experienced chills report significantly greater valence and arousal than those who did not

Statistical comparison between chills and no-chills conditions quantifies the magnitude of emotional drift, establishing it as a robust between-group effect with meaningful effect sizes.

Jain, Abhinandan, Aesthetic chills cause an emotional drift in valence and arousal, 2023supporting

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Aesthetic chills cause an emotional drift in valence and arousal. Frontiers in Neuroscience, 16, 1013117.

Schoeller’s review bibliography cites the foundational emotional drift paper, confirming its canonical status within the neurobiology of aesthetic chills research programme.

Schoeller, Felix, The neurobiology of aesthetic chills: How bodily sensations shape emotional experiences, 2024supporting

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Some of us find the ACA program and become active in meetings only to drift away. We become inconsistent in meeting attendance.

The ACA text employs ‘drift’ in a psychological recovery context to describe gradual, non-volitional disengagement from a stabilising structure, resonating with emotional drift as cumulative directional movement away from a prior state.

INC , ACA WSO, ADULT CHILDREN OF ALCOHOLICS DYSFUNCTIONAL FAMILIES, 2012aside

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It sets up a cycle of excitation vs. disappointment, or of gratification vs. withholding, which is yet another manifestation of the seesawing from one end of the emotional spectrum to the other

Dayton’s description of oscillatory emotional states in traumatic bonding provides a contrasting model — bidirectional instability rather than unidirectional drift — against which the directionality of emotional drift can be conceptually sharpened.

Dayton, Tian, Emotional Sobriety: From Relationship Trauma to Resilience and Lasting Fulfillment, 2007aside

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