Variations in magnitude of emotion: A method applied to anxiety and hostility during phases of the menstrual cycle. Psychosom Med 23.300

We may now believe that in the inter-stitial tissues of the gonads special chemical substances are produced, which, when taken up in the blood stream, charge definite parts of the central nervous system with sexual tension.—Sigmund Freud5 1 HE INVESTIGATION and measure-ment of emotions and emotional change constitute a research area that has chal-lenged many but left none triumphant. Also challenged, but humbled by the prospective task, we have been attracted particularly to the general problem of the lack of a quan-titative tool in psychiatry and to the specific problem of the need for a method of measur-ing, with reasonable precision, the extent of emotional change. These interests have in-volved us in construct selection and formu-lation of such questions as: What phenom-ena are to be labeled as typifying a specific emotion and what levels of affective aware