ABSTRACT
The Specific Affect Coding System (SPAFF) is designed to code specific emotions in marital and family interactions. This coding system categories affect at the level of the emotion, and yields codes that are descriptive of the emotional communication in any interaction over time. SPAFF is a gestalt coding system, which uses a holistic approach to recognizing and categorizing affect, through integrating a physical features approach with a cultural informant approach. The physical features approach allows a detailed recognition and categorization of facial, physical, and verbal cues currently known to be related to specific emotions. The cultural informant approach allows the coder to be a cultural informant to use his or her subjective understanding of emotions in identifying specific affects. The synthesis of these two approaches allows the coding system to draw on the wealth of research information on emotional expression, training observers to become aware of cues typically associated with discrete emotions, and allows the observer to bring to the coding the wealth of his or her experience as an emotional being to further aid in accurately identifying specific affects.
