Valence, as used in psychology, especially in discussing emotions, means the intrinsic attractiveness/good-ness or averseness/bad-ness of an event, object, or situation. The term is also used to characterize and categorize specific emotions. For example, the emotions popularly referred to as negative, such as anger and fear, have negative valence. Joy has positive valence. Positively valenced emotions are evoked by positively valenced events, objects, or situations. The term is also us