Affective State Persistence (ASP): A Structural Framework for Enduring Affective Configurations

Affective states often persist after initiating conditions have resolved: intensity may diminish, insight may increase, and context may change, yet the state remains recurrent or self-maintaining. Existing frameworks frequently explain what is experienced, how emotion originates, or how it is interpreted, but they less consistently formalize why an affective state re-stabilizes despite these changes. This concept note introduces Affective State Persistence (ASP), a structural framework that treats persistence as a property of system architecture rather than duration or affective content. ASP specifies four interacting regulatory dimensions: Baseline (B) (physiological set-point and interoceptive operating range), Weighting (W) (precision assignment, salience allocation, predictive bias), Stability (S) (configurational depth/attractor strength; energetic and metabolic cost of leaving an established configuration), and Transition (T) (capacity for switching, updating, and state change). Persistence is formalized as a conceptual threshold relation (directional dominance), expressed as T < (B + W + S). ASP is explicitly non-diagnostic and non-therapeutic; it is intended to clarify mechanisms and generate testable implications (e.g., inertia, hysteresis, recovery cost) for future empirical examination. The inequality expresses directional dominance (a threshold relation), not a quantitative equation in fixed units.