Cognitive-Affective Maps

A Cognitive-Affective Map (also called a CAM or value map) is a diagram that shows concepts and beliefs along with the emotional values attached to them. It also shows the relationships between concepts that support each other or conflict with each other. We suggest the following method:

Identify the main concepts, beliefs, goals, and emotions of the person being modeled.
Identify these elements as emotionally positive or negative, and accordingly represent them by ovals or hexagons.
Identify relations between elements that are either complementary (solid lines) or conflicting (dashed lines).
Show the resulting map to other people to see if it captures their understandings of the person and situation.

Here is a diagram that shows the mapping conventions used:

Ovals represent emotionally positive (pleasurable) elements.
Hexagons represent emotionally negative (painful) elements.
Rectangles represent elements that are neutral or carry both positive and negative aspects.
The thickness of the lines in the shape represents the relative strength of the positive or negative value associated with it.
Solid lines represent the relations between elements that are mutually supportive.
Dashed lines represent the relations between elements that are incompatible with each other.
The thickness of the lines in the connection represents the strength of the positive or negative relation.

CAMs can be produced using any drawing program such as OmniGraffle for Mac, but Valence is a Web-based software tool that will make drawing CAMs easier once the bugs are fixed.

Publications Using Cognitive-Affective Maps:

Findlay, S. D., & Thagard, P. (2014). Emotional change in international negotiation: Analyzing the Camp David accords using cognitive-affective maps. Group Decision and Negotiation, 23, 1281-1300.

Homer-Dixon, T. (2020). Commanding hope: The power we have to renew a world in peril. Toronto: Knopf Canada.

Homer-Dixon, T., Maynard, J. L., Mildenberger, M., Milkoreit, M., Mock, S. J., Quilley, S., T. Schröder, and P. Thagard (2013). A complex systems approach to the study of ideology: Cognitive-affective structures and the dynamics of belief systems. Journal of Social and Political Psychology, 1, 337-364.

Homer-Dixon, T., Milkoreit, M., Mock, S. J., Schröder, T., & Thagard, P. (2014). The conceptual structure of social disputes: Cognitive-affective maps as a tool for conflict analysis and resolution. SAGE Open, 4.

Livanec, S., Stumpf, M., Reuter, L., Fenn, J., & Kiesel, A. (2022). Who’s gonna use this? Acceptance prediction of emerging technologies with Cognitive-Affective Mapping and transdisciplinary considerations in the Anthropocene. The Anthropocene Review, 9(2), 276-295.

Luthardt, J., Morgan, J. H., Bormann, I., & Schröder, T. (2022). Quantifying emotionally grounded discursive knowledge with cognitive-affective maps. Quality & Quantity, 1-39.

Luthardt, J., Schröder, T., Hildebrandt, F., & Bormann, I. (2020). “And Then We’ll Just Check If It Suits Us” – Cognitive-Affective Maps of Social Innovation in Early Childhood Education. Frontiers in Education, 5(33).

Mansell, J., Reuter, L., Rhea, C., & Kiesel, A. (2021). A novel network approach to capture cognition and affect: COVID-19 experiences in Canada and Germany. Frontiers in Psychology, 12. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2021.663627

Milkoreit, M. (2017). Mindmade politics: The cognitive roots of international climate governance. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Reuter, L., Fenn, J., Bilo, T. A., Schulz, M., Weyland, A. L., Kiesel, A., & Thomaschke, R. (2021). Leisure walks modulate the cognitive and affective representation of the corona pandemic: Employing Cognitive-Affective Maps within a randomized experimental design. Appllied Psychology: Health and Well Being, 1-16. doi:10.1111/aphw.12283

Reuter, L., Mansell, J., Rhea, C., & Kiesel, A. (2022). Direct assessment of individual connotation and experience: An introduction to cognitive-affective mapping. Politics and the Life Sciences, 41(1), 131-139.

Thagard, P. (2010). EMPATHICA: A computer support system with visual representations for cognitive-affective mapping. In K. McGregor (Ed.), Proceedings of the workshop on visual reasoning and representation (pp. 79-81). Menlo Park, CA: AAAI Press.

Thagard, P. (2011). The brain is wider than the sky: Analogy, emotion, and allegory. Metaphor and Symbol, 26: 131-142.

Thagard, P. (2011). Critical thinking and informal logic: Neuropsychological perspectives. Informal Logic, 31, 152-170.

Thagard, P. (2012). Mapping minds across cultures. In R. Sun (Ed.), Grounding social sciences in cognitive sciences (35-62) Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Thagard, P. (2012). Values in science: Cognitive-affective maps. Ch. 17 of The cognitive science of science: Explanation, discovery, and conceptual change. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Thagard, P. (2015). The cognitive-affective structure of political ideologies. In B. Martinovski (Ed.), Emotion in group decision and negotiation. Berlin: Springer.

Thagard, P. (2015). Value maps in applied ethics. Teaching Ethics.

Thagard, P. (2018). Social equality: Cognitive modeling based on emotional coherence explains attitude change. Policy Insights from Behavioral and Brain Sciences., 5(2), 247-256.

Thagard, P. (2019). Mind-society: From brains to social sciences and professions New York: Oxford University Press.

Thagard, P. (2019). Natural philosophy: From social brains to knowledge, reality, morality, and beauty. New York: Oxford University Press.

Thagard, P. (2021). Bots and beasts: What makes machines, animals, and people smart? Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, October.

Thagard, P. (2022). Balance: How it works, why it fails, and what it means. New York: Columbia University Press.

Thagard, P. (forthcoming). Why Falsehoods Fly: Fighting Misinformation. New York: Columbia University Press.

Thagard, P., & Larocque, L. (2020). Mapping emotional change in psychotherapy. Unpublished.

Wolfe, S. E. (2012). Water cognition and cognitive affective mapping: Identifying priority clusters within a Canadian water efficiency community. Water Resources Management, 26(10), 2991-3004.