Appropriateness of Affect

Overview

• Appropriate: correlation between the content of speech and the accompanying emotional expression.
• Inappropriate: lack of correlation between the content of speech and the accompanying emotional expression. The patient may laugh while discussing depression or cry while claiming to be happy.
• Incongruous: lack of correlation between affect and stated mood. The patient may claim to be depressed but without flattened affect, e.g. laughs at jokes.
• Fatuous: inappropriate affect that is overly childlike.Associated with hebephrenia, but may indicate an intellectual disability or represent an inappropriate coping mechanism e.g. in an eating disorder.