Where does passion collide?

The passions are the soul's affective motions or appetites, the states of feeling that a person undergoes, long set against reason as the faculty meant to govern them. Rene Descartes gave the idea its systematic treatment in Les passions de l'ame (1649), classifying the primitive passions and tracing them to bodily and mental causes, and David Hume devoted Book II of A Treatise of Human Nature (1739) to the passions and their part in action, extending an inquiry that reaches back to Aristotle's account of the pathe. Here the word names a broad category of emotion or affect argued over by philosophers, not a religious event or a person's love of a chosen activity.[1][2]

Unit

A named affective state of the soul, such as wonder, love, or fear

Recovery means

Not applicable

Measured by

Analysed by classification and argument rather than quantified

In psychology, passion is a strong inclination toward an activity that a person loves, values, and invests time in, to the point that it becomes part of their identity. Robert Vallerand and colleagues introduced the dualistic model in 2003, separating harmonious passion, where the activity sits in balance with the rest of life, from obsessive passion, where an internal pressure to engage takes control, and their paper borrows Descartes's title Les passions de l'ame while measuring something quite different. This referent is a motivational disposition toward one activity, assessed by questionnaire, not a general category of emotion or a religious event.[3]

Unit

One person's passion for a specific activity, scored as harmonious or obsessive

Recovery means

Not applicable

Measured by

Assessed by self-report, chiefly the Passion Scale with harmonious and obsessive subscales

Entrepreneurial passion is an intense positive feeling that a founder experiences toward activities that are central to who they are as an entrepreneur, such as inventing, founding, or growing a venture. Cardon, Wincent, Singh, and Drnovsek's 2009 The nature and experience of entrepreneurial passion defined it as consciously accessible, strong positive feelings tied to an identity that matters to the person, so the feeling and the role reinforce each other. The referent is a feeling anchored to a specific work identity in venture creation, and it is narrower than a general love for an activity, distinct from a lasting mood about one's job, and unrelated to the old idea of a passion as something suffered.[4]

Unit

One founder's intense positive feeling toward an identity-central venturing role

Recovery means

Not applicable

Measured by

Self-report scales for passion toward inventing, founding, and developing, paired with how central that role is to the person

Employee work passion is a persistent, positive emotional state that an employee holds toward the job and the organization, arising from repeated judgments about work conditions such as fairness, growth, and recognition. Zigarmi, Nimon, Houson, Witt, and Diehl's 2009 Beyond engagement proposed this framework to give the popular idea of work passion a stable definition and to mark it off from engagement. The referent is a lasting feeling about a whole work situation, judged across the job and the employer, so it is wider than a feeling about a single founding role and is tied to a workplace rather than to a freely chosen activity or a philosopher's passive emotion.[5]

Unit

One employee's persistent positive feeling appraised across the job and the organization

Recovery means

Not applicable

Measured by

Self-report appraisals of job and organizational conditions that predict intentions to stay, endorse, and perform

In the psychology of close relationships, passionate love is a state of intense longing for union with another person, marked by bodily arousal, preoccupation with the partner, and a swing between elation when the love is returned and despair when it is not. Hatfield and Sprecher's 1986 article Measuring passionate love in intimate relationships presented the Passionate Love Scale that put this state into measurable form. The referent is an emotional condition directed at a romantic partner, and it is separate from a disposition toward a work activity, an identity-based business feeling, or the theological account of suffering.[6]

Unit

One person's romantic longing for a specific partner, on a graded scale

Recovery means

Not applicable

Measured by

Assessed with the Passionate Love Scale, a self-report questionnaire on longing, arousal, and preoccupation