A lot of people make this mistake. They think that affective is just another word for effective. While both affective and effective are adjectives coming from the nouns affect and effect, both words represent different concepts and can’t be used interchangeably.
If you often get confused between these words, this article will resolve your confusion forever.
What is Affective?
The word affective is used to describe something associated with emotions, moods, feelings, and attitudes. You can see its usage primarily in psychology, where affective disorders and symptoms marked by mood disturbances, emotional problems, and similar issues. Let’s see how to use affective in a sentence.
Examples of the word affective in sentences.
- Your doctor may suggest some psychological tests to analyze insomnia as it is associated with affective disorders.
- Some anxious kids might grow up to be adults with depression and other affective disorders.
- She has a family history of emotional and affective disorders.
- If not treated, an affective mental illness can have negative consequences for patients and their families.
- This method can be employed in affective priming studies.
- We wish if we could measure affective reactions of her.
- Is there any therapeutic range established for the use of valproic acid for treating affective disorders.
Note: Don’t mix up affective with the verb affect. The word affective is derived from the noun affect that relates to emotion, moods, feeling, while the affect, the verb means to influence or cause an effect.
What is Effective?
Similar to the word, affective, effective is also an adjective that we use quite common in everyday language. When you say something is effective, it means it is giving you desired results. In short, when something is said to be effective, it is successful in producing the intended results. Remember that the adjective effective occurs from the noun effect. Let’s take a look at some examples for more clarity.
Examples of the word effective in sentences.
- This chemical solution is 9.99% effective.
- We should find an effective vaccine for the pandemic.
- Birds are more effective than the wind in transporting seeds from one place to another.
- We found rope more effective than the chain for holding the same weight.
- This herbal medicine is quite effective in treating a cold.
- Her method was much more effective than ours.
- It is an effective solution to environmental issues.
- The law will be effective from the 1st of August.
How to Remember The Difference Between Affective and Effective
There are plenty of ways you can remember the difference between affective & effective. You can use a mnemonic device (a technique helps people improve their ability to remember something) to remember the meaning of affective and effective. For example, you can remember “a” is for emotion, and “e” is for action (opposite of what you would expect).
We hope after reading this post, it will be easier for you to use both words accurately. Just remember affective is limited to the world of psychology majorly while effective means successful in obtaining intended results.
