Affection or fondness is a "disposition or state of mind or body" commonly linked to a feeling or type of love. It has led to multiple branches in philosophy and psychology that discuss emotion, disease, influence, and state of being. Often, "affection" denotes more than mere goodwill or friendship. Writers on ethics generally use the word to refer to distinct states of feeling, both lasting and temporary. Some contrast it with passion as being free from the distinctively sensual element.

Emotion classification, the means by which one may distinguish or contrast one emotion from another, is a contested issue in emotion research and in affective science. Researchers have approached the classification of emotions from one of two fundamental viewpoints:that emotions are discrete and fundamentally different constructs that emotions can be characterized on a dimensional basis in groupings