Affective and concreteness norms for 3,022 croatian words

This study presents subjective ratings for 3,022 Croatian words, which were evaluated on two affective dimensions (valence and arousal) and one lexico-semantic variable (concreteness). A sample of 933 Croatian native speakers rated the words online. Ratings showed high reliabilities for all three variables, as well as significant correlations with ratings from databases available in Spanish and English. A quadratic relation between valence and arousal was observed, with a tendency for arousal to increase for negative and positive words, and neutral words having the lowest arousal ratings. In addition, significant correlations were found between affective dimensions and word concreteness, suggesting that abstract words have a tendency to be more arousing and emotional than concrete words. The present database will allow experimental research in Croatian, a language with a considerable lack of psycholinguistic norms, by providing researchers with a useful tool in the investigation of the relationship between language and emotion for the South-Slavic group of languages.