Feeling with Things: Toward a Theory of Material Affective Scaffolding

How we use objects and environments to actively shape and regulate our affective experiences.

We shape our affective states through more than just our thoughts. Whether it be through a warm bath, a favorite song, carefully dimmed lighting, or a well-chosen outfit, humans routinely manipulate their material surroundings to enhance and transform their affective states—to relax, feel more confident, create a romantic atmosphere, entertain oneself and others, and so on. In this pioneering work, Giovanna Colombetti examines Material Affective Scaffolding (MAS)—the countless ways we use material objects and built environments to support and shape how we feel.

Though these practices are often mundane and easily overlooked, they illuminate a fundamental aspect of human nature—the desire to manipulate our surroundings to modulate our feelings. While scholars have extensively studied the situated and distributed nature of cognition, the affective dimension of the situated mind has been largely neglected until recently. Feeling with Things fills that critical gap, exploring how emotion and affect are not merely embodied but are fundamentally situated within our material world.