They don't necessarily correlate, even...you can have intense negative emotions, intense positive emotions, mild positive emotions, etc, anywhere along a two-dimensional continuum.

That still sounds like just one dimension to me. For two dimensions, you would need "mild very positive emotions" (contentment?) and "intense slightly negative emotions" (overpowering nostalgia?).

Social sciences and psychology are like that. It's annoying, but I just kind of ignore it.

That "Downward social comparison" Wikipedia article seemed particularly terrible.

Maybe we can apply the virtue of scholarship in a differentiated fashion depending on the field.

• For philosophy, psychology, and anything "harder" than that: do scholarship, they frequently experiment or make rigorous arguments.

• For sociology: spin your own theory, that's all sociologists are doing anyway and your theory doesn't have to sound impressive so you can get tenure.