情绪价值 qíng xù jià zhí
How a person — or a brand — makes you feel, priced as a value.
The short answer
EverydayCurrent slangChecked November 2026
Qingxu jiazhi means “emotional value”: the net amount of good feeling a person, service, or brand adds to your life. Providing it is a virtue; draining it is a fault.
In a chat
- 琦琦 Qiqi
我今天面试又失败了……
I failed another interview today…
- 灯灯 Dengdeng
没关系！你已经很厉害了，下次一定行！
That's okay! You're already great. Next time you'll do it!
- 琦琦 Qiqi
谢谢你，灯灯，你真会提供情绪价值。
Thanks, Dengdeng. You really know how to make me feel better.
In the Dengdeng app, Dengdeng and his friends text you in Chinese every day, at your level.
How to reply
应该的，给你满满的情绪价值！
Of course! Here's a full load of emotional value!
When not to use it
- It is often half a joke. But if you tell a partner that they give you no 情绪价值, it is a real complaint.
- In formal writing, say 情感支持 (emotional support).
What it means
The accounting is simple. After an evening with someone, do you feel steadier and lighter, or exhausted and small? The positive balance is 情绪价值. The term applies to partners first, but also to friends, bosses, shops, and apps — anything that can leave you better or worse than it found you.
It is a cold-eyed word for a warm thing. That is the charm: it lets people discuss care and comfort in the same vocabulary they use for salaries and rent.
How people use it
Typical settings: dating profiles and the discussions around them (“looks fade, 情绪价值 lasts”), reviews of restaurants and hotels, and workplace gossip about which manager provides it. The verb is 提供 (to provide): a good partner or a good airline 提供情绪价值.
The critical form matters too: 他一点情绪价值都不给, “he provides zero emotional value” — a diagnosis, not necessarily a breakup.
Where it comes from
The phrase began in marketing: products were analyzed not just for function but for the feelings delivered along the way, and consultants priced the difference. Dating talk adopted the frame in the early 2020s and made it mainstream.
Its reach is visible in the official lists: 咬文嚼字 put 情绪价值 on its 2023 top ten, and the national internet-word list did the same in 2025 — rare back-to-back recognition, and proof that a marketing coinage had become ordinary Chinese.
In use
2 examples找对象不光看条件，更要看情绪价值。
Choosing a partner isn't only about circumstances — emotional value matters more.
这家咖啡店很会提供情绪价值，环境特别舒服。
This café knows how to deliver emotional value — the space is really comfortable.
The characters
Explore individuallyIndividual character meanings do not always explain the meaning of the whole word.
Sources
This guide is original Dengdeng editorial content, offered under CC BY-SA 4.0. The linked dictionary entries adapt CC-CEDICT under the same license.