The Importance Of Positive Emotion

It has been empirically proven that positive emotion is associated with better outcome in many different fields. It can lead to anything from a better social life to a more in depth method of creative thinking. This journal focuses not on the positivity of the emotion itself, but the stability of the positivity. It is important to understand that the variability of positive emotions can play a large role in a person’s psychological wellbeing. There are two main trains of thought dealing with the relation between positive emotion variability and psychological health. The first states that greater variability leads to a worse psychological state. The second states that greater variability in emotions leads to overall better psychological health.

These participants were told to rate their positive feelings on a 1 to 5 scale (1 being the lowest, 5 being the highest) before going to bed every day for 2 weeks. The researchers then calculated the positive emotion variability as the standard deviation for two weeks, and the overall positive emotion as the mean for the two weeks. All participants also took four measures of psychological health for symptoms of anxiety, life satisfaction, functioning, and symptoms of depression. The second study was on a much smaller scale that that of the first. It focused on a 24-hour period, instead of a two-week period. It consisted of 2,391 adults that were asked to report what they did the following day and if they experienced each of the nine positive emotions items from the Differential Emotion Scale. The scores were then calculated into a standard deviation and a mean. For study 1, those who reported greater positive emotion variability also reported worse psychological health as a result. They also reported increased depression, increased anxiety, and decreased functioning and life satisfaction. In study 2, daily happiness increased subjective happiness, but those who reported greater positive emotion variability the previous day also reported worse psychological

The variability within a short period of time can be specifically detrimental to functioning and psychological health. This will happen regardless of how seemingly happy the person is. Psychological health is damaged more from constantly changing lows and highs than simply lows. In fact, it is possible that it is best to focus on decreasing variability in positive emotions rather than simply increasing the intensity of the positive emotions. Even if a person consistently reaches a peak level of happiness, if they also consistently drop from that point , then they will experience negative psychological damage. It is better to stay at a lower mean positivity than a variable high