How Can a New Model of Positive Emotions Help Build Physical, Intellectual and Social Resources?
This article proposes and reviews evidence for a new model to describe the form and function of a subset of positive emotions, including joy, interest, contentment, and love: the broaden-and-build model of positive emotions. Fredrickson posits that positive emotions broaden an individual's momentary thought-action repertoire, which in turn builds that individual's physical, intellectual, and social resources.
What Good Are Positive Emotions?
This article opens by noting that positive emotions do not fit existing models of emotions. Consequently, a new model is advanced to describe the form and function of a subset of positive emotions, including joy, interest, contentment, and love. This new model posits that these positive emotions serve to broaden an individual’s momentary thought–action repertoire, which in turn has the effect of building that individual’s physical, intellectual, and social resources. Empirical evidence to support this broaden-and-build model of positive emotions is reviewed, and implications for emotion regulation and health promotion are discussed.
Fredrickson B. L. (1998). What Good Are Positive Emotions?. Review of general psychology : journal of Division 1, of the American Psychological Association, 2(3), 300–319.