What good are positive emotions? The innovative researcher, Barb Fredrickson, first posed this question. After decades of this research, she shared two core truths: 1). Positive emotions open our hearts and minds, and 2). Positive emotions transform us. Over time, positive emotions broaden and build our resources and transform the ways we engage with the world and with one another. Positive emotions enhance skill acquisition, problem solving, and creativity.
Positive Emotions
Building Personal Resources from Joy, Interest, Contentment and Love; the 3:1 Positive Emotion Ratio.
This chapter reviews the latest empirical evidence supporting the broaden-and-build theory and implications for improving health and wellbeing. The broaden-and-build theory holds that positive emotions broaden mindsets, awareness, and perspectives, which consequently promotes discovery of novel and creative actions, ideas and social bonds. This in turn builds an individual's personal resources, which function as reserves that can be drawn on later.
The Broaden-and-Build Theory of Positive Emotions
The broaden-and-build theory describes the form and function of a subset of positive emotions, including joy, interest, contentment and love. A key proposition is that these positive emotions broaden an individual's momentary thought-action repertoire: joy sparks the urge to play, interest sparks the urge to explore, contentment sparks the urge to savour and integrate, and love sparks a recurring cycle of each of these urges within safe, close relationships. The broadened mindsets arising from these positive emotions are contrasted to the narrowed mindsets sparked by many negative emotions (i.e. specific action tendencies, such as attack or flee). A second key proposition concerns the consequences of these broadened mindsets: by broadening an individual's momentary thought-action repertoire--whether through play, exploration or similar activities--positive emotions promote discovery of novel and creative actions, ideas and social bonds, which in turn build that individual's personal resources; ranging from physical and intellectual resources, to social and psychological resources. Importantly, these resources function as reserves that can be drawn on later to improve the odds of successful coping and survival. This chapter reviews the latest empirical evidence supporting the broaden-and-build theory and draws out implications the theory holds for optimizing health and well-being.
Fredrickson, B. L. (2004). The broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 359(1449), 1367–1377.
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.
Building Resilience Through Positive Emotions
To test the broaden-and-build theory, the authors measured emotions daily for 1 month in a sample of students and assessed life satisfaction and trait resilience at the beginning and end of the month. Positive emotions predicted increases in both resilience and life satisfaction. Change in resilience mediated the relation between positive emotions and increased life satisfaction, suggesting that happy people become more satisfied not becuase they feel better but because they develop resources for living well.
Happiness Unpacked: Positive Emotions Increase Life Satisfaction by Building Resilience
Happiness—a composite of life satisfaction, coping resources, and positive emotions—predicts desirable life outcomes in many domains. The broaden-and-build theory suggests that this is because positive emotions help people build lasting resources. To test this hypothesis, the authors measured emotions daily for 1 month in a sample of students (N 86) and assessed life satisfaction and trait resilience at the beginning and end of the month. Positive emotions predicted increases in both resilience and life satisfaction. Negative emotions had weak or null effects and did not interfere with the benefits of positive emotions. Positive emotions also mediated the relation between baseline and final resilience, but life satisfaction did not. This suggests that it is in-the-moment positive emotions, and not more general positive evaluations of one’s life, that form the link between happiness and desirable life outcomes. Change in resilience mediated the relation between positive emotions and increased life satisfaction, suggesting that happy people become more satisfied not simply because they feel better but because they develop resources for living well.
Cohn, M. A., Fredrickson, B. L., Brown, S. L., Mikels, J. A., & Conway, A. M. (2009). Happiness Unpacked: Positive Emotions Increase Life Satisfaction by Building Resilience. American Psychological Association, 9(3), 361–368. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0015952
