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You feel like you are on cloud 9! You just aced your biology test, got a raise at work, and recently got into a new, exciting relationship. Nothing can bring you down. There's no doubt -- you're experiencing positive emotion. But what is the significance of positive emotions in psychology? How do they help our overall well-being?
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Team Positive Emotions Teachers
Humans experience an endless array of emotions that can change moment by moment or be prolonged. So how do we define positive emotions that we experience? It's simple.
Positive emotions are the feelings we experience that give us pleasure.
As humans, who we are has a lot to do with our genes and our experiences or environment. So it is understandable that our past experiences can influence our emotions at any moment. This is often referred to as an adaptation-level phenomenon.
The adaptation-level phenomenon is when we judge our environment or a situation based on prior experiences.
So, in other words, whether we feel pleasure can depend on what we've experienced previous to that moment.
You'll never forget the last song they played at your senior prom. You were so happy at that moment to be with all your friends. When you heard that song before, you didn't think anything of it. But now, every time you hear it, it's almost as if you're feeling the same joy you felt in that special moment.
Our emotions can also be influenced by how we compare ourselves to others. We may feel good or bad, depending on those around us.
You may experience negative emotions if you believe someone is more successful than you. But on the other hand, if you believed you had more friends, this may cause you to experience positive emotions.
Moral of the story: comparing ourselves to others is risky business.
Fig. 1 Pure joy.
Let's take a moment to examine a few examples of positive emotions. Several psychologists formulated their list of basic emotions. The idea is that all of the various positive emotions we experience can be boiled down as one of the basic emotions, according to each theorist.
The only positive emotion on Paul Ekman's list is happiness, which is often the most common way we describe our positive emotions.
Happiness: a blanket term for positive or pleasant emotions.
Carroll Izard was more specific with his ten basic emotions. The positive emotions on his list are joy and interest-excitement.
Depending on the context, surprise, which is listed on both Ekman and Izard's list, can be considered a positive emotion as well.
Joy: the experience of extremely pleasant or positive experience.
Interest-excitement: a feeling that is joyful, active, and exhilarating, which leads to attention and focus.
And finally, Barbara L. Fredrickson came through with her list of the ten most common positive emotions we experience. They include:
| Hope | Gratitude |
| Serenity | Amusement |
| Pride | Inspiration |
| Awe | Joy |
| Love | Interest |
Traditionally, psychologists have focused on treating negative emotions or states such as anxiety and depression. Negative emotions can have extremely harmful effects on our bodies and our minds. So, of course, psychologists assume that by focusing on reducing negative emotions, we can reduce the symptoms of negative emotions.
But then along came Martin Seligman, a former American Psychological Association (APA) president. He thought that perhaps a person's life could be improved not by relieving negative emotions but by increasing positive emotions. This gave rise to a relatively new field of psychology -- positive psychology.
Positive psychology: a relatively new field of psychology that uses the scientific method to study human happiness and flourishing.
Essentially, positive psychologists focus on a person's satisfaction with their own life. They refer to this as subjective well-being.
Subjective well-being refers to your self-perception of a happy and satisfying life.
Are you satisfied with your past, happy with the present, and optimistic about the future? If so, positive psychologists would say you have positive well-being, an important pillar in the field.
“Positive psychology is an umbrella term for the study of positive emotions, positive character traits, and enabling institutions.” - Seligman et al. (2005)
There's no denying that positive emotions and well-being go hand-in-hand. When people in the hospital are hopeful and surrounded by friends and family who love them, they may be more likely to recover more quickly. Positive emotions help both our physical and emotional well-being. But to understand how, we should first understand how negative emotions affect our well-being.
While experiencing negative emotions can sometimes be useful, they can cause serious problems if they are prolonged, extreme, or inappropriate in a given context.
A person who experiences persistent fear and anxiety may become more susceptible to developing disorders such as phobias and other anxiety disorders.
Negative emotions can also cause a person to experience high levels of stress. What happens when a person experiences chronic stress? It can cause stress-related diseases (i.e. heart disease) and compromise immune functioning, making them vulnerable to developing other types of diseases (i.e. cancers).
Fig. 2 Positive emotions help physical recovery.
According to Fredrickson (2000), positive emotions can, in a sense, undo negative emotions. In other words, they can weaken the effect negative emotions have on a person's body and mind. Positive emotions may help improve a person's cognition, attention, and action as well as their intellectual, social, and physical abilities.
Joy may help speed one's recovery from the cardiovascular effects caused by negative emotions.
Psychologists have developed several different techniques to help increase positive emotions and coping strategies including:
Behavioral therapies to help increase pleasant activities
Cognitive therapies that teach optimism
Relaxation therapies
Coping strategies that focus on finding positive meaning
The fact is -- moods matter. They affect how we view and operate in the world and even effects how our bodies feel. So regulating one's emotions can be the difference between life and death in the most extreme cases.
By this point, we know that positive emotions impact our well-being, but what else can we say about the importance of positive emotions? By now, we know emotions can impact virtually every nook and cranny of our lives.
Can happiness predict our future life course? Some studies say they can. People who were happiest as young adults were less likely to divorce in the future. They also went on to earn more money than others who were far less happy.
What else can we say about happier people? Happy people tend to:
dwell less on negative past experiences and more on positive ones.
live healthier and more satisfying lives.
be more generous.
have more success in their career.
cooperate more easily.
believe the world is safer.
focus more on information that is positive.
Positive emotions are important not only because they make us feel better, but they also inspire us to do better. When people experience or recall an experience that boosts their mood, they may be more likely to volunteer, do good deeds, or donate money (Salovey, 1990). This is often referred to as the feel-good, do-good phenomenon by psychologists.
Feel-good, do-good phenomenon: the idea that when we feel good, we tend to be good.
When we feel good, we do good. When we do good, we feel good! People report feeling happier and experiencing greater well-being after they spend money on others. When someone donates a kidney, they may experience pain and discomfort but still, feel good because of their sacrificial kindness.
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What are examples of positive emotions?
Examples of positive emotions include happiness, joy, interest-excitement, amusement, pride, awe, serenity, gratitude, love, and inspiration.
What is positive emotions in psychology?
Positive emotions are the feelings we experience that give us pleasure. Positive emotions in psychology are studied by positive psychologists.
Why is positive emotion important?
Positive emotion is important because when we feel good we do good, we're more successful, and even cooperate more easily.
How positive emotions help in coping with stress?
Positive emotions help in coping with stress because they have an undoing effect on negative emotions.
How do positive emotions affect learning?
Positive emotions can affect learning because they can help improve a person's cognition, attention, and action as well as their intellectual, social, and physical abilities.
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