Below are news briefs of three studies published in the January 2001 issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (Vol. 80, No. 1), a journal of the American Psychological Association (APA). The full text of these studies is available on the APA Web site at the links provided or from the APA Public Affairs Office.
"Expressions of Positive Emotion in Women's College Yearbook Pictures and Their Relationship to Personality and Life Outcomes Across Adulthood" provides evidence that women who are prone to expressing positive emotions experience fewer psychological and physical difficulties, have better relations with others and generally feel more satisfied with their lives. In what is the first study to link positive emotional expression to personal well-being, women's college yearbook pictures from 1958 and 1960 were rated for facial expressions. The women in the pictures featuring the greatest positive emotional expressions (a broad smile, for example) viewed themselves high on personality traits associated with good interpersonal and cognitive skills. They were also viewed more favorably by others. Women who expressed more positive emotion in their yearbook pictures became more organized, mentally focused and achievement oriented and had more favorable attitudes about marriage and personal well-being, even up to 30 years later.
(Full text available at http://www.apa.org/journals/psp/psp801112.html. For an interview on this study, please contact co-author Dacher Keltner, Ph.D., of the University of California, Berkeley, at (510) 642-5368 or by e-mail at keltner@socrates.berkeley.edu.)
"Emotional Distress Regulation Takes Precedence Over Impulse Control: If You Feel Bad, Do It!" suggests that negative effects of emotional distress on such impulsive behaviors as eating fattening snacks and seeking immediate gratification could be eliminated by telling people that their moods are temporarily immune to change. In a study with three experiments, participants who believed their moods were susceptible to change, as people normally do, responded to bad moods by increasing various impulsive behaviors: eating (Study 1), immediate gratification (Study 2), and procrastination (Study 3). All these effects vanished, however, when they were led to believe that these impulsive acts would not improve their mood. This is one of the reasons why people battling with drug and alcohol addiction may find that a single afternoon's emotional distress can lead to an indulgence that could sweep away months of effort to achieve sobriety, say the authors.
(Full text available at http://www.apa.org/journals/psp/psp80153.html. For an interview on this study, please contact study co-author Roy F. Baumeister, Ph.D., of Case Western Reserve University, at (216) 368-2639 or by e-mail at rfb2@po.cwru.edu.)
"Age-Related Differences and Change in Positive and Negative Affect Over 23 Years" paints a decidedly positive portrait of emotion in old age by showing that the tendency by most people to have a positive outlook on life continues into their "golden years." This longitudinal study involved four generations of families, spanning from 1971 to 1994. To determine their outlook on life, the researchers asked the participants "positive affect" questions, such as "During the past few weeks, did you ever feel particularly excited or interested in something?" They were also asked "negative affect" questions, such as "During the past weeks, did you feel so restless that you couldn't sit long in a chair?" The researchers found that negative affect decreased with age for all generations. Positive affect remained fairly stable across time, but there was a small decrease for the oldest participants in the study. The researchers did find, however, that those older participants who were more extraverted were less likely to show a decline in positive affect.
(Full text available at http://www.apa.org/journals/psp/psp801136.html. For an interview on this study, please contact lead author Susan Turk Charles, Ph.D., of the University of California, Irvine, at (949) 824-1450 or by e-mail at scharles@uci.edu.)
The American Psychological Association (APA), in Washington, DC, is the largest scientific and professional organization representing psychology in the United States and is the world’s largest association of psychologists. APA’s membership includes more than 159,000 researchers, educators, clinicians, consultants and students. Through its divisions in 53 subfields of psychology and affiliations with 59 state, territorial and Canadian provincial associations, APA works to advance psychology as a science, as a profession and as a means of promoting human welfare.
Journal
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology