Symposium Summary:
People differ in how much they pursue, value, and look forward to positive emotional experiences. In this symposium, we highlight personality research on these processes. In the first talk, we discuss the latest psychometric work on prioritizing positivity, the tendency to use pleasant states as a key criterion to structure daily life, and test whether this personality trait predicts experiential measures of wellbeing. In the second talk, we discuss research on two different orientations to valuing happiness, their relations with wellbeing, and a mechanism for why one orientation may be harmful. In the third talk, we discuss research on state and trait positive anticipation and their links with positive emotions during the pandemic.
Symposium Presentation 1 Proposal:
Title: The Psychometric Properties of the Prioritizing Positivity Scale and its links with Experiential Hedonic and Eudaimonic Wellbeing
Presenter: Lahnna I. Catalino
Abstract: Do people who pursue happiness turn out to be happier, or do they end up feeling worse? Research suggests the answer to this question is complex. On the one hand, when people attempt to maximize their happiness in pleasant contexts, they feel worse. On the other hand, people who use pleasant states as a key criterion to structure daily life experience more wellbeing. This personality tendency is called prioritizing positivity (e.g., “I structure my day to maximize my happiness”). Prioritizing positivity is measured with a six-item scale and is increasingly being used by researchers, but a comprehensive examination of its psychometric quality remains absent from the literature. Moreover, research has only tested whether prioritizing predicts global measures of wellbeing. Given the small to moderate links between global and experiential (e.g. daily diary, DRM) measures of wellbeing, it is critical to examine whether prioritizing positivity predicts wellbeing using experiential measures. Using three independent samples of adults (study 1: n = 176, study 2: n = 240, study 3: n = 226), we first tested the scale’s psychometric properties, including its (1) factor structure, (2) reliability, and (3) convergent and discriminant validity. Results suggested that the 6th item was problematic (low factor loading, conceptually distinct from other items) and when removed, a single-factor structure was appropriate. The revised 5-item PPS demonstrated satisfactory reliability and construct validity. Second, using another independent sample of adults (n = 301) who completed a 2-week daily diary study, we tested whether individual differences in prioritizing positivity predicted experiential hedonic and eudaimonic wellbeing (daily positive emotions, daily negative emotions, daily satisfaction with life, daily meaning) and found support for the positive features of wellbeing (daily positive emotions, daily satisfaction with life, daily meaning), but not the negative (daily negative emotions). In sum, the revised 5-item PPS offers a brief and valid way to measure a personality difference shown to predict both global and experiential measures of wellbeing.
Symposium Presentation 2 Proposal:
Title: Examining for whom and why valuing happiness can be detrimental for wellbeing
Presenter: Felicia K. Zerwas
Abstract: Valuing happiness can backfire such that the more extremely people value happiness the less happy they are. For whom and why does valuing happiness backfire? Considering how individuals orient towards this value might provide insight into this question. For some people, valuing happiness might mean that they are concerned about their happiness (e.g., they focus on achieving positive feelings and judge whether their feelings are good enough). For other people, valuing happiness might mean they strongly aspire to feel happy (e.g., they focus on achieving positive feelings and do not judge whether their feelings are good enough). Whereas being concerned about happiness may infuse disappointment and negativity into one’s positive experiences and, in turn, predict lower wellbeing, aspiring to happiness may be a relatively innocuous approach to extremely valuing happiness. I will present on three studies in which we tested these hypotheses using cross-sectional, longitudinal, and daily-diary methods within student and community samples (Ntotal = 2,418). In Study 1, we found support that concern about happiness and aspiring to happiness represent two distinct orientations towards valuing happiness. In Study 2, participants who were concerned about happiness (but not those who aspire to happiness) experienced lower wellbeing cross-sectionally and longitudinally. Study 3 showed this link was partially explained by negatively judging one’s feelings during positive events. These findings suggest that extremely valuing happiness is not inherently and always problematic. Aspiring to happiness may be relatively innocuous but being concerned about happiness may hinder wellbeing in part by impairing happiness during positive events, when happiness is most within reach.
Symposium Presentation 3 Proposal:
Title: Coping with COVID-19: The benefits of anticipating future positive events and maintaining optimism
Presenter: Calissa J. Leslie-Miller
Abstract: In early 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic forced the majority of the world into quarantine, leading to long periods of isolation and loneliness. With this extensive period of stress and increased levels of negative emotion, it is necessary to explore regulatory techniques that are effective at stimulating long-lasting positive emotion. Previous research on discrete stressors have demonstrated that anticipating positive events can produce increases in positive emotion, even when far in advance of the experience. We hypothesized that state and trait positive anticipation during the COVID-19 pandemic would be associated with increased positive emotions. We assessed how often participants thought about a future positive/negative/neutral event, activity, or goal through a daily reconstruction method that represented a ‘day in the life’ of people in the United States during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. Additionally, trait positive anticipation was accessed through a measure of optimism. The results of multi-level modeling analyses demonstrated that the more participants engaged in positive anticipatory thinking, the more positive emotions they experienced. In addition, trait optimism similarly predicted increases in positive emotion. These findings suggest that anticipation of future emotional experiences and hopefulness for the future can be a powerful predictor of positive emotions during global pandemics and perhaps other similarly stressful times.