* Well-being and affective style: neural substrates and biobehavioural correlates

Abstract

This chapter examines human emotion and the diverse patterns of emotional reactivity as it relates to an individual's well-being. These patterns vary from person to person and evolutionary theorists have posited the adaptive significance of these reactive differences, particularly to the well-being of people living in groups. The chapter explores the proximal mechanisms of these differences and the potential influence of emotion's central circuitry on peripheral biological indices related to physical health and well-being. A section is also devoted to comparing well-being with types of psychopathology involving dysfunctions in adaptive emotional response. This is combined with recent studies on the neurobiological basis of moods and anxiety disorders. The remainder of the chapter discusses the plasticity of a person's underlying brain circuitry concerning affective style, which is defined as the ‘consistent individual differences in emotional reactivity and regulation’. This is then linked to the development of emotional resilience in individuals.