Affect balance predicts daily emotional experience

Abstract

Affect balance is an individual difference construct depicting the balance of positive to negative emotions, where people with higher scores have positive affect which strongly “outweighs” the experience of negative affect. The present study aimed to validate the utility of affect balance as a predictor of emotions experienced during daily life. Participants were college students (n/=85) recruited across three affect balance strata (high affect balance, moderate affect balance, lower affect balance). All participants completed a one week ecological momentary assessment study with prompts 7 times per day assessing current emotional state and recently experienced emotional events, where negative emotional events also included assessment of emotion regulation strategies. Finally, participants also provided nightly retrospective ratings of stressors experienced throughout the day. Results revealed that greater affect balance was associated with lower emotional variability over the week. Lower affect balance also predicted lower positive and higher negative affect, as well as lower momentary affect balance (i.e., greater positive than negative affect experienced in the moment). Lower trait affect balance, lower daily affect balance and greater affect balance instability also predicted higher nightly stress. This study validates that the construct of affect balance predicts daily emotional experience.