Harmonious passions support cognitive resources

Abstract

Passionate activities can be a source of pleasure and meaning. According to the Dualistic Model of Passion individuals can have either a harmonious or an obsessive passion for an activity. Where harmonious passions provide positive emotional experience, obsessive passions do not. Fredrickson’s broaden-and-build theory holds that ongoing positive experience have general and lasting cognitive benefits; accordingly this should accrue more strongly to those reporting harmonious passions. In a survey (N = 141), we examined self-reported attention, executive functioning, and life quality and contrast these by individuals’ passion orientation. In a cross-sectional survey we found that harmoniously passionate individuals differed from the obsessively passionate across questionnaire measures of attention, executive functioning, and life quality. We find that these differences correspond well to that which would be predicted on the basis of the broaden-and-build theory, however the observed effects are not large and do not correspond to clinical differences.