Abstract
A growing body of research has investigated the regulation of negative emotions in ecological settings, but little is known about the mechanisms underlying positive emotion regulation in everyday life. Although some evidence suggests that adopting positive strategies is beneficial for emotional well-being, the literature is inconsistent about the effects of positive emotions on subsequent regulatory processes. In the present study, we adopted a two-week ecological momentary assessment to explore the association between positive emotions and positive emotion regulation in daily life. According to our results, the less individuals felt positive emotions at one point, the more they tended to enhance their use of positive strategies from this time to the next, which in turn resulted in subsequent higher levels of positive emotions. This prototype of positive regulation can be seen as a highly adaptive mechanism that makes it possible to compensate for a lack of positive emotions by enhancing the deployment of positive strategies. The theoretical and clinical implications of these findings are discussed.
Highlights
The pursuit of happiness is considered one of the most important life goals of individuals [1], who intensely seek to create pleasant experiences throughout their lives
We explored whether strategy category significantly moderated the association between positive emotion regulation and Positive emotions (PE) and, : (a) whether the strategy category moderated the impact of PE at t0 on positive regulation at t1, and (b) whether the strategy category moderated the effect of positive regulation on subsequent levels of PE
The third aim of the study was to explore whether the relationships between PE and positive emotion regulation significantly changed depending on strategy category
Summary
The pursuit of happiness is considered one of the most important life goals of individuals [1], who intensely seek to create pleasant experiences throughout their lives. Positive emotions (PE) are a core component of well-being because they are not limited to pleasant sensations, but rather produce short- and long-term psychological benefits and improve both physical and mental health [2,3,4,5]. PE temporarily extend the scope of attention, cognition and action [6], which in turn promotes resilience and psychological well-being [7]. People spend most of their time trying to downregulate negative emotions and upregulate positive ones [8]. Emotion regulation is a process through which individuals try to influence their emotional state in order to achieve personal goals [9].
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