A Cross-Species Comparative Approach to Positive Emotion Disturbance

Abstract

Recent discoveries stress the importance of studying positive emotion disturbances (PED) yet there remains little empirical work or integrative conceptual framework in this domain. We suggest that an ideally suited opportunity to advance the study of PED is to consider a cross-species evolutionary framework. We apply this framework-drawing from principles of stabilizing selection-to recent empirical findings in humans and nonhumans suggesting how positive emotion and associated play behaviors may lead to detrimental outcomes. This cross-species approach suggests a potential paradigm shift in the way psychologists and evolutionary biologists approach positive emotion functioning, opening the possibility for new conceptual opportunities and interdisciplinary dialogues and research.

Meaningful Living to Promote Complete Mental Health Among University Students in the Context of the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…For example, in a systematic review study, Lyubomirsky et al ( 2005 ) documented that there are various tangible benefits of well-being such as better general health, effective coping strategies, fulfilling social relationships, and success. More recently, similar findings have been reported concerning the link between well-being and health outcomes (Gruber and Bekoff 2017 ; Huang and Humphreys 2012 ; Kansky and Diener 2017 ), and self-productivity, success, subjective vitality, meaning, self-esteem, and marital satisfaction (Akdağ and Cihangir-çankaya 2015 ; Braaten et al 2019 ).…”

Are Rich and Diverse Emotions Beneficial? The Impact of Emodiversity on Tourists’ Experiences

“…Rather, when experiencing a set of diverse emotions, people are presented with varied emotional stimuli, so that the responses are kept active (Leventhal et al 2007). Last but not the least, experiencing a diversity of emotions may reduce the vulnerability to detrimental events by preventing an overabundance of one specific emotion from dominating people's emotional life (Benson et al 2017;Gruber and Bekoff 2017).…”

“…Last but not the least, experiencing a diversity of emotions may reduce the vulnerability to detrimental events by preventing an overabundance of one specific emotion from dominating people’s emotional life (Benson et al. 2017; Gruber and Bekoff 2017).…”

Emodiversity and biomarkers of inflammation.

“…That is, the ability to characterize affective information with precision (i.e., in terms of qualitatively distinct events) may reduce the potential for individuals to make misattributions about their own affective reactions (Schwarz, 1990; Schwarz & Clore, 1983). Finally, experiencing a diversity of emotional states might reduce vulnerability to affective psychopathology by preventing an overabundance or prolonging of any one emotion from dominating an individuals’ emotional life (Benson, et al, in press; Gruber & Bekoff, 2017). Supporting this logic, Quoidbach and colleagues (2014) found that greater emodiversity was associated with better mental and physical health.…”