Positive affect, negative affect, and social interaction.

Abstract

Two studies explored the relations of positive and negative affect (PA and NA) to social interaction. In Study 1, unacquainted dyads were surreptitiously videotaped as they participated in a 6-min interaction. Participants then evaluated the quality of the interaction. Independent observers also rated the videotaped interactions. Trait PA was positively related to both participant and observer evaluations of interaction quality. In Study 2, undergraduates kept diaries of their social interactions for 1 week. PA was again related to interaction quality. Both PA and NA were positively related to the number of interactions in which participants engaged, and the amount of time spent engaged in social contact, although different types of social encounters produced these relations. Psychologists have long been interested in individual differences in people's self-described emotional experience. Research has revealed that some people report experiencing greater amounts of positive emotions than do others and are typically referred to as high-positive-affect (or high-PA) individuals. People who are high in positive affect are, for example, consistently more likely to describe themselves as enthusiastic, confident, and excited than are people who are low in positive affect. On the other hand, some individuals' daily lives are characterized by greater amounts of negative affective states than are others, and they are often referred to as high-negative-affect (or high-NA) people. For example, people who are high in NA are more likely to describe themselves as guilty, fearful, and nervous than are low-NA individuals. Although there are fluctuations in the levels of positive or negative affect a given person experiences at different points in time, the stability of self-reports of NA and PA is impressive (e.g., Watson, 1988a, 1988b). In sum, there appear to be trait like interindividual differences in people's typical self-reported levels of NA and PA. These individual differences in trait NA and PA also seem to underlie the personality dimensions of neuroticism and extraversion. In particular, self-report measures of NA and neuroticism have been repeatedly demonstrated to be highly correlated with one another but unrelated to measures of either positive affect or extraversion. Similarly, PA and extraversion are strongly related but are uncorrelated with either NA or neurot

Optimism and social support: The providers’ perspective

“…Specifically, the expression of positive emotions and moods facilitated rewarding social interactions and positive social responses (e.g., Berry & Hansen, 1996;Harker & Keltner, 2001). Consistent with these findings, studies on social responses towards depressed people showed that they are more likely to elicit social rejection than non-depressed people (for a review, see Marcus & Nardone, 1992).…”

Smart Phone Sensing to Examine Effects of Social Interactions and Non-sedentary Work Time on Mood Changes

“…Large majority of the studies that addressed determinants of daily variations in psychological responses relied on selfadministered questionnaires to record past activities, which presented difficulties in this research field. For example Clark and Watson [5,6] argue that no such relation exists between NA and social activity, which is an opposing view to other studies [1,3,4], while Volkers at al. [9] claim that is not possible to clearly infer how mood states are related to the time of the day which was concluded by a number of other reports.…”

The Benefits of Frequent Positive Affect: Does Happiness Lead to Success?

“…Happy participants also liked the person they saw on videotape more than did unhappy ones. Berry and Hansen (1996) found that when participants were "accidentally" left alone with a fellow student, those high in trait PA liked their partner more than those low in trait PA. In another study, happy faculty were found to write relatively more favorable letters of recommendation, and happy undergraduates wrote relatively more positive recommendations for hypothetical employees (Judge & Higgins, 1998).…”

“…Second through eighth graders judged the happiest targets as the ones most likely to help (Perry, Perry, & Weiss, 1986), and undergraduates, no matter what mood they themselves were experiencing, judged the happiest targets as being more likable (Bell, 1978). Finally, in laboratory studies, when female students were left alone with a peer, the partners of the high PA women found the social interaction to be more enjoyable and of higher quality, and so did neutral observers of the interaction (Berry & Hansen, 1996); objective observers rated participants high in dispositional positive affect as evidencing stronger leadership while performing a management task (Staw & Barsade, 1993).…”

“…Kashdan and Roberts (2004) described very similar findings. Furthermore, in a daily diary study, students high in trait PA reported engaging in more enjoyable social interactions than their low positive affect peers (Berry & Hansen, 1996). Finally, in a study of working adults, global happiness was found to be associated with intrinsically rewarding experiencesthat is, activities that the individual wants to be doing for their own sake (Graef, Csikszentmihalyi, & Gianinno, 1983).…”