You feel like you are on cloud 9! You just aced your biology test, got a raise at work, and recently got into a new, exciting relationship. Nothing can bring you down. There's no doubt -- you're experiencing positive emotion. But what is the significance of positive emotions in psychology? How do they help our overall well-being?
- First, how can we define positive emotions?
- What are positive emotions in psychology?
- Next, let's list some examples of positive emotions.
- What is the importance of positive emotions?
- And finally, let's examine positive emotions and well-being.
Define Positive Emotions
Humans experience an endless array of emotions that can change moment by moment or be prolonged. So how do we define positive emotions that we experience? It's simple.
Positive emotions are the feelings we experience that give us pleasure.
As humans, who we are has a lot to do with our genes and our experiences or environment. So it is understandable that our past experiences can influence our emotions at any moment. This is often referred to as an adaptation-level phenomenon.
The adaptation-level phenomenon is when we judge our environment or a situation based on prior experiences.
So, in other words, whether we feel pleasure can depend on what we've experienced previous to that moment.
You'll never forget the last song they played at your senior prom. You were so happy at that moment to be with all your friends. When you heard that song before, you didn't think anything of it. But now, every time you hear it, it's almost as if you're feeling the same joy you felt in that special moment.
Our emotions can also be influenced by how we compare ourselves to others. We may feel good or bad, depending on those around us.
You may experience negative emotions if you believe someone is more successful than you. But on the other hand, if you believed you had more friends, this may cause you to experience positive emotions.
Moral of the story: comparing ourselves to others is risky business.
Fig. 1 Pure joy.
Examples of Positive Emotions
Let's take a moment to examine a few examples of positive emotions. Several psychologists formulated their list of basic emotions. The idea is that all of the various positive emotions we experience can be boiled down as one of the basic emotions, according to each theorist.
The only positive emotion on Paul Ekman's list is happiness, which is often the most common way we describe our positive emotions.
Happiness: a blanket term for positive or pleasant emotions.
Carroll Izard was more specific with his ten basic emotions. The positive emotions on his list are joy and interest-excitement.
Depending on the context, surprise, which is listed on both Ekman and Izard's list, can be considered a positive emotion as well.
Joy: the experience of extremely pleasant or positive experience.
Interest-excitement: a feeling that is joyful, active, and exhilarating, which leads to attention and focus.
And finally, Barbara L. Fredrickson came through with her list of the ten most common positive emotions we experience. They include:
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