This article opens by noting that positive emotions do not fit existing models of emotions. Consequently, a new model is advanced to describe the form and function of a subset of positive emotions, including joy, interest, contentment, and love. This new model posits that these positive emotions serve to broaden an individual's momentary thought-action repertoire, which in turn has the effect of building that individual's physical, intellectual, and social resources. Empirical evidence to support this broaden-and-build model of positive emotions is reviewed, and implications for emotion regulation and health promotion are discussed. Even though research on emotions has this new perspective are featured. My hope is flourished in recent years, investigations that that this article will unlock scientific curiosity expressly target positive emotions remain few about positive emotions, not only to test the and far between. Any review of the psychologi- ideas presented here, but also to build other new cal literature on emotions will show that models that might illuminate the nature and psychologists have typically favored negative value of positive emotions. Psychology sorely emotions in theory building and hypothesis needs more studies on positive emotions, not testing. In so doing, psychologists have inadver- simply to level the uneven knowledge bases tently marginalized the emotions, such as joy, between negative and positive emotions, but interest, contentment, and love, that share a more critically, to guide applications and pleasant subjective feel. To date, then, psycholo- interventions that might improve individual and gy's knowledge base regarding positive emo- collective functioning, psychological welltions is so thin that satisfying answers to the question "What good are positive emotions?" have yet to be articulated. This is unfortunate. being, and physical health. Experiences of positive emotion are central to Why Have Positive Emotions human nature and contribute richly to the quality of people's lives (Diener & Larsen, Been Marginalized? 1993; Myers & Diener, 1995). But how? In At this point, it might be useful to inspect

ample, may see a fly, and, therefore, have the potentiality of flicking its tongue in a certain way followed by eating. But it may simultaneously see the shadow of a hawk overhead, in which case it also has the selection option of jumping into the water. Both potentialities must be somehow indicated to or for the frog so that a selection between them can occur. Furthermore, if the hawk shadow is not present and the frog misses the fly, it may be advantageous to detect that failure of the tongue flicking action and, on the basis of that detection, to make a further selection of interaction. That further selection might be to try again, or might be to move to a different location where flies are perhaps more numerous or slower. It can be advantageous, in other words, to be able to detect failures of actions, as well as to be able to select among potential actions. A slight addition to the ability to indicate potential interactions suffices to allow such error detection. In pa

This article develops the hypothesis that intervention strategies that cultivate positive emotions are particularly suited for preventing and treating problems rooted in negative emotions, such as anxiety, depression, aggression, and stressrelated health problems. Fredrickson's (1998) broaden–and–build model of positive emotions provides the foundation for this application. According to this model, the form and function of positive and negative emotions are distinct and complementary. Negative emotions (e.g., fear, anger, and sadness) narrow an individual's momentary thought–action repertoire toward specific actions that served the ancestral function of promoting survival. By contrast, positive emotions (e.g., joy, interest, and contentment) broaden an individual's momentary thought–action repertoire, which in turn can build that individual's enduring personal resources, resources that also served the ancestral function of promoting survival. One implication of the broaden–and–build model is that positive emotions have an undoing effect on negative emotions. By broadening

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Two studies were conducted to explore gratitude in daily mood and the relationships among various affective manifestations of gratitude. In Study 1, spiritual transcendence and a variety of positive affective traits were related to higher mean levels of gratitude across 21 days. Study 2 replicated these findings and revealed that on days when people had more grateful moods than was typical for them, they also reported more frequent daily episodes of grateful emotions, more intense gratitude per episode, and more people to whom they were grateful than was typical for them. In addition, gratitude as an affective trait appeared to render participants ’ grateful moods somewhat resistant to the effects of discrete emotional episodes of gratitude. Throughout the history of ideas, gratitude has been defined in many ways. Adam Smith (1790/1976) defined gratitude as “the sentiment which most immediately and directly prompts us to reward ” (p. 68). Similarly, Weiner and Graham (1989) defined gratitude as “a stimulus to return a favor to the other and thus reintroduce balance ” (p. 403). In recognition of gratitude’s appreciative quality, Lazarus and Lazarus (1994) conceptualized gratitude as one of the “empathic emotions ” that reflects recognition or appreciation of an altruistic gift. In the same vein, Emmons and Crumpler (2000) wrote, “Minimally, gratitude is an emotional response to a gift. It is the appreciation felt after one has been the beneficiary of an altruistic act ” (pp. 56–57). Gratitude may serve important functions in human beings ’ social and emotional lives. Recent work has suggested that gratitude is a reliable emotional response to the receipt of benefits and that the experience and expression of gratitude may have important effects on behavior in the moral domain (McCullough, Kilpatrick, Emmons, & Larson, 2001). In addition, gratitude is associated positively with a wide variety of measures of subjective well-being

For at least 2500 years, some people have been described as more bold, assertive and talkative than others. For almost equally long, this set of behaviors has been thought to have a biological basis and be socially important. Although our taxometric techniques have changed and our theories of biology are more advanced, the question of the causal basis as well as the behavioral consequences of the trait dimension that has come to be called extraversion-introversion 1 remains vitally important. In general, there are at least three basic characteristics of extraversion that make it important to study. First, extraversion has emerged as one of the fundamental dimensions

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This paper reviews factors that contribute to the development of middle school students ’ interest in statistical literacy and its motivational influence on learning. To date very little research has specifically examined the influence of positive affect such as interest on learning in the middle-school statistics context. Two bodies of associated research are available: interest research in a mathematics education context and attitudinal research in a tertiary statistics context. A content analysis of this literature suggests that interest development in middle school statistics will be the result of a complex interplay of classroom influences and individual factors such as: students ’ knowledge of statistics, their enjoyment of statistics and their perceptions of competency in relation to the learning of statistics.

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