Positive emotions broaden the scope of attention and thought‐action repertoires

Abstract

The broaden‐and‐build theory (Fredrickson, 1998, 2001) hypothesises that positive emotions broaden the scope of attention and thought‐action repertoires. Two experiments with 104 college students tested these hypotheses. In each, participants viewed a film that elicited (a) amusement, (b) contentment, (c) neutrality, (d) anger, or (e) anxiety. Scope of attention was assessed using a global‐local visual processing task (Experiment 1) and thought‐action repertoires were assessed using a Twenty Statements Test (Experiment 2). Compared to a neutral state, positive emotions broadened the scope of attention in Experiment 1 and thought‐action repertoires in Experiment 2. In Experiment 2, negative emotions, relative to a neutral state, narrowed thought‐action repertoires. Implications for promoting emotional well‐being and physical health are discussed.

Notes

Correspondence should be addressed to Barbara L. Fredrickson, Department of Psychology, University of Michigan, 525 East University Avenue, Ann Arbor, MI 48109‐1109, USA; e‐mail: [email protected].

Fredrickson's research on positive emotions is supported by grants from the National Institute of Mental Health (MH53971 and MH59615), a Rackham Faculty Grant, and Fellowship from the University of Michigan, and by an award from the John Templeton Foundation and the American Psychological Association (2000 Templeton Positive Psychology Prize).

Previously, I proposed that, in order to better accommodate the positive emotions, the term “action tendencies” should be replaced by the more inclusive term “thought‐action tendencies” (Fredrickson, 1998). This is because some positive emotions—like contentment and interest—do not necessarily spark changes in physical action, but instead seem to spark changes primarily in cognitive activity, with changes in physical activity (if any) following from these cognitive changes. Additionally, instead of presuming that thought‐action tendencies are necessarily specific, I argued that more inclusive phrasing would be to discuss the “relative breadth of the momentary thought‐action repertoire” (Fredrickson, 1998, p. 303).

It should be noted that Gasper and Clore (2002) did include a neutral‐mood comparison condition in their experiment testing the effects of induced happy and sad moods on global bias, and that they found no differences between happy‐mood and neutral‐mood participants. Critically, however, inspection of their manipulation check data indicate that participants in their neutral‐mood condition reported experiencing just as much positive effect as those in their happy‐mood condition, rendering their data inconclusive with respect to positive emotions.

One participant's data for Experiment 2 were missing.