Does savoring increase happiness? A daily diary study

Abstract

Bryant and Veroff (2007, Savoring: A new model of positive experience. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates) have proposed that savoring, namely, regulating the emotional impact of positive events by one's cognitive or behavioral responses, increases happiness. The present study was designed to determine whether and how savoring influences daily happiness. Experience sampling methodology was used with 101 participants, who provided self-reports of their momentary positive events, savoring responses, and positive affect daily over a period of 30 days. Multilevel modeling analyses verified that (a) these three constructs were positively related to each other within a given day, (b) momentary savoring both mediated and moderated the impact of daily positive events on momentary happy mood, and (c) levels of trait savoring moderated the observed mediational pattern. These results provide support for the hypothesis that savoring is an important mechanism through which people derive happiness from positive events.

Keywords:

• experience sampling methodology
• happy mood
• momentary positive events
• savoring
• well-being

Acknowledgments

We are grateful to Sophie Tuckey and the rest of the Positive Psychology research team for assisting in the design of the study and collection of the data. Special appreciation is expressed to Dan Bauer for his invaluable assistance with the multilevel modeling mediation analyses. This study was made possible by funds obtained from the Royal Society's Marsden Grant fund.

Notes

1. We also conducted a factor analysis with oblique (i.e. promax rotation), given that we expected some correlations between the two savoring factors (see Costello & Osborne, 2005, for best practices in exploratory factor analysis. The orthogonal (i.e. varimax) and oblique (i.e. promax) rotation produced identical results, and the correlation between the two factors was found to be −0.008. Hence, a varimax rotation was justified.