CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 6,066Psychological Well-being and Life SatisfactionAging and Gerontology ResearchOptimism, Hope, and Well-being

What good are positive emotions?

Open access
Fredrickson, Barbara L.·1998·Review of General Psychology
DOI 10.1037/1089-2680.2.3.300PMC PMC3156001
Open this paper in CoChat — free account

Abstract

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.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1037/1089-2680.2.3.300

Cites

134 of 134 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • Positive emotions widen the array of thoughts, behaviors, and executive functioning capacities available.

    “there is evidence that the experience of positive emotions widens the array of thoughts, behaviors, and executive functioning capacities at our disposal (Fredrickson, 1998).”

    From Psychological flexibility as a fundamental aspect of health (2010) · cites this paper as Fredrickson, 1998

    The paper’s discussion of the broaden-and-build model says positive emotions broaden the momentary thought–action repertoire, and its discussion of cognition reviews evidence of broader thinking. Those passages support the claim about thoughts and behaviors, but our copy does not establish that positive emotions widen executive-functioning capacities specifically. (LLM, conf=0.84)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured

  • After laboratory induction of positive emotions, people show an expanded attentional field, greater working memory, enhanced creativity, and increased openness to new knowledge and perspectives.

    “After a laboratory induction of positive emotions, people demonstrate an expanded attentional field, greater working memory, enhanced creativity, and increased openness to new knowledge and perspectives.”

    From Psychological flexibility as a fundamental aspect of health (2010) · cites this paper as Fredrickson, 1998

    In the sections on cognition and action (page unavailable), the paper reports that induced positive affect improved creative-test performance and describes broader, more flexible thinking. Its discussion of attention calls the evidence preliminary and says positive-versus-neutral experiments had not been conducted. The paper discusses memory and openness to new ideas, but does not report greater working memory or experimentally demonstrated openness after an induction. (LLM, conf=0.89)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured

  • Positive states are thought to improve people's social, psychological, and physical resources.

    “Broadly, positive states are thought to improve people's social, psychological, and physical resources [55–57].”

    From Positive Psychological Interventions for Patients with Type 2 Diabetes: Rationale, Theoretical Model, and Intervention Development (2015) · cites this paper as [55]

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Research works printed but not linked: 9

  1. Ekman P. Are these basic emotions? In: Ekman P, Davidson RJ, editors. The nature of emotions: Fundamental questions. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press; 1994. [Google Scholar]
  2. Feist GJ. Affective states and traits in creativity: Evidence for non-linear relationships. In: Runco MA, editor. Creativity research handbook. Vol. 2. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press; in press. [Google Scholar]
  3. Fredrickson BL, Mancuso RA, Branigan C, Tugade M. The undoing effect of positive emotions. Manuscript in preparation. 1998 doi: 10.1023/a:1010796329158. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar] · DOI · Paper page
  4. Fredrickson BL, Maynard KE, Helms MJ, Haney TL, Siegler IC, Barefoot JC. Hostility predicts magnitude and duration of blood pressure response to anger. Manuscript under review. 1998 doi: 10.1023/a:1005596208324. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar] · DOI · Paper page
  5. Frijda NH. The emotions. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press; 1986. [Google Scholar]
  6. Hatfield E, Rapson R. Love and attachment processes. In: Lewis M, Haviland JM, editors. Handbook of emotion. New York: Guilford Press; 1993. pp. 595–604. [Google Scholar]
  7. Lemerise EA, Dodge KA. The development of anger and hostile interactions. In: Lewis M, Haviland JM, editors. Handbook of emotions. New York: Guilford Press; 1993. pp. 537–546. [Google Scholar]
  8. Renninger KA, Hidi S, Krapp A, editors. The role of interest in learning and development. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum; 1992. [Google Scholar]
  9. Tomkins SS. Affect theory. In: Ekman P, editor. Emotions in the human face. 2. New York: Cambridge University Press; 1982. pp. 353–395. [Google Scholar]

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Related

Authors
Fredrickson, B. L.
Affiliations
University of Michigan (US)
Corresponding author
Fredrickson, Barbara L.
ORCID
Fredrickson, Barbara L.
Venue
Review of General Psychology
Publisher
SAGE Publications
Published
1998-09
Volume
2
Issue
3
Pages
300-319
ISSN
  • 1089-2680 (ISSN-L)
  • 1939-1552
DOI
10.1037/1089-2680.2.3.300
PMC
PMC3156001
OpenAlex
W2134419850
Cited by
6,066
References
134
Citations by year
2026: 192 · 2025: 306 · 2024: 312 · 2023: 321 · 2022: 343 · 2021: 358 · 2020: 351 · 2019: 379 · 2018: 280 · 2017: 327 · 2016: 270 · 2015: 328 · 2014: 307 · 2013: 303 · 2012: 291
FWCI
43.68
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
journals.sagepub.com/page/policies/text-and-data-mining-license (tdm)
Locations
  • Review of General Psychology (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (acceptedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
Funders
National Institute of Mental Health (R01MH059615)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Psychological Well-being and Life Satisfaction
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Neuropsychology and Physiological Psychology › Aging and Gerontology Research
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Applied Psychology › Optimism, Hope, and Well-being
Keywords
positive emotions, joy, interest, contentment, love, emotion regulation, health promotion

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review