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Happiness unpacked: Positive emotions increase life satisfaction by building resilience.
Open accessAbstract
Happiness-a composite of life satisfaction, coping resources, and positive emotions-predicts desirable life outcomes in many domains. The broaden-and-build theory suggests that this is because positive emotions help people build lasting resources. To test this hypothesis, the authors measured emotions daily for 1 month in a sample of students (N = 86) and assessed life satisfaction and trait resilience at the beginning and end of the month. Positive emotions predicted increases in both resilience and life satisfaction. Negative emotions had weak or null effects and did not interfere with the benefits of positive emotions. Positive emotions also mediated the relation between baseline and final resilience, but life satisfaction did not. This suggests that it is in-the-moment positive emotions, and not more general positive evaluations of one's life, that form the link between happiness and desirable life outcomes. Change in resilience mediated the relation between positive emotions and increased life satisfaction, suggesting that happy people become more satisfied not simply because they feel better but because they develop resources for living well.
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Interventions designed to promote subjective well-being lead to lasting increases in positive emotions and also promote other positive outcomes such as life satisfaction, purpose in life, and improved social functioning.
“For example, interventions designed to promote subjective well-being not only lead to lasting increase in positive emotions, but also promote other positive outcomes such as life satisfaction, purpose in life, and improved social functioning (Cohn, Fredrickson, Brown, Mikels, & Conway, 2009; Fredrickson, 2001; Fredrickson, Cohn, Coffey, Pek, & Finkel, 2008).”
From Trajectories of change in well-being during cognitive behavioral therapies for anxiety disorders: Quantifying the impact and covariation with improvements in anxiety (2020) · cites this paper as Cohn, Fredrickson, Brown, Mikels, & Conway, 2009
The Abstract (page not provided) reports that positive emotions predicted increases in resilience and life satisfaction. The Broaden-and-Build Theory section also describes a separate loving-kindness meditation trial in which participants built resources. But this paper’s own study was correlational, and its Limitations and Future Work section says sustained induction and long-term follow-up remain to be studied; it does not establish lasting increases from an intervention or improvements in purpose in life or social functioning. (LLM, conf=0.86)
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Metadata
- Authors
- Cohn, M. A., Fredrickson, B. L., Brown, S. L., Mikels, J. A., & Conway, A. M.
- Affiliations
- University of California, San Francisco (US)
- University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (US)
- University of Michigan (US)
- Cornell University (US)
- University of Pittsburgh (US)
- Venue
- Emotion
- Published
- 2009-06
- Volume
- 9
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 361-368
- ISSN
- 1528-3542 (ISSN-L)
- 1931-1516
- PMC
- PMC3126102
- OpenAlex
- W2098266185
- Cited by
- 1,713
- References
- 13
- Citations by year
- 2026: 98 · 2025: 150 · 2024: 120 · 2023: 127 · 2022: 126 · 2021: 140 · 2020: 126 · 2019: 132 · 2018: 106 · 2017: 102 · 2016: 81 · 2015: 104 · 2014: 80 · 2013: 77 · 2012: 67
- FWCI
- 49.96
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Emotion (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- Carolina Digital Repository (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) (submittedVersion)
- UNC Libraries
- Funders
- National Institute of Mental Health (MH59615)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Psychological Well-being and Life Satisfaction
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Applied Psychology › Optimism, Hope, and Well-being
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Resilience and Mental Health
- Keywords
- positive emotions, life satisfaction, resilience, broaden-and-build theory, negative emotions, mediation, students, well-being
- MeSH terms
- Emotions, Female, Happiness, Health Status, Humans, Male, Models, Psychological, Personal Satisfaction, Personality Inventory, Quality of Life, Surveys and Questionnaires, Resilience, Psychological
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