The DOI matches its Crossref record; 87 of the 88 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Complex affect dynamics add limited information to the prediction of psychological well-being.
Open accessAbstract
Over the years, many studies have demonstrated a relation between emotion dynamics and psychological well-being 1. Because our emotional life is inherently time-dynamic 2-6, affective scientists argue that, next to how positive or negative we feel on average, patterns of emotional change are informative for mental health 7-10. This growing interest initiated a surge in new affect dynamic measures, each claiming to capture a unique dynamical aspect of our emotional life, crucial for understanding well-being. Although this accumulation suggests scientific progress, researchers have not always evaluated (a) how different affect dynamic measures empirically interrelate and (b) what their added value is in the prediction of psychological well-being. Here, we address these questions by analysing affective time series data from 15 studies (n = 1,777). We show that (a) considerable interdependencies between measures exist, suggesting that single dynamics often do not convey unique information, and (b) dynamic measures have little added value over mean levels of positive and negative affect (and variance in these affective states) when predicting individual differences in three indicators of well-being (life satisfaction, depressive symptoms and borderline symptoms). Our findings indicate that conventional emotion research is currently unable to demonstrate independent relations between affect dynamics and psychological well-being.
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Metadata
- Authors
- Dejonckheere, E., Mestdagh, M., Houben, M., Rutten, I., Sels, L., Kuppens, P., & Tuerlinckx, F.
- Affiliations
- KU Leuven (BE)
- Corresponding author
- Dejonckheere, Egon
- Mestdagh, Merijn
- ORCID
- Venue
- Nature Human Behaviour
- Published
- 2019-04-15
- Volume
- 3
- Issue
- 5
- Pages
- 478-491
- ISSN
- 2397-3374 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2902635246
- Semantic Scholar
- f4e44a55354e81dd34c4bfb75e2a34d9d3eb6f0f
- Cited by
- 431
- References
- 88
- Citations by year
- 2026: 33 · 2025: 56 · 2024: 78 · 2023: 68 · 2022: 52 · 2021: 78 · 2020: 52 · 2019: 13
- FWCI
- 7.28
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- lirias.kuleuven.be
- Licence
- Locations
- Nature Human Behaviour (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- Ghent University Academic Bibliography (Ghent University) (submittedVersion)
- Lirias (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Mental Health Research Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Psychological Well-being and Life Satisfaction
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development
- Keywords
- affect dynamics, emotional dynamics, psychological well-being, life satisfaction, depressive symptoms, borderline symptoms, positive and negative affect
- MeSH terms
- Borderline Personality Disorder, Depression, Major Depressive Disorder, Emotions, Humans, Personal Satisfaction, Psychometrics
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