Nice to know you: Positive emotions, self–other overlap, and complex understanding in the formation of a new relationship

Abstract

Based on Fredrickson's ((1998 Fredrickson, BL. 1998. What good are positive emotions?. Review of General Psychology, 2: 300–319. [Crossref], [PubMed] , [Google Scholar]). What good are positive emotions? Review of General Psychology, 2, 300–319.; (2001). The role of positive emotions in positive psychology: The broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions. American Psychologist, 56, 218–226) broaden-and-build theory and Aron and Aron's ((1986 Aron, A and Aron, EN. 1986. Love as expansion of the self: Understanding attraction and satisfaction, New York: Hemisphere. [Google Scholar]). Love as expansion of the self: Understanding attraction and satisfaction. New York: Hemisphere) self-expansion theory, it was hypothesized that positive emotions broaden people's feelings of self–other overlap in the beginning of a new relationship. In a prospective study of first-year college students, we found that, after 1 week in college, positive emotions predicted increased self–other overlap with new roommates, which in turn predicted a more complex understanding of the roommate. In addition, participants who experienced a high ratio of positive to negative emotions throughout the first month of college reported a greater increase in self–other overlap and complex understanding than participants with a low positivity ratio. Implications for the role of positive emotions in the formation of new relationships are discussed. At such moments, you realize that you and the other are, in fact, one. It's a big realization. Survival is the second law of life. The first is that we are all one. Joseph Campbell