Happiness & Positive Emotion

All 8 Terms & Definitions

Broaden-and-build theory

Barbara Fredrickson's theory proposes that positive emotions (joy, interest, contentment, love) momentarily broaden the scope of attention, cognition, and behavioural repertoire — widening awareness, increasing creativity, and promoting flexible thinking. Over time, these broadened states build durable personal resources: social bonds, physical skills, knowledge, and psychological resilience. These resources outlast the momentary positive emotion that produced them.

Hedonic wellbeing

Subjective wellbeing defined by high positive affect, low negative affect, and high life satisfaction. Measured by instruments such as Diener's Satisfaction With Life Scale. The hedonic tradition traces to Bentham's philosophy of pleasure and pain, and focuses on maximising pleasant and minimising unpleasant experience.

Eudaimonic wellbeing

Wellbeing defined by meaning, purpose, personal growth, authentic relationships, mastery, and self-determination. Traces to Aristotle's concept of eudaimonia (flourishing). Carol Ryff's six-dimension model and Ryan & Deci's self-determination theory are the main frameworks. Eudaimonic wellbeing predicts different health outcomes than hedonic wellbeing — engagement with meaningful activity protects against cognitive decline even when it does not maximise pleasure.

Affective forecasting

The prediction of future emotional states. Research by Daniel Gilbert, Timothy Wilson, and colleagues shows systematic biases: the impact bias (overestimating both the intensity and duration of future emotional reactions to events) and focalism (focusing on a single event while ignoring everything else in future life that will continue to demand attention). We adapt to most events much faster than we predict.

Hedonic adaptation

The tendency for the emotional impact of repeated stimuli — positive or negative — to diminish over time as we adjust to a new baseline. Brickman and Campbell's 1971 "hedonic treadmill" metaphor captured the insight that obtaining what we desire tends not to make us lastingly happier. Research since has shown adaptation is faster for some events than others, and deliberate variety in positive experiences can slow adaptation to them.

Happiness set point

The genetically influenced baseline of subjective wellbeing toward which a person's happiness tends to return after major life events. Lykken and Tellegen's 1996 twin study estimated that approximately 50–80% of the variance in stable happiness is attributable to genetic factors. Set point is not perfectly fixed — sustained changes in happiness are possible through sustained changes in activity and circumstance — but circumstantial changes alone rarely produce lasting shifts.

Flow

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's concept of the state of complete absorption in a challenging activity that stretches but does not overwhelm one's abilities. Flow is characterised by loss of self-consciousness, distorted time perception, and intrinsic reward. It is distinct from relaxation or pleasure and appears most in activities with clear goals, immediate feedback, and a balance between challenge and skill — a state that contributes significantly to eudaimonic but not simply hedonic wellbeing.

Positive affect ratio

Fredrickson and Losada proposed a critical ratio of positive to negative emotions (approximately 3:1) above which individuals flourish. The mathematical component of the original paper was later retracted due to methodological errors, but the general finding that positive emotions need to substantially outnumber negative ones for flourishing has independent support.