Positive Emotions Speed Recovery from the … · Cardiovascular Sequelae of Negative Emotions BarbaraL. ... recovery from the cardiovascular sequelae of negative emotions. ... or

Positive Emotions Speed Recovery from the

Cardiovascular Sequelae of Negative Emotions

BarbaraL FredricksonUniversity of Michigan USA

RobertW LevensonUniversity of California Berkeley USA

Two studies tested the hypothesis that certain positive emotions speedrecovery from the cardiovascular sequelae of negative emotions In Study1 60 subjects (Ss) viewed an initial fear-eliciting reg lm and were randomlyassigned to view a secondary reg lm that elicited (a) contentment (b) amuse-ment (c) neutrality or (d) sadness Compared to Ss who viewed the neutraland sad secondary reg lms those who viewed the positive reg lms exhibited morerapid returns to pre-reg lm levels of cardiovascular activation In Study 2 72 Ssviewed a reg lm known to elicit sadness Fifty Ss spontaneously smiled at leastonce while viewing this reg lm Compared to Ss who did not smile those whosmiled exhibited more rapid returns to pre-reg lm levels of cardiovascularactivation We discuss these reg ndings in terms of emotion theory and possi-ble health-promoting functions of positive emotions

INTRODUCTION

Despite the currently burgeoning state of research on emotions a review ofthis literature reveals an overwhelming focus on negative emotions and arelative neglect of positive emotions Why is this

COGNITION AND EMOTION 1998 12 (2) 191plusmn 220

Requests for reprints should be sent to Barbara L Fredrickson at the Department ofPsychology University of Michigan 525 E University 3217 East Hall Ann Arbor MI48109plusmn 1109 USA e-mail blfumichedu or to Robert W Levenson at the Department ofPsychology University of California Berkeley CA 94720 USA

This research was supported by a post-doctoral fellowship (NIMH 18931) awarded to thereg rst author NIA grant AG07476 and NIMHgrant MH50841 awarded to the second authoras well as NIA grant AG08816 awarded to Laura L Carstensen of Stanford University Wewish to thank Phoebe Ellsworthand Randy Larsen for helpful comments on earlier versionsof this article

Oacute 1998 Psychology Press Ltd

The Problem of Positive Emotions

Perhaps one reason empirical research on positive emotions has been slowto accumulate is that by and large positive emotions have been a thorn formost emotion theorists Take for instance the frequent assertion thatemotions areETH by dereg nitionETH associated with specireg c action tendencies(Frijda 1986 Frijda Kuipers amp Schure 1989 Lazarus 1991 Leven-son 1988 1994 Tooby amp Cosmides 1990) anger calls to mind the urgeto attack fear the urge to escape disgust the urge to expel and so on Keyto this assertion is that specireg c action tendencies and organised physiolo-gical change go hand in handETH emotions not only prepare the mind to actin specireg c ways but they prepare the body as well As Lazarus (1991 p285) put it ` an action tendency is what makes an emotion embodiedrsquorsquo Anevolutionary note is often sounded among these theorists with emotionsseen as promoting specireg c adaptive actions in life-threatening situationsthat have been ancestrally recurrent

Linking specireg c emotions with specireg c action tendencies seems easyenough when working within the subset of negative emotions Positiveemotions however pose theoretical stumbling blocks Frijdarsquo s (1986)descriptions of action tendencies for instance grow vague when emotionsare positive He pairs contentment with inactivity and joy with (p 89)` free activationrsquorsquo which he describes as an ` aimless unasked-for readi-ness to engage in whatever interaction presents itselfrsquo rsquo Likewise Lazarus(1991) concedes that the action tendency for happinessjoy is ` hard to pindownrsquo rsquo and that for pride ` is difreg cult to specify with conreg dencersquo rsquo Andalthough affection is linked with approach (Frijda 1986) and relief withceasing to be vigilant (Lazarus 1991) one question to ask is approach anddo what ETH cease vigilance and do what It appears that the specireg c actiontendencies named for positive emotions are not nearly as specireg c as thosenamed for negative emotions At best they resemble generic orientationstoward action or inaction rather than urges to do something quite specireg clike attack macr ee or spit Moreover in research on autonomic respondingassociated with discrete emotions except for situations where extremerespiratory or somatic activity is involved (eg outright laughter or yawn-ing) positive emotions seem to be characterised by a relative lack ofautonomic activation (eg Levenson Carstensen Friesen amp Ekman1991 Levenson Ekman amp Friesen 1990)

In short action-oriented explanatory models which have served thenegative emotions well may not do as well for describing the functionsof positive emotions Although we are not the reg rst to note problems thatpositive emotions pose for emotion theorists (eg Ekman 1992 Lazarus1991) seldom has this acknowledgment spurred revision of or qualifica-tions to purportedly general models of emotion

192 FREDRICKSON AND LEVENSON

An ` Undoingrsquorsquo Effect of Positive Emotions

The question remains How might models of emotion better accommodatethe positive emotions We propose that one major obstacle to understand-ing positive emotions is the predilection toward adopting a single generalpurpose model of emotion Why not as Ekman (1994) has suggested allowdifferent theories for distinct emotions (eg a theory of anger a theory ofsadness) Still another multiple-model landscape would allow one model todescribe a subset of distinct negative emotions (eg anger fear disgustsadness) and a separate model to describe a subset of distinct positiveemotions (eg contentment amusement) Traditional action-oriented mod-els then could be maintained as suitable descriptions for these negativeemotions whereas alternative models could be developed for positiveemotions

In building a more suitable model for this subset of positive emotionswe suggest leaving behind the presumption that all emotions must neces-sarily yield specireg c action tendencies In its place we offer an alternativeprediction regarding the effects of these positive emotions on physiologicalchange and provide two empirical tests of its viability This work expandson the speculation offered by Levenson (1988 p 25) in a discussion ofpsychophysiological research on emotion

the evolutionary meaning of positive emotions such as happiness mightbe to function as efreg cient ` undoersrsquo rsquo of states of ANS [autonomic nervoussystem] arousal produced by certain negative emotions To test this hypoth-esis a reasonable baseline condition for the investigation of ANS concomi-tants of happiness would be one that produces a prior state of fear anger orsadness

Extrapolating from these ideas we suggest that perhaps one function ofcertain positive emotions may not be to spark specireg c action (as do manynegative emotions) but instead may be to loosen the hold that thesenegative emotions gain on an individualrsquo s mind and body by disman-tling or undoing this psychological and physiological preparation forspecireg c action In particular it may be that the positive emotions ofcontentment and amusement act in the service of homeostasis restoringquiescence as such a switch from a negative emotion to one of thesepositive emotions may in effect rid individuals of the psychological andphysiological sequelae of action readiness allowing them to pursue a widervariety of actions or experiences Although this ` undoingrsquorsquo hypothesisbuilds clear linkages between certain positive and negative emotions thetie is more one of complementarity than of isomorphism

Physiologically the undoing hypothesis does not propose that thesepositive emotions lead to an inert bodily state one characterised by

POSITIVE EMOTIONS AND CARDIOVASCULAR RECOVERY 193

extremely low levels of autonomic activation Rather it suggests thatcertain positive emotions serve to restore autonomic activity to more midrange levels

It bears underscoring that this undoing hypothesis is intended to describeone particular psychophysiological effect of certain positive emotions anddoes not claim that this is their sole function Additionally just as alldiscrete negative emotions are not necessarily associated with high-actionmotor programmes (eg boredom and envy may be exceptions) we do nothold that all discrete positive emotions should necessarily show theundoing effect (eg pride may be an exception) Also the undoing hypoth-esis is limited to those contexts in which certain positive emotions followcertain negative emotions in close temporal sequence it does not speak tothe effects these positive emotions may have when experienced by them-selves Moreover our hypothesis and the experiments we describe herefocus on cardiovascular concomitants of emotions (which are tightly linkedto the metabolic demands produced by somatic action Obrist 1981) andnot on other physiological systems

Overview of Empirical Strategy

The undoing hypothesis predicts that certain positive emotions speedrecovery from the cardiovascular sequelae of negative emotions Represen-tative of this class of positive emotions are contentment and amusementneither of which is associated with a high-activity action tendency Ourstrategy for testing this hypothesis is based on Levensonrsquo s (1988) sugges-tion of examining transitions between negative and positive emotions InStudy 1 we begin from a starting state of fear and in Study 2 we begin froma starting state of sadness In each study we use emotionally evocative reg lmclips to generate these initial negative emotions We then assess the effectsof positive emotions that are either experimentally induced (Study 1) or thatoccur naturally (Study 2) Specireg cally we examine the duration of cardio-vascular reactivity as a function of the experience or expression of positiveemotions In Study 1 after exposing subjects to a fear-inducing reg lm weexperimentally manipulate the presence of positive emotions by showingsubjects one of four different secondary reg lms designed to elicit either (a)contentment (b) amusement (c) neutrality or (d) sadness [a negativeemotion that like the two positive emotions has no obvious associationwith a high-activity action tendency (Lazarus 1991 Levenson 1992)] InStudy 2 we make use of a naturally occurring temporal union of negativeand positive affect examining whether people who spontaneously smiledduring a sad reg lm exhibited faster recovery from the cardiovascular activa-tion occasioned by that reg lm than those who did not smile


STUDY 1

Method

Participants

Sixty female undergraduate students enrolled in introductory psychol-ogy courses at the University of California Berkeley served as voluntaryparticipants in this study 37 of these participants identireg ed themselves asAsian 30 as Hispanic 25 as Caucasian and 8 as Black whichapproximates the demographics of the student population at the univer-sity Each received course credit in exchange for their participationParticipants were randomly assigned to one of four experimental condi-tions dereg ned by the emotional content of the secondary reg lm stimulus (iecontentment amusement neutral or sadness) that followed the initial fear-eliciting reg lm stimulus

Visual Materials

Selection Five short reg lm clips were used in this study (the initial fear-eliciting reg lm and the four secondary reg lms) Film selection was based inpart on prior work in Levensonrsquo s laboratory to compile a library ofemotion-eliciting reg lms that have been found in group screenings to elicitself-reports of relatively specireg c emotional states (eg Gross amp Levenson1995) In these screening sessions respondents viewed a reg lm and thenimmediately rated it in terms of each of seven emotion terms (ie amuse-ment anger contentment disgust fear sadness surprise) on 9-point Likertscales (0 = none 8 = most in my life adapted from Ekman Friesen ampAncoli 1980) Figure 1 presents the emotional ratings for the reg ve reg lm clipsused in Study 1 (along with the one sadness-eliciting reg lm clip used inStudy 2) These ratings were obtained from independent samples in groupviewings

Film Content and Emotions Elicited The reg lm clip used to induce theinitial negative emotion [` Ledgersquo rsquo drawn from the feature reg lm Catrsquo s Eye(DeLaurentiis Schumacher Subotsk amp Teague 1985)] shows a maninching along the ledge of a high-rise building hugging the side of thebuilding at one point he loses his grip dangles high above trafreg c andstruggles to keep from dropping We chose this clip because it seems a facevalid elicitor of a (perhaps innate) fear of falling Examination of Fig 1areveals that this reg lm primarily elicits self-reports of fear with lesser reportsof other emotions

Reports of emotion elicited by the four secondary reg lms are displayed inFigs 1bplusmn 1e (b) ` Wavesrsquo rsquo shows waves breaking on a beach and primarily


196

FIG 1 Mean self-reports of emotion from independent samples who viewed stimulus reg lms used

in Studies 1 and 2 (1a) displays self-reports of emotion in response to the Ledge reg lm (n = 75) used

in Study 1 (1bplusmn 1e) display self-reports of emotion in response to each of the secondary reg lms used

in Study 1 The Puppy reg lm (n = 50) the Waves reg lm (n = 42) the Sticks reg lm (n = 32) and the Cry

reg lm (n = 32) (1f ) displays self-reports of emotion in response to the Funeral reg lm (n = 46) used in

Study 2 (AMUS Amusement CTEN Contentment ANGE Anger DISG disgust FEAR Fear

SADN Sadness SURP Surprise)

elicits self-reports of contentment (c) ` Puppyrsquorsquo shows a small dogplaying with a macr ower and primarily elicits self-reports of amusement(d) ` Sticksrsquorsquo shows an abstract dynamic display of coloured sticks pilingup and produces minimal report of any of the seven rated emotions(modal reports were ` 0rsquorsquo across all emotion terms) and (e) ` Cryrsquo rsquodepicts a young boy crying as he watches his father die and primarilyelicits self-reports of sadness [drawn from the feature reg lm The Champ(Lovell amp Zefreg relli 1979)]

The initial reg lm ` Ledgersquorsquo was 83 seconds long and was presented withsound For comparability between experimental conditions all four sec-ondary reg lms were 100 seconds long and presented without sound

Apparatus

Rating Dial A positive-negative affective measure developed byLevenson and Gottman (1983) was used to obtain continuous reports ofaffect during the study Participants manipulated a dial whose pointermoved on a 180-degree scale divided into nine divisions ranging from` very negativersquo rsquo to ` neutralrsquo rsquo to ` very positiversquo rsquo These anchors wereselected so that respondents could rate the intensities of multiple affectsin real time Specireg cally participants were told that ` negative andpositive can mean a lot of different things In this context wersquo d likeyou to consider `Positiversquo as referring to any positive emotions such asamusement contentment happiness or calmness and `Negativersquo asreferring to any negative emotions such as sadness anger disgustfrustration irritation fear or contemptrsquo rsquo The dial was attached to apotentiometer in a voltage dividing circuit that was monitored by thesame computer that monitored the physiological data Participants wereinstructed to adjust the dial position as often as necessary so that italways remacr ected how positive or negative they felt Validity data forthis rating dial procedure can be found in Gottman and Levenson 1985(see Fredrickson amp Kahneman 1993 for a similar real-time ratingprocedure)

Audiovisual A remote-controlled high resolution colour video cameraplaced behind darkened glass behind a bookshelf was used to recordparticipantsrsquo (unobtrusively) facial behaviour and upper body movement

Cardiovascular Continuous recordings were made using a 12-channelGrass Model 7 polygraph connected to a Digital Electronics CorporationLSI-1173 microcomputer The resolution of the computer system was onemillisecond for measures of time and one millivolt for measures of ampli-tude Computer software developed in Levensonrsquo s laboratory controlled


the experiment and provided second-by-second averages of four cardio-vascular measures (1) Heart period (HP) Beckman miniature electrodeswith Beckman electrolyte were placed in a bipolar conreg guration on oppo-site sides of the participantrsquo s chest The interbeat interval was calculated asthe time in milliseconds between successive R waves in the electrocardio-gram (ECG) (2) Pulse transmission time to the ear (PTE) a UFI photo-plethysmograph was attached to the right ear The interval was timedbetween the R wave of the ECG and the upstroke of the pulse wave atthe ear (3) Pulse transmission time to the reg nger (PTF) a UFI photoplethys-mograph was attached to the distal phalange of the second reg nger of thenondominant hand The interval was timed between the R wave of the ECGand the upstroke of the pulse wave at the reg nger (4) Finger pulse amplitude(FPA) the trough-to-peak amplitude of each reg nger pulse was measured toassess the amount of blood in the tip of the reg nger

This set of measures was selected to allow for continuous measurementto be as unobtrusive as possible and to sample broadly from the cardio-vascular system Whereas heart period is under both sympathetic andparasympathetic control both reg nger pulse amplitude (an index of periph-eral vasoconstriction) and pulse transmission times (indices of contractileforce of the heart along with distensibility of the blood vessels Newlin ampLevenson 1979) track processes mediated by the sympathetic nervoussystem Pulse transmission times have also been shown to correlate withchanges in blood pressure (Steptoe Smylyan amp Gribbin 1976)

Procedure

On arrival participants were seated in a comfortable chair in a smallwell-lit room Participants were told that the study was about peoplersquo semotional reactions to various reg lm clips that they would be videotapedthat their bodily reactions would be monitored using physiological sensorsand that they would use a rating dial to indicate how they felt during thestudy After participants signed a consent form the experimenter attachedthe physiological sensors

After a reg ve-minute adaptation period the experimenter returned tointroduce the study in more detail Participants were told that they wouldbe watching reg lm clips that would depict either positive negative or neutralevents and that they should watch the video monitor at all times They werealso instructed in the use of the rating dial Specireg cally they were told thattheir task was to move the dial as often as necessary so it always remacr ectedhow positive or negative they were feeling moment-by-moment during theentire experimental session Participants were given an opportunity topractise manipulating the dial without looking down at their hand Duringthe actual data collection participants were alone in the room


Following an additional three-minute adaptation period participantswere instructed to ` relax and empty your mind of all thoughts feelingsand memoriesrsquo rsquo This commenced a two-minute resting baseline period thesecond minute of which was used as the pre-reg lm rest period Immediatelyfollowing this resting baseline phase all participants viewed the fear-eliciting Ledge reg lm Depending on experimental condition this was fol-lowed one second later by either (a) the Waves reg lm (contentment) (b) thePuppy reg lm (amusement) (c) the Sticks reg lm (neutral) or (d) the Cry reg lm(sad) The second reg lm was followed by a 150-second post-reg lm periodduring which the video monitor was blank

At the end of the study participants completed a number of question-naire measures Among these was an item asking them to describe how` interestedrsquo rsquo they were in each of the reg lms that they viewed Participantsresponded on a 9-point Likert scale ranging from 0 to 8

Results

Overview of Analytic Strategy

We reg rst conreg rmed that the initial fear reg lm successfully induced negativeemotion by comparing subjective and cardiovascular data obtained duringthe reg lm to those obtained during the pre-reg lm baseline Next we conducteda manipulation check to conreg rm that the secondary reg lms altered subjectiveemotional experience as intended We then used planned contrasts to testthe hypothesis that attention to positive emotional stimuli speeds recoveryfrom the cardiovascular activation generated by the initial negative emo-tion Specireg cally we compared the durations of cardiovascular reactivityfor participants who viewed each of the two positive secondary reg lms to thedurations of cardiovascular reactivity for participants who viewed neutralor negative secondary reg lms This resulted in four pairwise comparisons Tocorrect for familywise Type I error we used modireg ed Bonferroni testssetting alpha to 0375 for each planned comparison (Keppel 1991)

Measuring the Duration of Cardiovascular Reactivity

To quantify the duration of cardiovascular reactivity to the initial fearreg lm we measured the time that it took for each participantrsquo s cardiovascularindices to return to her own pre-reg lm resting levels Our aim was to createan individualised time-based index of cardiovascular recovery sensitive tothe temporal dynamics of the targeted cardiovascular variables To do thisfor each participant and for each measure of cardiovascular activity wereg rst calculated a baseline conreg dence interval to represent pre-reg lm baselinelevels dereg ned by that participantrsquo s own 60-second pre-reg lm mean plus and


minus one standard deviation of that mean Cardiovascular reactivity isevidenced when cardiovascular levels escaped the baseline conreg denceinterval (in either direction) during emotion-elicitation The duration ofcardiovascular reactivity is dereg ned as the time elapsed after the offset ofthe initial fear reg lm until cardiovascular levels returned to within anindividualrsquo s own baseline conreg dence interval and remained within thisconreg dence interval for at least reg ve of six consecutive seconds Calculatingduration as a return to (and remaining within) the baseline conreg denceinterval helped assure that biphasic responses and responses in the oppo-site direction of the initial emotional response were not misclassireg ed asrecovery In addition this computational strategy allowed us to calculatethe duration of cardiovascular reactivity for all participants who exhibitedcardiovascular reactivity regardless of the direction or magnitude of thisreactivity For those few participants who did not return to within theirbaseline conreg dence interval during the data collection period durationvalues were considered missing1

As in other studies using this time-based measure of the duration ofcardiovascular reactivity (Fredrickson et al submitted) duration measureswere largely uncorrelated with measures of the peak magnitude of reactiv-ity (rs = 28 00 2 01 and 2 06 for HP PTE PTF and FPA respectivelyall ns except HP for which P lt 05) indicating that recovery time wasnot a simple remacr ection of initial response magnitude

Finally to create an aggregate index to remacr ect the overall duration ofcardiovascular reactivity for each participant we calculated the meanduration score across those cardiovascular indices that exhibited signifi-cant change during the emotion-eliciting stimulus (All nonmissing dura-tion scores contributed to the aggregate index)

Baseline Cardiovascular Activity

For each participant we calculated mean levels (and standard devia-tions) for heart period (HP) pulse transmission times to the ear (PTE) andto the reg nger (PTF) and reg nger pulse amplitude (FPA) across the last 60seconds of the resting baseline phase The reg rst two columns of Table 1report the means across participants for these individualised baselinemeans and standard deviations Baseline levels did not differ across thefour experimental conditions (all F-values lt 1 all ns)


1For HP no duration values were missing For PTE duration values for 4 of 60 parti-

cipants (67) were considered missing For PTF 2 of 60 (33) were considered missingFor FPA 4 of 60 (67) were considered missing

Subjective and Cardiovascular Responses to theFear Film

For each participant we calculated mean rating dial reports and cardi-ovascular activity averaged across the entire 83 seconds of the initial fearreg lm These mean values are presented in the third column of Table 1 Weconducted within-subject t-tests to examine whether these means repre-sented signireg cant changes from pre-reg lm baseline (see Table 1) Next forthose variables that showed reliable change (in either direction) we alsodetermined peak responses during the fear reg lm These peak values and themean latencies to achieve them (presented in the last columns of Table 1)provide a sharper picture of the mean magnitude of participantsrsquo responsesto the fear reg lm

As Table 1 shows participants reported feeling signireg cantly morenegative during the fear reg lm than during the pre-reg lm baseline periodwith rating dial reports dropping an average mean of 155 points and anaverage maximum of 229 points (on a 0plusmn 9 scale) Participants alsoexhibited signireg cant changes on three of the four cardiovascular indicesduring the fear reg lm (a) heart rate decreased as indicated by an averagemean increase in heart period of 2044msec and an average maximumincrease of 14383msec (b) pulse transmission time to the ear decreased by


TABLE 1Mean Subjective and Cardiovascular Levels during Pre-reg lm Baseline and Fear Film

across Participants (N = 60)

Pre-reg lm Baseline Fear Film (83sec)

Variable Mean SD Mean Peak Latency toPeak (sec)

RATE 486 plusmn 331 257 5440(085) (098) (128) (2340)

HP 78400 5613 80444 92783 3813(10787) (2580) (11881) (15082) (2735)

PTE 18632 864 18363 15952 3437(1821) (408) (1877) (3009) (2611)

PTF 26031 958 26060 plusmn plusmn(2143) (520) (2230)

FPA 1238 136 1156 837 4092(587) (073) (595) (476) (2939)

Note RATE rating dial HP heart period PTE pulse transmission time to the ear PTFpulse transmission time to the reg nger FPA reg nger pulse amplitude Standard deviations(across subjects) are reported in parentheses Results of paired t-tests (df = 59) comparingmean and maximum levels during fear reg lm to pre-reg lm baseline means are indicated withasterisks

P lt 05 P lt 01 P lt 001

an average mean of 270msec and an average maximum of 2680msec and(c) reg nger pulse amplitude decreased by an average mean of 082 millivolts(mV) and an average maximum of 401mV On average participantsshowed no reliable mean changes on pulse transmission time to thereg nger Further descriptive analyses conreg rmed that all participants exhib-ited cardiovascular reactivity (dereg ned by escaping the baseline conreg denceinterval) on heart period pulse transmission time to the ear and reg ngerpulse amplitude during the fear reg lm and that no responses differed acrossthe four experimental conditions (all F-values lt 113 all ns)

Two of the cardiovascular changes evident during the fear reg lm representa pattern indicative of sympathetic arousal Decreased reg nger pulse ampli-tude (peripheral vasoconstriction) and decreased pulse transmission timeto the ear (increased contractility andor decreased vascular distensibilityNewlin amp Levenson 1979) The deceleration in heart rate may be consis-tent with an orienting response (Obrist 1981) and may be the result ofwatching reg lms in general or perhaps of watching suspenseful reg lms inparticular

In sum the fear reg lm produced signireg cant reports of negative subjectiveexperience and signreg cant changes on three of the four cardiovascularmeasures These data together with the pre-test data reported in Fig 1asuggest that the Ledge reg lm was effective in inducing a negative emotionalsubjective state along with attendant cardiovascular activation

Manipulation Check

We randomly assigned participants to view different secondary reg lms inorder to manipulate experimentally the subjective emotional experienceintroduced into the context of negative emotional arousal To conreg rm thatthis manipulation worked we examined group differences in rating dialreports averaged over the 100 seconds of the secondary reg lms Across allparticipants the mean rating dial position during the secondary reg lm was442 on the 0plusmn 9 scale (SD = 170) An omnibus ANOVA conreg rmed that thefour experimental groups differed on these subjective reports [F(356) =2354 P lt 0001] Inspection of Fig 2 shows that group means for the twopositive reg lms are in the positive range of the dial scale whereas those forthe neutral and negative reg lms fall in the negative range One-sample z-testsconreg rmed that mean ratings for each group differ signireg cantly from themidpoint of the rating dial scale (45 labelled ` Neutralrsquo rsquo ) and plannedcomparisons conreg rmed that the two positive reg lms were rated as signifi-cantly more positive than both the negative and the neutral reg lms (t-valueswith df = 56 ranged from 402 to 730 all Ps lt 001) and that ratings forthe neutral and negative reg lms differed signireg cantly from each other [t(56)= 243 P lt 05]


Duration of Cardiovascular Reactivity

Having conreg rmed both that the initial fear reg lm induced negative emo-tion reports with attendant cardiovascular activation and that the second-ary reg lms altered emotion reports as expected we next tested our hypothesisthat positive emotions would speed recovery from cardiovascular sequelaeof a negative emotion To do this we looked at the time elapsed after theoffset of the fear reg lm until the cardiovascular changes induced by that reg lmsubsided We calculated the duration of cardiovascular reactivity for eachparticipant individually using the cardiovascular aggregate described pre-viously Across all participants the mean time to achieve recovery fromcardiovascular reactivity was 3359 seconds (SD = 2729 N = 60)

Before conducting the specireg c planned comparisons that derive from ourhypothesis we reg rst conducted an omnibus one-way ANOVA to protectagainst Type I error This ANOVA yielded a signireg cant main effect forgroup [F(356) = 837 P lt 001] with a relatively large effect size (omega-squared = 27 Keppel 1991) indicating that the four experimental groupsdiffered in their times to achieve cardiovascular recovery

Planned Comparisons Figure 3 illustrates the group differences induration of cardiovascular response The four planned comparisons con-


FIG 2 Mean reports of negative affect during each of the secondary reg lms shown in Study 1

Groups are identireg ed by the emotion featured in the second reg lm viewed Error bars represent

standard errors of the means

reg rmed our predictions about recovery times2 Participants who viewed thecontentment-inducing Waves reg lm exhibited (1) faster returns to pre-reg lmlevels of cardiovascular activity than those who viewed the neutral Sticksreg lm [t(268) = 229 P = 030] and (2) faster recovery than those whoviewed the sad Cry reg lm [t(260) = 378 P = 001] Likewise those whoviewed the amusing Puppy reg lm exhibited (3) faster returns to pre-reg lmlevels of cardiovascular activity than did those who viewed the neutralreg lm [t(279) = 228 P = 030] and (4) faster recovery than those whoviewed the sad reg lm [t(223) = 383 P = 001]

As is typical with time-based data the duration scores exhibited apositive skew with standard deviations increasing with increasingmeans To explore whether outliers accounted for the observed pattern ofresults we repeated the analyses of duration scores using nonparametrictests on ranked data The omnibus test and each planned pairwise compar-ison remained signireg cant We chose to present the analyses of raw durationscores to preserve the meaning inherent in time-based units

Are Positive Films More Interesting than Negative orNeutral Films

Given the indications that the Puppy and Waves reg lms sped cardiovas-cular recovery we considered the possibility that this might have resultednot from their positive affective qualities but simply because they weremore interesting and thus possibly more distracting than the other sec-ondary reg lms To explore this issue we utilised the interest ratings partici-pants provided at the end of the experiment In terms of the 0plusmn 8 ratingscale across all secondary reg lms interest ratings were relatively low (M =215 SD = 200) Importantly the four experimental groups did not differon these ratings [F(356) = 154 ns] arguing against this alternativeexplanation of the reg ndings Moreover when we repeated the analysesreported earlier using interest ratings as a covariate an identical patternof results emerged

Discussion

Data from Study 1 support the undoing hypothesis Participants whoviewed positive secondary reg lms exhibited faster recovery from theircardiovascular arousal than those who viewed neutral or negative second-


2Because Levenersquo s test for homogeneity of variances was signi reg cant [F(356) = 300 P =

038] separate variance estimates for planned comparisons were used

ary reg lms Although these reg ndings bolster our conreg dence in the undoingeffect of positive emotions they also raise a number of intriguing issues

Recovery vs Replacement

We have interpreted our data as indicating that positive stimuli speedrecovery from negative emotional arousal Another construal however isthat participants have not recovered but rather the initial negative emotionhas been replaced by the subsequent positive emotion The replacementview implies that the secondary reg lm quickly takes over the reigns of thecardiovascular system substituting its own pattern of activation for thatproduced by the initial fear reg lm The recovery view in contrast suggeststhat the initial reg lm produces a pattern of activation that lingers on evenafter the secondary reg lm has begun and then diminishes gradually Thedistinction between these two interpretations is subtle and not subject todereg nitive resolution solely on the basis of the data reported here Althoughwe prefer to interpret the data in terms of recovery rather than replacementwe recognise the viability of the alternative interpretation

An example might convey the complexities of settling this matterRecall that our dereg nition of cardiovascular recovery required that activa-tion on the indices of heart rate pulse transmission time and peripheralvasoconstriction return to within a conreg dence interval surrounding the pre-reg lm resting level and remain within that interval for at least reg ve of sixconsecutive seconds Using this analytical strategy we found that thosewho viewed positive reg lms on average achieved a pattern of cardiovascu-


FIG 3 Mean time to achieve cardiovascular recovery in Study 1 Groups are identireg ed by the

emotion featured in the second reg lm viewed Error bars represent standard errors of the means

lar activation akin to their resting levels within the reg rst 20 seconds ofwatching the positive reg lm At reg rst consideration this would clearly seemto point to ` recoveryrsquo rsquo If positive affect had ` replacedrsquo rsquo negative affectwe would expect to see the pattern of cardiovascular activation associatedwith positive affect to appear If however the pattern of cardiovascularactivation associated with positive affect is indistinguishable from restinglevels as is suggested by previous work on autonomic patterning inemotion (eg Levenson et al 1990 1991) then recovery and replacementwould result in the same reg nal cardiovascular state thus rendering thedistinction between the two explanations moot It should be noted how-ever that recovery and replacement are not mutually exclusive and thatsome middle ground between the two models might best characterise thephenomenon For instance the transition moments between reg lms mightremacr ect a composite of both negative and positive physiological states

Do Positive Emotions facilitate Recovery MoreEfreg ciently than ` Nothingrsquorsquo

In designing this study we felt that the ideal control condition forevaluating the effects of positive emotions was to have participantsengaged in a task that was perceptually comparable with equivalentinterest value and yet bereft of emotion Providing this isomorphism ofperceptual demand seemed particularly important given the sensitivity ofthe autonomic nervous system to perceptual and attentional processes Thecondition in the present study in which participants watched the affectivelyneutral Sticks reg lm represented our best approximation to this ideal controlcondition

We considered at great length and experimented with having a condi-tion in which participants watched the initial fear-inducing reg lm and thensimply did ` nothingrsquo rsquo (eg watched a blank screen) In theory such acondition might reveal the ` naturalrsquorsquo course of recovery Yet fortunatelyor unfortunately people rarely (if ever) do nothing perhaps especiallywhen they are experiencing an emotion Careful debriereg ng revealed thatabsent a secondary reg lm pilot participants engaged in a number of differentactivities many of which were explicitly designed to reduce the negativeemotion produced by the reg lm that just ended For example some partici-pants tried to get their minds off the reg lm others continued to think aboutthe reg lm and their emotional reactions to it and still others spontaneouslycreated an analogue of our positive affect conditions smiling or evenlaughing Self-chosen coping strategies such as these have been shown tohave profound inmacr uences on the duration of emotional experience (egCiofreg amp Holloway 1993 Lazarus Speisman Mordkoff amp Davison 1962


Nolen-Hoeksema amp Morrow 1991 Nolen-Hoeksema Morrow amp Fred-rickson 1993)

For each of these reasons we see the neutral reg lm as providing the mostappropriate experimental control condition The question of whether posi-tive emotions facilitate recovery more efreg ciently than ` nothingrsquo rsquo may beunanswerable Even so we should be able to learn more about whethervariation in the ways people respond to negative emotion can alter theduration of the cardiovascular after-effects of negative emotions Study 2in this series moves in this direction

Generality of Findings

Our second study was also motivated by a number of methodologicalfeatures of this reg rst experiment that limit the generality of the reg ndingsFirst Study 1 tested recovery from only one type of negative emotionSecond the sample in Study 1 although ethnically diverse was limited tocollege-aged women and by consequence generalisation of these reg ndingsto males and to different age groups has not yet been established Andthird Study 1 tests the restorative capacities of positive emotions usingonly reg lms to elicit emotions We chose reg lms in effort to standardise asmuch as possible the modality and duration of the emotion-elicitingstimulus We would want to know whether similar results could be foundwith positive emotions elicited in other ways

STUDY 2

People use multiple strategies of varying effectiveness to regulate theirown moods and emotions (Nolen-Hoeksema et al 1993 Stone Kennedy-Moore amp Neale 1995 Thayer Newman amp McClain 1994) Evidence thatpositive emotions speed recovery from the cardiovascular sequelae ofnegative emotions suggests that intermixing positive and negative emo-tions might be a particularly effective strategy for reducing the impact ofnegative emotions

For instance it is not unusual to see people smile during or followingnegative emotional experiences (Ekman 1989) Such smiles have oftenbeen interpreted as social signals ways that people regulate emotionsinterpersonally Yet these smiles might also offer people a means tomodulate their own inner experiences of emotions As William Jamesput it over a century ago (18841983 p 178 emphasis in original) ` Ifwe wish to conquer undesirable emotional tendencies in ourselves we mustassiduously and in the reg rst instant cold-bloodedly go through the outwardmotions of those contrary dispositions we prefer to cultivatersquorsquo


Recent empirical evidence has demonstrated that facial expressions ofemotionETH and smiles in particularETH do in fact alter inner physiologicalstates Using a procedure called the directed facial action task Ekman andDavidson (1993 Ekman Davidson amp Friesen 1990) instructed individualsto contract certain facial muscles to produce smiles both with and withoutDuchennersquo s marker of enjoyment (muscle contraction around the eyes) andobserved that each elicited a distinct pattern of regional brain activityPrevious work has also demonstrated the capacity of directed facial actionsto produce emotion-specireg c autonomic nervous system activity and undercertain conditions and with certain populations subjective emotionalexperience (Ekman Levenson amp Friesen 1983 Levenson et al 19901991 Levenson Ekman Heider amp Friesen 1992)

The aim of Study 2 was to provide a conceptual replication and exten-sion of Study 1 this time using a more naturalistic union between negativeand positive affects We tested the hypothesis that people who for what-ever reasons spontaneously smiled while viewing a sad reg lm would recovermore rapidly from the cardiovascular activation induced by that reg lm thanthose who did not smile

One thing to wonder is whether we can presume that when a personsmiles especially in a negative emotional context that that person isexperiencing a positive emotion We think that this is an unnecessarypresumption Given the known connections between facial action andautonomic nervous system activation it seemed reasonable to predictthat facial conreg gurations indicative of positive emotions namely smilesmight have the ability to speed recovery from the cardiovascular sequelaeof a negative emotion with or without accompanying changes in subjectiveexperience

Method

Participants

Seventy-two individuals between the ages of 20 and 35 (50 female)were recruited by a San Francisco-based survey research reg rm to serve asparticipants in this study Although not ethnically diverse (all participantswere Caucasian) this sample was constructed to represent the socioeco-nomic distribution of the San Francisco Bay area Participants were paid$25 for participating in a one-hour study

Visual Materials

A short reg lm clip known to elicit sadness was used in this studyEmotional ratings for the clip obtained using the same group-screeningprocedures as described in Study 1 are presented in Fig 1f The reg lm clip


[ ` Funeralrsquo rsquo drawn from the feature reg lm Steel Magnolias (Stark StoneWhite amp Ross 1989)] shows a woman at her adult daughterrsquo s funeralsurrounded by a group of her women friends She describes what it was likefor her to be with her daughter as she died and then begins to cry inoutrage that her daughterrsquo s life has ended (the subsequent humorous sceneswere omitted) Examination of Fig 1f reveals that this reg lm primarily elicitsself-reports of sadness with lesser report of other emotions The reg lm clip is205 seconds long and was presented with sound

Apparatus

The rating dial audiovisual and cardiovascular measures were the sameas in Study 1

Procedure

The procedure for Study 2 was virtually identical to that used in Study 1The single difference was that after the pre-reg lm rest period all participantsviewed only one reg lm stimulus the sad Funeral reg lm This reg lm was followedby a 180-second post-reg lm period during which the video monitor wasblank The entire session was videotaped

Results


As in Study 1 we reg rst conreg rmed that the sad reg lm successfully inducednegative emotion by comparing subjective and cardiovascular dataobtained during the reg lm to those obtained prior to the reg lm From thevideo records we coded the occurrence of smiles Next we tested thehypothesis that spontaneous smiling speeds recovery from the cardiovas-cular after-effects of negative emotion Using the same strategies forquantifying the duration of cardiovascular reactivity as used in Study 1we compared the durations of cardiovascular responding for participantswho smiled to those for participants who did not smile


For each participant we calculated mean levels (and standard deviations)for heart period (HP) pulse transmission times to the ear (PTE) and to thereg nger (PTF) and reg nger pulse amplitude (FPA) across the last 60 seconds ofthe resting baseline phase The reg rst two columns of Table 2 report the meansacross participants for these individualised baseline means and standard


deviations (Comparison across Tables 1 and 2 suggests that baseline valueswere generally comparable across the two studies)

Subjective and Cardiovascular Responses to theSad Film

For each participant we calculated mean rating dial reports and cardi-ovascular activity averaged across the entire 205 seconds of the sad reg lmThese mean values are presented in the third column of Table 2 Weconducted within-subject t-tests to examine whether these means repre-sented signireg cant changes from baseline levels (see Table 2) Next forthose variables that showed signireg cant change we also determined peakresponses during the sad reg lm These peak values presented in the fourthcolumn of Table 2 provide a sharper picture of the mean magnitude ofparticipantsrsquo responses to the sad reg lm

As Table 2 shows participants reported feeling reliably more negativeduring the sad reg lm than during the pre-reg lm baseline period with rating dialreports dropping an average mean of 057 points and an average maximumof 187 points Participants also exhibited signireg cant changes on three ofthe four cardiovascular indices during the sad reg lm (1) pulse transmissiontime to the ear increased by an average mean of 220msec and an average


TABLE 2Mean Subjective and Cardiovascular Levels during Pre-reg lm Baseline and Sad Film


Pre-reg lm Baseline Sad Film (205sec)


RATE 513 plusmn 456 326 12040(079) (112) (126) (7832)

HP 82689 5082 82387 plusmn plusmn(11550) (2247) (10754)

PTE 18684 756 18904 21570 10635(2014) (478) (1903) (3398) (6335)

PTF 26093 950 26652 30331 9840(1867) (327) (1745) (2591) (7232)

FPA 1392 172 1170 691 11389(514) (089) (529) (458) (6914)

Note RATE rating dial HP heart period PTE pulse transmission time to the ear PTFpulse transmission time to the reg nger FPA reg nger pulse amplitude Standard deviations(across subjects) are reported in parentheses Results of paired t-tests (df = 71) comparingmean and maximum levels during sad reg lm to pre-reg lm baseline means are indicated withasterisks

P lt 01 P lt 001

maximum of 2886msec (2) pulse transmission time to the reg nger alsoincreased by an average mean of 556msec and an average maximum of4238msec and (3) reg nger pulse amplitude dropped by an average mean of222mV and an average maximum of 701mV On average participantsshowed no reliable mean changes in heart period Further descriptiveanalyses conreg rmed that all participants exhibited cardiovascular reactivityon pulse transmission times to the ear and reg nger and on reg nger pulseamplitude and that no sex differences were evident in either emotionratings or cardiovascular responses during the sad reg lm

The pattern of cardiovascular change produced by the sad reg lm reveals arather complex response with evidence of increased sympathetic nervoussystem arousal (decreased reg nger pulse amplitude) alongside evidence ofdecreased sympathetic arousal (lengthened pulse transmission suggestingdecreased cardiac contractility andor increased vascular distensibility)Comparison across Tables 1 and 2 reveals that the pattern of cardiovascularchange from baseline produced by the sad reg lm is notably different from thepattern of change from baseline produced by the fear reg lm in Study 13


3Mean change from baseline for HP was +2044 (SD = 5140) in Study 1 and 2 302 (SD

= 3325) in Study 2 [t(130) = 316 P lt 01] Mean change from baseline for PTE was 2 270(SD = 734) in Study 1 and +220 (SD = 663) in Study 2 [t(130) = 402 P lt 001] Meanchange from baseline for PTF was +029 (SD = 1265) in Study 1 and +559 (SD = 1184) inStudy 2 [t(130) = 248 P lt05] Finally mean change from baseline for FPA was 2 082 (SD=238) in Study 1 and 2 222 (SD = 354) in Study 2 [t(130) = 260 P lt 01] Although thesedifferent patterns of cardiovascular change evident during the fear-eliciting and sadness-eliciting reg lms could be taken as evidence for emotion-specireg c ANS activity it should benoted that the data reported here are not directly comparable to those previously reportedfrom Levensonrsquos laboratory (eg Ekman et al 1983 Levenson 1992 Levenson et al1990) In particular these earlier studies of autonomic differences among emotions foundheart rate acceleration both for fear and sadness However these earlier studies did not usereg lm clips to elicit emotions but instead used directed facial actions and relived emotionsMoreover targeted emotion episodes in this earlier work were only a few seconds long Incontrast emotions elicited while viewing reg lm clips unfold over a considerably longer timeperiod Importantly in both the directed facial action and relived emotions tasks used in theearlier studies the initiation of emotion came from processes within the subject (voluntarilymoving facial muscles reliving emotional memories) In contrast reg lms represent an emo-tional stimulus that originates outside of the subject Viewing reg lms involves the kinds ofattention and intake of external information that reliably occasion heart rate decelerationscharacteristic of orienting and attentional responses These decelerations may obscure heartrate accelerative effects found previously Clearly additional studies are needed to test theseideas the two studies reported here were not designed or undertaken to test the autonomicspecireg city hypothesis What is needed are studies in which reg lm clips that elicit a full range ofemotions are shown to research participants in a within-subject design This would make itpossible to remove the orienting and attentional cardiovascular effects common to all reg lmviewing thus allowing examination of whether previously found autonomic differencesamong emotions extend to emotions elicited in this manner

In sum the sad reg lm produced reports of negative subjective experienceand changes on three of the four cardiovascular measures These datatogether with the pretest data reported in Fig 1f suggest that the Funeralreg lm was effective in inducing negative emotion and attendant cardiovas-cular activation

Measuring Voluntary Smiles

To classify participants as ` smilersrsquo rsquo or ` nonsmilersrsquo rsquo two trainedcoders (both female) examined the videotape recordings made of eachparticipant Reliability was established by having the two coders indepen-dently score the videotapes for 25 randomly selected participants Coderstallied the number of times during the sad reg lm that a participantrsquo s lipcorners turned up Not surprisingly participants differed widely in smilefrequency ranging from 0 to 19 smiles (mean 32 mode = 0) Fiftyparticipants (46 female) smiled at least once whereas 22 (59 female)never smiled Inter-coder agreement on the dichotomous classireg cation ofparticipants as smilers or nonsmilers was 100

Descriptive analyses suggested that smilers and nonsmilers did notdiffer in their rating dial reports or cardiovascular activity during thepre-reg lm baseline (t-values with df = 70 ranged from 015 to 161 allns) Nor did smilers and nonsmilers differ in their mean or maximumsubjective and cardiovascular responses to the sad reg lm (t-values with df =70 ranged from 037 to 128 all ns) The single exception was thatsmilers on average showed a larger maximum drop in reg nger pulseamplitude compared to nonsmilers [781 vs 518mV respectively t(70)= 259 P = 012] Thus on the whole during the sad reg lm those whosmiled did not differ substantially from those who did not smile on theseaspects of emotional responding


To test our hypothesis that spontaneous smiling would speed recoveryfrom the cardiovascular after-effects of negative emotion we looked at thetime elapsed until the cardiovascular changes induced by the initial sad reg lmsubsided Duration of cardiovascular reactivity was calculated for eachparticipant individually using the methods described in Study 1 Acrossall participants the mean time to achieve recovery from cardiovasculararousal was 4219 seconds (SD = 3757 N = 72)

To determine whether smilers and nonsmilers differed in the duration ofcardiovascular reactivity we conducted an omnibus ANOVA using bothsmile group and sex of participant as between-subjects variables ThisANOVA yielded a main effect for smile group [F(1 68) = 503 P =


028] of medium effect size (omega-squared = 05 Keppel 1991) as wellas for sex of participant [F(1 68) = 486 P = 031 omega-squared = 05] Figure 4 portrays the differences between smilers and nonsmilers in dura-tion of cardiovascular response Smilers recovered about 20 seconds fasterthan nonsmilers (359 vs 564sec respectively) and men recovered about20 seconds faster than women (318 vs 526sec respectively) The inter-action between smile group and sex of participant was not signireg cant[F(168) lt 1 ns] indicating that smiling predicted faster recoveryequally well for women and men Again as for Study 1 to explorewhether outliers might have accounted for this pattern of results werepeated the analysis of duration scores with nonparametric tests onranked data The effects for smile groups and sex remained signireg cant

In sum although smilers and nonsmilers were virtually indistinguishablein their reports of negative affect and cardiovascular activation during thesad reg lm once the sad reg lm ended those who had smiled reliably returnedtheir own baseline levels of cardiovascular activation faster than those whohad never smiled

Discussion

Smiling during a sad reg lm was associated with faster recovery from thecardiovascular changes occasioned by that sad reg lm Perhaps then (toparaphrase William James) putting on a happy face can alleviate unhappi-ness at least at the cardiovascular level It is important to note howeverthat the data reported here cannot tell us whether smiling per se was thecritical ingredient that sped cardiovascular recovery Our empirical strat-egy was to track naturally occurring facial actions to classify participantsinto one of two groups smilers or nonsmilers Other person variables couldcertainly covary with the tendency to smile in this type of context For


FIG 4 Mean time to achieve cardiovascular recovery in Study 2 Error bars represent standard

errors of the means

instance high scores on measures of trait optimism or trait cheerfulness orlow scores on measures of depression or trait hostility might predict thelikelihood of smiling in this context Further smiling may be epipheno-menal a marker of the process that is actually responsible for the restora-tion of emotional equilibrium (eg reappraisal of the sad event) Futureexperimental tests are needed to conreg rm whether the facial actions inherentin smiling per se promote speedier cardiovascular recovery

Although not the intended focus of Study 2 the unanticipated reg ndingthat the duration of cardiovascular arousal was longer for women than formen warrants some discussion First it should be noted that the Funeralclip is unquestionably women-centred and by consequence may havesparked more reg lm-related thinking in female participants Relatedly con-sidering that the emotion elicited was sadness it is conceivable that thedivergent recovery times remacr ect women being more likely than men toruminate about the causes and consequences of their own sad moods (egNolen-Hoeksema et al 1993) This ruminative style has been shown toprolong both naturally occurring and laboratory-induced sad moods (Mor-row amp Nolen-Hoeksema 1990 Nolen-Hoeksema et al 1993) Men incontrast have generally been found to withdraw more quickly than womenfrom situations that produce negative emotion (eg Gottman amp Levenson1988) possibly remacr ecting menrsquo s greater sensitivity to physiological activa-tion (eg Katkin Blascovich amp Goldband 1981 Pennebaker amp Roberts1992 Roberts amp Pennebaker 1995) and their greater likelihood to reportfeeling emotionally negative when physiologically aroused (LevensonCarstensen amp Gottman 1994) Considering that affective disorders aremore prevalent in women than in men issues of sex differences inresponses to negative emotion deserve further empirical attention

GENERAL DISCUSSION

The research reported here was designed to provide initial tests of analternative view of the effects that positive emotions might have onphysiological systems Basic to this view is an effort to examine theeffects of positive emotions within the context of negative emotionalarousal Whereas certain negative emotions through their associationwith specireg c action tendencies reliably spark cardiovascular activationcertain positive emotions may function to quell this cardiovascular activa-tion The two studies represent two quite different contextual unions ofnegative and positive emotions and each has provided evidence consistentwith the hypothesised undoing function of positive emotions

Differences between Studies 1 and 2 add to the strength and generalityof the empirical support One key difference was that in Study 1 we testedrecovery from fear whereas in Study 2 we tested recovery from sadness


Not only are these two negative emotions experienced as qualitativelydifferent (see Fig 1) but they are also accompanied by somewhat differentpatterns of cardiovascular activation (cf Tables 1 and 2 see Footnote 3)Nonetheless in both emotional contexts participants who experienced orexpressed positive affect showed quickest recovery from whatever patternof cardiovascular activation they had exhibited Another key differencebetween the two studies is that Study 1 manipulated positive emotionexperimentally enabling inferences of causality whereas Study 2 usedan index of spontaneously occurring positive emotions offering greaterecological validity Further in Study 1 we used carefully selected reg lms tofocus on two particular positive emotions contentment and amusementwhereas in Study 2 we focused on the smile which can mark any of anumber of positive emotions Finally Study 2 revealed consistency in theundoing effect for both men and women These and other variations acrossthe two studies demonstrate that the undoing effect of positive emotionsshows some replicability across different emotional contexts and in differ-ent samples

Implications for Emotion Theories

As noted in the Introduction to this article emotion theories have generallyhad difreg culty incorporating positive emotions within their general action-oriented models of the functions of emotions The undoing hypothesis maypoint to a more reg tting way to understand the adaptive value of positiveemotions If negative emotions promote the activation of a limited numberof well-rehearsed time-tested adaptive actions along with their attendantphysiological support certain positive emotions can be seen as assuming acomplementary role efreg ciently restoring equilibrium to the organism bothin terms of returning physiological activation to prior levels and restoringpsychological openness to a wide range of action possibilities

This undoing effect of positive emotions connects to several lines ofthinking about positive affect albeit in indirect ways The prediction thatpositive emotions speed internal homeostatic processes links to Cabanacrsquo sresearch on the physiological role of sensory pleasure (1971 1979) as wellas to Solomonrsquo s opponent-process theory of affect (1980) Cabanac (19711979) proposed that any external stimulus that corrects an ` internaltroublersquo rsquo is experienced as pleasurable a cool bath for instance is quitepleasant to someone who is hyperthermic but quite unpleasant to someonewho is hypothermic Relatedly Solomonrsquo s (1980) opponent-process theoryof motivation envisions a remacr exive relation between emotional states withevery valanced affective state automatically evoking an affective state ofopposite valence that serves to return the organism to a state of affectiveand biological neutrality (Solomon 1980 Solomon amp Corbit 1974)


Moreover studies in behavioural medicine document the effectiveness ofrelaxation therapies for treating cardiovascular disorders (Blumenthal1985) Relaxation techniques vary greatly although not typically dis-cussed in terms of positive emotion some techniques explicitly directpeople to conjure up positive images (eg sunbathing at the beach)perhaps thereby capitalising on the undoing effects of contentmentFinally at the level of behaviour the idea that positive emotions canexpand an individualrsquo s options for action connects to Isenrsquo s research oncreativity Isen and colleagues have suggested that ` positive affect facilitate(s) unusual responding rather than typical respondingrsquo rsquo (IsenDaubman amp Nowicki 1987 p 1129) a reg nding that they use to relatepositive affect to creative problem solving

Implications for Health

We opened this paper by noting that research on negative emotions has faroutpaced research on positive emotions Although this may in part remacr ectthe important role that negative events play in grabbing peoplersquo s attention(Pratto amp John 1991) and mobilising them for action (Taylor 1991) itmay also remacr ect our growing understanding of the ways that negativeemotions can adversely affect physical and psychological health

One particularly active arena of empirical work concerns the role thatcardiovascular reactivity occasioned by the negative emotional states ofhostility anger and anxiety plays in the aetiology of cardiovasculardiseases such as coronary heart disease and essential hypertension (forreviews see Anderson 1989 Blascovich amp Katkin 1993 Krantz amp Man-uck 1984 Williams 1991) Although precise mechanisms are only begin-ning to be pinpointed in humans compelling research with nonhumanprimates suggests that recurrent chronic activation of the sympatheticnervous system speeds atherosclerosis and impairs vascular responsive-ness thereby contributing to the development of cardiovascular disease(Kaplan Manuck Williams amp Strawn 1993 see also Spense BarnettManuck amp Jennings 1996 for recent evidence with humans) Negativeemotions are further implicated by striking parallels between group andindividual differences in risk for cardiovascular disease and group andindividual differences in cardiovascular reactivity to negative emotionalstressors Specireg cally men (Matthews amp Stoney 1988) African-Ameri-cans (Anderson McNeilly amp Myers 1993) and individuals identireg ed ashostile (Suarez amp Williams 1989) all have higher incidence of cardiovas-cular disease and all exhibit greater cardiovascular reactivity to laboratorystressors Taken together these reg ndings provide the basis for asserting thatnegative emotions may have health-damaging consequences


And what of positive emotions and health It is important to note thatdata linking negative emotions and illness do not necessarily establish thatpositive emotions are associated with health Nonetheless the notion thatpositive emotions may be good for health dates back at least to biblicaltimesETH Proverbs 17 22 advises that ` a cheerful heart is a good medicinersquo rsquo More recently Norman Cousinsrsquo (1979) chronicle of his battle with aserious collagen illness using humour and laughter kindled popular inter-est in this idea Perhaps uncovering empirical footing for Cousinsrsquo claiman intriguing line of studies shows within-subject correlations betweenpositive mood and secretory immune system functioning (Stone CoxValdimarsdottir amp Jandorf 1987 Stone Neale Cox amp Napoli 1994)Nonetheless empirical support for the health-promoting effects of positiveemotions has been slow to accumulate The mere possibility that indivi-duals might increase control over their own physical health by cultivatingexperiences of positive emotion establishes a clear need for additionalresearch to document the relationship between positive emotions andhealth and to explore possible mediating links

Given the nature of the two studies reported here and the fact that nohealth indices were assessed we can make no direct claims about thecorrelation between positive emotions and health outcomes However ifsuch a relationship were to be established the undoing effect of positiveemotions would provide one possible mechanism by which it could bemediated For instance inherent in most models that have linked thecardiovascular reactivity associated with negative emotions to the devel-opment of cardiovascular diseases such as essential hypertension andcoronary heart disease is the notion that sustained and chronic cardiovas-cular activation has a pathophysiological effect on the cardiovascularsystem The reg nding that positive emotions shorten the duration of cardio-vascular arousal produced by negative emotions suggests a potential forlessening the exposure of the cardiovascular system to these damagingeffects It also seems likely that any harmful effects of sustained cardio-vascular activation associated with negative emotion will be cumulativebuilding up in small increments over time until some threshold is passedand the functioning of the cardiovascular system is compromised It may bethat positive emotions function to provide a momentary interruption inthese purported pathophysiological processes slowing the incrementalprogression toward disease and thus functioning in the service of health

Manuscript received 18 March 1996Revised manuscript received 18 April 1997


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NortonDeLaurentiis D Schumacher M Subotsk M (Producers) amp Teague L (Director)

(1985) Catrsquo s Eye [Film] MGMUAEkman P (1989) The argument and evidence about universals in facial expressions of

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Ekman P (1992) An argument for basic emotions Cognition and Emotion 6 169plusmn 200Ekman P (1994) Are there basic emotions In P Ekman amp RJ Davidson (Eds) The

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Psychological Science 4 342plusmn 345Ekman P Davidson RJ amp Friesen WV (1990) The Duchenne smile Emotional

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Ekman P Friesen WV amp Ancoli S (1980) Facial signs of emotional experienceJournal of Personality and Social Psychology 39 1124plusmn 1134

Ekman P Levenson RW amp Friesen WV (1983) Autonomic nervous system activitydistinguishes among emotions Science 221 1208plusmn 1210

FredricksonBL amp Kahneman D (1993) Duration neglect in retrospective evaluations ofaffective episodes Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 65 45plusmn 55

Fredrickson BL Maynard KE Helms MJ Haney TL Siegler IC amp BarefootJC (submitted) Hostility predicts duration of blood pressure response to anger

Frijda NH (1986) The emotions Cambridge UK Cambridge University PressFrijda NH Kuipers P amp Schure E (1989) Relations among emotion appraisal and

emotional action readiness Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 57 212plusmn 228Gottman JM amp Levenson RW (1985) A valid measure for obtaining self-report of

affect Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 53 151plusmn 160Gottman JM amp Levenson RW (1988) The social psychophysiology of marriage In P

Nollar amp MA Fitzpatrick (Eds) Perspectives on marital interaction Clevedon UKMultilingual Matters

Gross JJ amp Levenson RW (1995) Emotion elicitation using reg lms Cognition andEmotion 9 87plusmn 108

Isen AM Daubman KA amp Nowicki GP (1987) Positive affect facilitates creativeproblem solving Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 52 1122plusmn 1131


James W (1983) What is an emotion In Essays in psychology William James (pp 168plusmn187) Cambridge MA Harvard University Press (Reprinted from Mind 1884 9 188plusmn205)

Kaplan JR Manuck SB Williams JK amp Strawn W (1993) Psychosocial inmacr uenceson atherosclerosis Evidence for effects and mechanisms in nonhuman primates In JBlascovich amp ES Katkin (Eds) Cardiovascular reactivity to psychological stress anddisease (pp 3plusmn 26) Washington DC American Psychological Association

Katkin ES Blascovich J amp Goldband S (1981) Empirical assessment of visceral self-perception Individual and sex differences in the acquisition of heartbeat discriminationJournal of Personality and Social Psychology 40 1095plusmn 1101

Keppel G (1991) Design and analysis A researcherrsquo s handbook (3rd ed) EnglewoodCliffs NJ Prentice Hall

Krantz DS amp Manuck SB (1984) Acute psychophysiologic reactivity and risk forcardiovascular disease A review and methodological critique Psychological Bulletin96 435plusmn 464

Lazarus RS (1991) Emotion and adaptation Cambridge UK Cambridge UniversityPress

Lazarus R Speisman JC Mordkoff AM amp Davison LA (1962) A laboratory studyof psychological stress produced by a motion picture reg lm Psychological Monographs 76 1plusmn 35

Levenson RW (1988) Emotion and the autonomic nervous system A prospectus forresearch on autonomic speci reg city In HL Wagner (Ed) Social psychophysiology andemotion Theory and clinical applications (pp 17plusmn 42) London Wiley

Levenson RW (1992) Autonomic nervous system differences among emotions Psycho-logical Science 3 23plusmn 27

Levenson RW (1994) Human emotion A functional view In P Ekman amp R Davidson(Eds) The nature of emotion Fundamental questions New York Oxford UniversityPress

Levenson RW Carstensen LL Friesen WV amp Ekman P (1991) Emotion physio-logy and expression in old age Psychology and Aging 6 28plusmn 35

Levenson RW Carstensen LL amp Gottman JM (1994) The inmacr uence of age andgender on affect physiology and their interrelations A study of long-term marriageJournal of Personality and Social Psychology 67 56plusmn 68

Levenson RW Ekman P amp Friesen WV (1990) Voluntary facial action generatesemotion-specireg c autonomic nervous system activity Psychophysiology 27 363plusmn 384

Levenson RW Ekman P Heider K amp Friesen WV (1992) Emotion and autonomicnervous system activity in an Indonesian culture Journal of Personality and SocialPsychology 62 972plusmn 988

Levenson RW amp Gottman JM (1983) Marital interaction Physiological linkage andaffective exchange Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 45 587plusmn 597

Lovell D (Producer) amp Zefreg relli F (Director) (1979) The Champ [Film] MGMUAMatthews KA amp Stoney CM (1988) Inmacr uences of sex and age on cardiovascular

responses during stress Psychosomatic Medicine 50 46plusmn 56Morrow J amp Nolen-Hoeksema S (1990) Effects of responses to depression on the

remediation of depressive affect Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 58519plusmn 527

Newlin D amp Levenson RW (1979) Pre-ejection period Measuring beta-adrenergicinmacr uences upon the heart Psychophysiology 16 546plusmn 553

Nolen-Hoeksema S amp Morrow J (1991) A prospective study of depression and post-traumatic stress symptoms after a natural disaster The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquakeJournal of Personality and Social Psychology 61 115plusmn 121


Nolen-Hoeksema S Morrow J amp Fredrickson B (1993) Response styles and theduration of episodes of depressed mood Journal of Abnormal Psychology 102 20plusmn 28

Obrist PA (1981) Cardiovascular psychophysiology A perspective New York PlenumPennebaker JW amp Roberts T (1992) Towards a his and hers theory of emotion Gender

differences in visceral perception Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology 11 122plusmn199

Pratto F amp John OP (1991) Automatic vigilance The attention-grabbing power ofnegative social information Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 61 380plusmn 391

Roberts T amp Pennebaker JW (1995) Gender differences in perceiving internal stateTowards a his and hers model of perceptual cue use In L Berkowitz (Ed) Advances inexperimental social psychology 27 143plusmn 175

Solomon RL (1980) The opponent-process theory of acquired motivation The costs ofpleasure and the benereg ts of pain American Psychologist 35 691plusmn 712

Solomon RL amp Corbit JD (1974) An opponent-process theory of motivation I Tem-poral dynamics of affect Psychological Review 81 119plusmn 145

Spence JD Barnett PA Manuck SB amp Jennings JR (1996) Psychological stressand the progression of carotid atherosclerosis Stroke 27 155

Stark R Stone A White V (Producers) amp Ross H (Director) (1989) Steel Magnolias[Film] TriStar Pictures

Steptoe A Smylyan H amp Gribbin B (1976) Pulse wave velocity and blood pressurechange Calibration and applications Psychophysiology 13 488plusmn 492

Stone AA Cox DS Valdimarsdottir H amp Jandorf L (1987) Evidence that secretoryIgA antibody is associated with daily mood Journal of Personality and Social Psychol-ogy 52 988plusmn 993

Stone AA Kennedy-Moore E amp Neale JM (1995) Association between daily copingand end-of-day mood Health Psychology 14 341plusmn 349

Stone AA Neale JM Cox DS amp Napoli A (1994) Daily events are associated withasecretory immune response to an oral antigen in men Health Psychology 13 440plusmn 446

Suarez EC amp Williams RB Jr (1989) Situational determinants of cardiovascular andemotional reactivity in high and low hostile men Psychosomatic Medicine 51 404plusmn 418

Taylor SE (1991) Asymmetrical effects of positive and negative events The mobiliza-tion-minimization hypothesis Psychological Bulletin 110 67plusmn 85

Thayer RE Newman JR amp McClain TM (1994) Self-regulation of mood Strategiesfor changing a bad mood raising energy and reducing tension Journal of Personalityand Social Psychology 67 910plusmn 925

Tooby J amp Cosmides L (1990) The past explains the present Emotional adaptations andthe structure of ancestral environments Ethology and Sociobiology 11 375plusmn 424

Williams RB (1991) A relook at personality types and coronary heart disease In D Zipesamp D Rowlands (Eds) Progress in cardiology (pp 91plusmn 97) Philadelphia PA Lea ampFebiger


The Problem of Positive Emotions

Perhaps one reason empirical research on positive emotions has been slowto accumulate is that by and large positive emotions have been a thorn formost emotion theorists Take for instance the frequent assertion thatemotions areETH by dereg nitionETH associated with specireg c action tendencies(Frijda 1986 Frijda Kuipers amp Schure 1989 Lazarus 1991 Leven-son 1988 1994 Tooby amp Cosmides 1990) anger calls to mind the urgeto attack fear the urge to escape disgust the urge to expel and so on Keyto this assertion is that specireg c action tendencies and organised physiolo-gical change go hand in handETH emotions not only prepare the mind to actin specireg c ways but they prepare the body as well As Lazarus (1991 p285) put it ` an action tendency is what makes an emotion embodiedrsquorsquo Anevolutionary note is often sounded among these theorists with emotionsseen as promoting specireg c adaptive actions in life-threatening situationsthat have been ancestrally recurrent

Linking specireg c emotions with specireg c action tendencies seems easyenough when working within the subset of negative emotions Positiveemotions however pose theoretical stumbling blocks Frijdarsquo s (1986)descriptions of action tendencies for instance grow vague when emotionsare positive He pairs contentment with inactivity and joy with (p 89)` free activationrsquorsquo which he describes as an ` aimless unasked-for readi-ness to engage in whatever interaction presents itselfrsquo rsquo Likewise Lazarus(1991) concedes that the action tendency for happinessjoy is ` hard to pindownrsquo rsquo and that for pride ` is difreg cult to specify with conreg dencersquo rsquo Andalthough affection is linked with approach (Frijda 1986) and relief withceasing to be vigilant (Lazarus 1991) one question to ask is approach anddo what ETH cease vigilance and do what It appears that the specireg c actiontendencies named for positive emotions are not nearly as specireg c as thosenamed for negative emotions At best they resemble generic orientationstoward action or inaction rather than urges to do something quite specireg clike attack macr ee or spit Moreover in research on autonomic respondingassociated with discrete emotions except for situations where extremerespiratory or somatic activity is involved (eg outright laughter or yawn-ing) positive emotions seem to be characterised by a relative lack ofautonomic activation (eg Levenson Carstensen Friesen amp Ekman1991 Levenson Ekman amp Friesen 1990)

In short action-oriented explanatory models which have served thenegative emotions well may not do as well for describing the functionsof positive emotions Although we are not the reg rst to note problems thatpositive emotions pose for emotion theorists (eg Ekman 1992 Lazarus1991) seldom has this acknowledgment spurred revision of or qualifica-tions to purportedly general models of emotion














STUDY 1

Method

Participants


Visual Materials





196










Apparatus







Procedure






Results






















RATE 486 plusmn 331 257 5440(085) (098) (128) (2340)

HP 78400 5613 80444 92783 3813(10787) (2580) (11881) (15082) (2735)

PTE 18632 864 18363 15952 3437(1821) (408) (1877) (3009) (2611)


FPA 1238 136 1156 837 4092(587) (073) (595) (476) (2939)


P lt 05 P lt 01 P lt 001




Manipulation Check















Discussion





















STUDY 2







Method

Participants


Visual Materials




Apparatus


Procedure


Results















RATE 513 plusmn 456 326 12040(079) (112) (126) (7832)

HP 82689 5082 82387 plusmn plusmn(11550) (2247) (10754)

PTE 18684 756 18904 21570 10635(2014) (478) (1903) (3398) (6335)

PTF 26093 950 26652 30331 9840(1867) (327) (1745) (2591) (7232)

FPA 1392 172 1170 691 11389(514) (089) (529) (458) (6914)


P lt 01 P lt 001
















Discussion




errors of the means



GENERAL DISCUSSION


















REFERENCES













































































STUDY 1

Method

Participants


Visual Materials





196










Apparatus







Procedure






Results






















RATE 486 plusmn 331 257 5440(085) (098) (128) (2340)

HP 78400 5613 80444 92783 3813(10787) (2580) (11881) (15082) (2735)

PTE 18632 864 18363 15952 3437(1821) (408) (1877) (3009) (2611)


FPA 1238 136 1156 837 4092(587) (073) (595) (476) (2939)


P lt 05 P lt 01 P lt 001




Manipulation Check















Discussion





















STUDY 2







Method

Participants


Visual Materials




Apparatus


Procedure


Results















RATE 513 plusmn 456 326 12040(079) (112) (126) (7832)

HP 82689 5082 82387 plusmn plusmn(11550) (2247) (10754)

PTE 18684 756 18904 21570 10635(2014) (478) (1903) (3398) (6335)

PTF 26093 950 26652 30331 9840(1867) (327) (1745) (2591) (7232)

FPA 1392 172 1170 691 11389(514) (089) (529) (458) (6914)


P lt 01 P lt 001
















Discussion




errors of the means



GENERAL DISCUSSION


















REFERENCES






































































STUDY 1

Method

Participants


Visual Materials





196










Apparatus







Procedure






Results






















RATE 486 plusmn 331 257 5440(085) (098) (128) (2340)

HP 78400 5613 80444 92783 3813(10787) (2580) (11881) (15082) (2735)

PTE 18632 864 18363 15952 3437(1821) (408) (1877) (3009) (2611)


FPA 1238 136 1156 837 4092(587) (073) (595) (476) (2939)


P lt 05 P lt 01 P lt 001




Manipulation Check















Discussion





















STUDY 2







Method

Participants


Visual Materials




Apparatus


Procedure


Results















RATE 513 plusmn 456 326 12040(079) (112) (126) (7832)

HP 82689 5082 82387 plusmn plusmn(11550) (2247) (10754)

PTE 18684 756 18904 21570 10635(2014) (478) (1903) (3398) (6335)

PTF 26093 950 26652 30331 9840(1867) (327) (1745) (2591) (7232)

FPA 1392 172 1170 691 11389(514) (089) (529) (458) (6914)


P lt 01 P lt 001
















Discussion




errors of the means



GENERAL DISCUSSION


















REFERENCES

































































STUDY 1

Method

Participants


Visual Materials





196










Apparatus







Procedure






Results






















RATE 486 plusmn 331 257 5440(085) (098) (128) (2340)

HP 78400 5613 80444 92783 3813(10787) (2580) (11881) (15082) (2735)

PTE 18632 864 18363 15952 3437(1821) (408) (1877) (3009) (2611)


FPA 1238 136 1156 837 4092(587) (073) (595) (476) (2939)


P lt 05 P lt 01 P lt 001




Manipulation Check















Discussion





















STUDY 2







Method

Participants


Visual Materials




Apparatus


Procedure


Results















RATE 513 plusmn 456 326 12040(079) (112) (126) (7832)

HP 82689 5082 82387 plusmn plusmn(11550) (2247) (10754)

PTE 18684 756 18904 21570 10635(2014) (478) (1903) (3398) (6335)

PTF 26093 950 26652 30331 9840(1867) (327) (1745) (2591) (7232)

FPA 1392 172 1170 691 11389(514) (089) (529) (458) (6914)


P lt 01 P lt 001
















Discussion




errors of the means



GENERAL DISCUSSION


















REFERENCES

































































196










Apparatus







Procedure






Results






















RATE 486 plusmn 331 257 5440(085) (098) (128) (2340)

HP 78400 5613 80444 92783 3813(10787) (2580) (11881) (15082) (2735)

PTE 18632 864 18363 15952 3437(1821) (408) (1877) (3009) (2611)


FPA 1238 136 1156 837 4092(587) (073) (595) (476) (2939)


P lt 05 P lt 01 P lt 001




Manipulation Check















Discussion





















STUDY 2







Method

Participants


Visual Materials




Apparatus


Procedure


Results















RATE 513 plusmn 456 326 12040(079) (112) (126) (7832)

HP 82689 5082 82387 plusmn plusmn(11550) (2247) (10754)

PTE 18684 756 18904 21570 10635(2014) (478) (1903) (3398) (6335)

PTF 26093 950 26652 30331 9840(1867) (327) (1745) (2591) (7232)

FPA 1392 172 1170 691 11389(514) (089) (529) (458) (6914)


P lt 01 P lt 001
















Discussion




errors of the means



GENERAL DISCUSSION


















REFERENCES



































































Apparatus







Procedure






Results






















RATE 486 plusmn 331 257 5440(085) (098) (128) (2340)

HP 78400 5613 80444 92783 3813(10787) (2580) (11881) (15082) (2735)

PTE 18632 864 18363 15952 3437(1821) (408) (1877) (3009) (2611)


FPA 1238 136 1156 837 4092(587) (073) (595) (476) (2939)


P lt 05 P lt 01 P lt 001




Manipulation Check















Discussion





















STUDY 2







Method

Participants


Visual Materials




Apparatus


Procedure


Results















RATE 513 plusmn 456 326 12040(079) (112) (126) (7832)

HP 82689 5082 82387 plusmn plusmn(11550) (2247) (10754)

PTE 18684 756 18904 21570 10635(2014) (478) (1903) (3398) (6335)

PTF 26093 950 26652 30331 9840(1867) (327) (1745) (2591) (7232)

FPA 1392 172 1170 691 11389(514) (089) (529) (458) (6914)


P lt 01 P lt 001
















Discussion




errors of the means



GENERAL DISCUSSION


















REFERENCES



































































Procedure






Results






















RATE 486 plusmn 331 257 5440(085) (098) (128) (2340)

HP 78400 5613 80444 92783 3813(10787) (2580) (11881) (15082) (2735)

PTE 18632 864 18363 15952 3437(1821) (408) (1877) (3009) (2611)


FPA 1238 136 1156 837 4092(587) (073) (595) (476) (2939)


P lt 05 P lt 01 P lt 001




Manipulation Check















Discussion





















STUDY 2







Method

Participants


Visual Materials




Apparatus


Procedure


Results















RATE 513 plusmn 456 326 12040(079) (112) (126) (7832)

HP 82689 5082 82387 plusmn plusmn(11550) (2247) (10754)

PTE 18684 756 18904 21570 10635(2014) (478) (1903) (3398) (6335)

PTF 26093 950 26652 30331 9840(1867) (327) (1745) (2591) (7232)

FPA 1392 172 1170 691 11389(514) (089) (529) (458) (6914)


P lt 01 P lt 001
















Discussion




errors of the means



GENERAL DISCUSSION


















REFERENCES



































































Results






















RATE 486 plusmn 331 257 5440(085) (098) (128) (2340)

HP 78400 5613 80444 92783 3813(10787) (2580) (11881) (15082) (2735)

PTE 18632 864 18363 15952 3437(1821) (408) (1877) (3009) (2611)


FPA 1238 136 1156 837 4092(587) (073) (595) (476) (2939)


P lt 05 P lt 01 P lt 001




Manipulation Check















Discussion





















STUDY 2







Method

Participants


Visual Materials




Apparatus


Procedure


Results















RATE 513 plusmn 456 326 12040(079) (112) (126) (7832)

HP 82689 5082 82387 plusmn plusmn(11550) (2247) (10754)

PTE 18684 756 18904 21570 10635(2014) (478) (1903) (3398) (6335)

PTF 26093 950 26652 30331 9840(1867) (327) (1745) (2591) (7232)

FPA 1392 172 1170 691 11389(514) (089) (529) (458) (6914)


P lt 01 P lt 001
















Discussion




errors of the means



GENERAL DISCUSSION


















REFERENCES

















































































RATE 486 plusmn 331 257 5440(085) (098) (128) (2340)

HP 78400 5613 80444 92783 3813(10787) (2580) (11881) (15082) (2735)

PTE 18632 864 18363 15952 3437(1821) (408) (1877) (3009) (2611)


FPA 1238 136 1156 837 4092(587) (073) (595) (476) (2939)


P lt 05 P lt 01 P lt 001




Manipulation Check















Discussion





















STUDY 2







Method

Participants


Visual Materials




Apparatus


Procedure


Results















RATE 513 plusmn 456 326 12040(079) (112) (126) (7832)

HP 82689 5082 82387 plusmn plusmn(11550) (2247) (10754)

PTE 18684 756 18904 21570 10635(2014) (478) (1903) (3398) (6335)

PTF 26093 950 26652 30331 9840(1867) (327) (1745) (2591) (7232)

FPA 1392 172 1170 691 11389(514) (089) (529) (458) (6914)


P lt 01 P lt 001
















Discussion




errors of the means



GENERAL DISCUSSION


















REFERENCES









































































RATE 486 plusmn 331 257 5440(085) (098) (128) (2340)

HP 78400 5613 80444 92783 3813(10787) (2580) (11881) (15082) (2735)

PTE 18632 864 18363 15952 3437(1821) (408) (1877) (3009) (2611)


FPA 1238 136 1156 837 4092(587) (073) (595) (476) (2939)


P lt 05 P lt 01 P lt 001




Manipulation Check















Discussion





















STUDY 2







Method

Participants


Visual Materials




Apparatus


Procedure


Results















RATE 513 plusmn 456 326 12040(079) (112) (126) (7832)

HP 82689 5082 82387 plusmn plusmn(11550) (2247) (10754)

PTE 18684 756 18904 21570 10635(2014) (478) (1903) (3398) (6335)

PTF 26093 950 26652 30331 9840(1867) (327) (1745) (2591) (7232)

FPA 1392 172 1170 691 11389(514) (089) (529) (458) (6914)


P lt 01 P lt 001
















Discussion




errors of the means



GENERAL DISCUSSION


















REFERENCES




































































Manipulation Check















Discussion





















STUDY 2







Method

Participants


Visual Materials




Apparatus


Procedure


Results















RATE 513 plusmn 456 326 12040(079) (112) (126) (7832)

HP 82689 5082 82387 plusmn plusmn(11550) (2247) (10754)

PTE 18684 756 18904 21570 10635(2014) (478) (1903) (3398) (6335)

PTF 26093 950 26652 30331 9840(1867) (327) (1745) (2591) (7232)

FPA 1392 172 1170 691 11389(514) (089) (529) (458) (6914)


P lt 01 P lt 001
















Discussion




errors of the means



GENERAL DISCUSSION


















REFERENCES













































































Discussion





















STUDY 2







Method

Participants


Visual Materials




Apparatus


Procedure


Results















RATE 513 plusmn 456 326 12040(079) (112) (126) (7832)

HP 82689 5082 82387 plusmn plusmn(11550) (2247) (10754)

PTE 18684 756 18904 21570 10635(2014) (478) (1903) (3398) (6335)

PTF 26093 950 26652 30331 9840(1867) (327) (1745) (2591) (7232)

FPA 1392 172 1170 691 11389(514) (089) (529) (458) (6914)


P lt 01 P lt 001
















Discussion




errors of the means



GENERAL DISCUSSION


















REFERENCES





































































Discussion





















STUDY 2







Method

Participants


Visual Materials




Apparatus


Procedure


Results















RATE 513 plusmn 456 326 12040(079) (112) (126) (7832)

HP 82689 5082 82387 plusmn plusmn(11550) (2247) (10754)

PTE 18684 756 18904 21570 10635(2014) (478) (1903) (3398) (6335)

PTF 26093 950 26652 30331 9840(1867) (327) (1745) (2591) (7232)

FPA 1392 172 1170 691 11389(514) (089) (529) (458) (6914)


P lt 01 P lt 001
















Discussion




errors of the means



GENERAL DISCUSSION


















REFERENCES

















































































STUDY 2







Method

Participants


Visual Materials




Apparatus


Procedure


Results















RATE 513 plusmn 456 326 12040(079) (112) (126) (7832)

HP 82689 5082 82387 plusmn plusmn(11550) (2247) (10754)

PTE 18684 756 18904 21570 10635(2014) (478) (1903) (3398) (6335)

PTF 26093 950 26652 30331 9840(1867) (327) (1745) (2591) (7232)

FPA 1392 172 1170 691 11389(514) (089) (529) (458) (6914)


P lt 01 P lt 001
















Discussion




errors of the means



GENERAL DISCUSSION


















REFERENCES










































































STUDY 2







Method

Participants


Visual Materials




Apparatus


Procedure


Results















RATE 513 plusmn 456 326 12040(079) (112) (126) (7832)

HP 82689 5082 82387 plusmn plusmn(11550) (2247) (10754)

PTE 18684 756 18904 21570 10635(2014) (478) (1903) (3398) (6335)

PTF 26093 950 26652 30331 9840(1867) (327) (1745) (2591) (7232)

FPA 1392 172 1170 691 11389(514) (089) (529) (458) (6914)


P lt 01 P lt 001
















Discussion




errors of the means



GENERAL DISCUSSION


















REFERENCES





































































STUDY 2







Method

Participants


Visual Materials




Apparatus


Procedure


Results















RATE 513 plusmn 456 326 12040(079) (112) (126) (7832)

HP 82689 5082 82387 plusmn plusmn(11550) (2247) (10754)

PTE 18684 756 18904 21570 10635(2014) (478) (1903) (3398) (6335)

PTF 26093 950 26652 30331 9840(1867) (327) (1745) (2591) (7232)

FPA 1392 172 1170 691 11389(514) (089) (529) (458) (6914)


P lt 01 P lt 001
















Discussion




errors of the means



GENERAL DISCUSSION


















REFERENCES




































































Method

Participants


Visual Materials




Apparatus


Procedure


Results















RATE 513 plusmn 456 326 12040(079) (112) (126) (7832)

HP 82689 5082 82387 plusmn plusmn(11550) (2247) (10754)

PTE 18684 756 18904 21570 10635(2014) (478) (1903) (3398) (6335)

PTF 26093 950 26652 30331 9840(1867) (327) (1745) (2591) (7232)

FPA 1392 172 1170 691 11389(514) (089) (529) (458) (6914)


P lt 01 P lt 001
















Discussion




errors of the means



GENERAL DISCUSSION


















REFERENCES


































































Apparatus


Procedure


Results















RATE 513 plusmn 456 326 12040(079) (112) (126) (7832)

HP 82689 5082 82387 plusmn plusmn(11550) (2247) (10754)

PTE 18684 756 18904 21570 10635(2014) (478) (1903) (3398) (6335)

PTF 26093 950 26652 30331 9840(1867) (327) (1745) (2591) (7232)

FPA 1392 172 1170 691 11389(514) (089) (529) (458) (6914)


P lt 01 P lt 001
















Discussion




errors of the means



GENERAL DISCUSSION


















REFERENCES










































































RATE 513 plusmn 456 326 12040(079) (112) (126) (7832)

HP 82689 5082 82387 plusmn plusmn(11550) (2247) (10754)

PTE 18684 756 18904 21570 10635(2014) (478) (1903) (3398) (6335)

PTF 26093 950 26652 30331 9840(1867) (327) (1745) (2591) (7232)

FPA 1392 172 1170 691 11389(514) (089) (529) (458) (6914)


P lt 01 P lt 001
















Discussion




errors of the means



GENERAL DISCUSSION


















REFERENCES
















































































Discussion




errors of the means



GENERAL DISCUSSION


















REFERENCES











































































Discussion




errors of the means



GENERAL DISCUSSION


















REFERENCES



































































Discussion




errors of the means



GENERAL DISCUSSION


















REFERENCES



































































GENERAL DISCUSSION


















REFERENCES















































































REFERENCES










































































REFERENCES





































































REFERENCES

































































REFERENCES




























































































































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Positive Emotions Speed Recovery from the … · Cardiovascular Sequelae of Negative Emotions BarbaraL. ... recovery from the cardiovascular sequelae of negative emotions. ... or