Positivity offset

Last updated

In psychology, the positivity offset is a phenomenon where people tend to interpret neutral situations as mildly positive, and rate their lives as good, most of the time. The positivity offset stands in notable asymmetry to the negativity bias. [1]

Contents

Similarities and differences to Negativity Bias

Two studies were presented within a single study that looked at the difference between positivity offset and negative bias to see if it is good or bad for some people. [2] The first study measured an individual’s reactions to different stimuli such as pictures, sounds, and words. The results from this study have also seen evidence, in comparison to other studies, that the positivity offset is in favor of positive stimuli over negative stimuli. [2] The opposite effect is true for negative bias. [2] An interesting observation that was made in this study was that positivity offset and negative bias was predicted in different behaviors rather than from established measures focused on personality. [2] The second study sought to replicate the findings and compare those to the findings that have been found in other studies. The result of this study has also found evidence to suggest that positivity offset is preferred when the affective level input is not significant, whereas negative bias is favored when the level of input is significant. One of the keys to understanding both the positivity offset and the negative bias is that the inputs of both are not meant to be separate, but both exist within the affective input level. [2] The affective input level is a process to see what effect a certain stimulus has on an individual.

Two measures that have been used to look at the validity of both positivity offset and negative bias are based on judgment and personality. The measure of judgment focused on if there was a connection between locations of both spatial and affect. [2] In other words, they measure to see if an individual understands what the stimulus is and how it affects them. The personality measure, on the other hand, speculates whether an individual defines a stimulus as being either positive or negative. [2]

Positivity offset and Negativity bias in depression

Regarding depression, there has been evidence to suggest that there is a connection between positivity offset and negative bias affecting the way that stimuli are perceived. [3] The negative bias had a stronger influence than the positivity offset when the participants were depressed. [3] For those who were healthy individuals, the results of both positivity offset, and negative bias were the same. [3] This suggests that the positivity offset occurs when someone’s mind is considered to be healthy. [3] The researchers go on to mention that their results regarding those individuals who were on the depressed side showed evidence that pleasing or neutral stimuli as being less positive compared to the results of the healthy individuals. [3] The results of this study do show similarity to that of other studies in that positive emotions are not likely found in those who are in a depressed state. Those who are depressed may have an aversive side, but their motivational side to do things is not there. The concepts of both positivity offset and negative bias can also be analyzed from an element of positive valence. [3]

It is proposed that if this element is defined as being inactive, then there will be more assessments of stimuli that are perceived as being negative rather than as positive. [3] While there may be more ratings with the negative stimuli, at the same time, assessments for positive stimuli of positive valence are hindered. This is the case even with stimuli that are in the middle that is perceived with positivity offset. [3]

In perception

Social neuroscience researcher John Cacioppo has assembled evidence that people typically see their surroundings as positive, whenever a clear threat is not present. Because of the positivity offset, people are motivated to explore and engage with their surroundings, instead of being balanced inactive between approach and avoidance. [4]

In life satisfaction

Across most cultures, nations, and groups of people, the average and median ratings of life satisfaction are not neutral, as one might expect, but mildly positive.

Groups of people who do not show a positivity offset include people with depression, people in severe poverty, and people who live in perpetually threatening situations. However, many groups of people that outsiders would not expect[ according to whom? ] to show the positivity offset do, such as people with paraplegia and spinal injury, very elderly people, and people with many chronic illnesses. In some cases these individuals never become as satisfied or happy with their lives as before their illness or injury, but over time (generally approximately two years), they still stabilize at a level substantially above neutral. That is, they judge themselves overall as satisfied or happy and not dissatisfied or unhappy. [5]

Many of the major psychological publications on life satisfaction ratings have come from Ed Diener and colleagues. [6] [7] This empirical work gathered life-satisfaction judgments from many modern and traditional cultures worldwide.

See also

Related Research Articles

Wishful thinking Formation of beliefs based on what might be pleasing to imagine

Wishful thinking is the formation of beliefs based on what might be pleasing to imagine, rather than on evidence, rationality, or reality. It is a product of resolving conflicts between belief and desire.

The mere-exposure effect is a psychological phenomenon by which people tend to develop a preference for things merely because they are familiar with them. In social psychology, this effect is sometimes called the familiarity principle. The effect has been demonstrated with many kinds of things, including words, Chinese characters, paintings, pictures of faces, geometric figures, and sounds. In studies of interpersonal attraction, the more often someone sees a person, the more pleasing and likeable they find that person.

Depressive realism is the hypothesis developed by Lauren Alloy and Lyn Yvonne Abramson that depressed individuals make more realistic inferences than non-depressed individuals. Although depressed individuals are thought to have a negative cognitive bias that results in recurrent, negative automatic thoughts, maladaptive behaviors, and dysfunctional world beliefs, depressive realism argues not only that this negativity may reflect a more accurate appraisal of the world but also that non-depressed individuals' appraisals are positively biased.

Affective neuroscience

Affective neuroscience is the study of the neural mechanisms of emotion. This interdisciplinary field combines neuroscience with the psychological study of personality, emotion, and mood. The putative existence of 'basic emotions' and their defining attributes represents a long lasting and yet unsettled issue in the field.

The hedonic treadmill, also known as hedonic adaptation, is the observed tendency of humans to quickly return to a relatively stable level of happiness despite major positive or negative events or life changes. According to this theory, as a person makes more money, expectations and desires rise in tandem, which results in no permanent gain in happiness. Philip Brickman and Donald T. Campbell coined the term in their essay "Hedonic Relativism and Planning the Good Society" (1971). The hedonic treadmill viewpoint suggests that wealth does not increase the level of happiness. Subjective well-being might be largely determined by genetics; that is, happiness may be a heritable trait.

Affect, in psychology, refers to the underlying experience of feeling, emotion or mood.

Attentional bias refers to how a person's perception is affected by selective factors in their attention. Attentional biases may explain an individual's failure to consider alternative possibilities when occupied with an existing train of thought. For example, cigarette smokers have been shown to possess an attentional bias for smoking-related cues around them, due to their brain's altered reward sensitivity. Attentional bias has also been associated with clinically relevant symptoms such as anxiety and depression.

In the study of psychology, neuroticism has been considered a fundamental personality trait. For example, in the Big Five approach to personality trait theory, individuals with high scores for neuroticism are more likely than average to be moody and to experience such feelings as anxiety, worry, fear, anger, frustration, envy, jealousy, guilt, depressed mood, and loneliness. Such people are thought to respond worse to stressors and are more likely to interpret ordinary situations, such as minor frustrations, as appearing hopelessly difficult. They are described as often being self-conscious and shy, and tending to have trouble controlling urges and delaying gratification.

The negativity bias, also known as the negativity effect, is the notion that, even when of equal intensity, things of a more negative nature have a greater effect on one's psychological state and processes than neutral or positive things. In other words, something very positive will generally have less of an impact on a person's behavior and cognition than something equally emotional but negative. The negativity bias has been investigated within many different domains, including the formation of impressions and general evaluations; attention, learning, and memory; and decision-making and risk considerations.

Russell Fazio is Harold E. Burtt Professor of Social Psychology at The Ohio State University, where he heads Russ’s Attitude and Social Cognition Lab (RASCL). Fazio’s work focuses on social psychological phenomena like attitude formation and change, the relationship between attitudes and behavior, and the automatic and controlled cognitive processes that guide social behavior.

Positive affectivity (PA) is a human characteristic that describes how much people experience positive affects ; and as a consequence how they interact with others and with their surroundings.

Negative affectivity

Negative affectivity (NA), or negative affect, is a personality variable that involves the experience of negative emotions and poor self-concept. Negative affectivity subsumes a variety of negative emotions, including anger, contempt, disgust, guilt, fear, and nervousness. Low negative affectivity is characterized by frequent states of calmness and serenity, along with states of confidence, activeness, and great enthusiasm.

Edward Francis Diener was an American psychologist, professor, and author. Diener was a professor of psychology at the University of Utah and the University of Virginia, and Joseph R. Smiley Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of Illinois, as well as a senior scientist for the Gallup Organization. He is noted for his research over the past thirty years on happiness, including work on temperament and personality influences on well-being, theories of well-being, income and well-being, cultural influences on well-being, and the measurement of well-being. As shown on Google Scholar as of April 2021, Diener's publications have been cited over 257,000 times.

Implicit attitudes are evaluations that occur without conscious awareness towards an attitude object or the self. These evaluations are generally either favorable or unfavorable and come about from various influences in the individual experience. The commonly used definition of implicit attitude within cognitive and social psychology comes from Anthony Greenwald and Mahzarin Banaji's template for definitions of terms related to implicit cognition : "Implicit attitudes are introspectively unidentified traces of past experience that mediate favorable or unfavorable feeling, thought, or action toward social objects". These thoughts, feelings or actions have an influence on behavior that the individual may not be aware of.

Emotion can have a powerful effect on humans and animals. Numerous studies have shown that the most vivid autobiographical memories tend to be of emotional events, which are likely to be recalled more often and with more clarity and detail than neutral events.

Extraversion and introversion Personality trait

The traits of extraversion and introversion are a central dimension in some human personality theories. The terms introversion and extraversion were introduced into psychology by Carl Jung, although both the popular understanding and current psychological usage vary. Extraversion tends to be manifested in outgoing, talkative, energetic behavior, whereas introversion is manifested in more reflective and reserved behavior. Jung defined introversion as an "attitude-type characterised by orientation in life through subjective psychic contents", and extraversion as "an attitude-type characterised by concentration of interest on the external object".

Life satisfaction (LS) is the way in which people show their emotions, feelings (moods) and how they feel about their directions and options for the future. It is a measure of well-being assessed in terms of mood, satisfaction with relationships, achieved goals, self-concepts, and self-perceived ability to cope with one's daily life. Life satisfaction involves a favorable attitude towards one's life—rather than an assessment of current feelings. Life satisfaction has been measured in relation to economic standing, degree of education, experiences, residence, among many other topics.

Subliminal stimuli are any sensory stimuli below an individual's threshold for conscious perception, in contrast to supraliminal stimuli. A 2012 review of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies showed that subliminal stimuli activate specific regions of the brain despite participants' unawareness. Visual stimuli may be quickly flashed before an individual can process them, or flashed and then masked to interrupt processing. Audio stimuli may be played below audible volumes or masked by other stimuli.

Subjective well-being Self-reported measure of well-being

Subjective well-being (SWB) is a self-reported measure of well-being, typically obtained by questionnaire.

Kindness priming is an affect-dependent cognitive effect in which subjects will display a positive affect following exposure to kindness.

References

  1. ↑ Norris, Catherine J.; Larsen, Jeff T.; Crawford, L. Elizabeth; Cacioppo, John T. (2011-02-01). "Better (or worse) for some than others: Individual differences in the positivity offset and negativity bias". Journal of Research in Personality. 45 (1): 100–111. doi:10.1016/j.jrp.2010.12.001. ISSN   0092-6566.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Norris, Catherine J.; Larsen, Jeff T.; Crawford, L. Elizabeth; Cacioppo, John T. (February 2011). "Better (or worse) for some than others: Individual differences in the positivity offset and negativity bias". Journal of Research in Personality. 45 (1): 100–111. doi:10.1016/j.jrp.2010.12.001. ISSN   0092-6566.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Gollan, Jackie K.; Hoxha, Denada; Hunnicutt-Ferguson, Kallio; Norris, Catherine J.; Rosebrock, Laina; Sankin, Lindsey; Cacioppo, John (September 2016). "Twice the negativity bias and half the positivity offset: Evaluative responses to emotional information in depression". Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry. 52: 166–170. doi:10.1016/j.jbtep.2015.09.005. ISSN   0005-7916. PMC   5685183 . PMID   26434794.
  4. ↑ Cacioppo, John T.; Gardner, Wendi L.; Berntson, Gary G. (1999). "The affect system has parallel and integrative processing components: Form follows function" (PDF). Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 76 (5): 839–855. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.76.5.839. Archived from the original on 2012-05-16.CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  5. ↑ Lucas, Richard E. (2007). "Adaptation and the Set-Point Model of Subjective Well-Being: Does Happiness Change After Major Life Events?". Current Directions in Psychological Science. 16 (2): 75–79. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8721.2007.00479.x. S2CID   18842089.
  6. ↑ Diener, Ed; Diener, Carol (1996). "Most People Are Happy". Psychological Science. 7 (3): 181–185. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9280.1996.tb00354.x. S2CID   145196208.
  7. ↑ Diener, E.; Seligman, M.E.P. (2004). "Beyond Money: Toward an Economy of Well-Being" (PDF). Psychological Science in the Public Interest. 5 (1): 1–31. doi: 10.1111/j.0963-7214.2004.00501001.x . PMID   26158992.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.