Broadening
Negative emotions such as fear are said to narrow people's focus toward a specific action, such as escape. Positive emotions such as joy and interest are thought to do the opposite, encouraging play, exploration and a wider range of ideas. Experiments have linked induced positive emotion with a broader scope of attention.
Building
Repeated positive experiences are proposed to build lasting physical, social and psychological resources. In one field experiment, loving-kindness meditation increased daily positive emotions, and those increases predicted gains in a range of resources over time.
Contested claims
Associated claims have not all survived scrutiny. A published 'critical positivity ratio', said to mark a tipping point for flourishing, was shown to rest on invalid mathematics and was partially withdrawn. The broader theory does not depend on that ratio, but later research has found that the broadening effect is not universal, and that some positive emotions appear to narrow attention.
Further reading
- Fredrickson, B. L. (2001). The role of positive emotions in positive psychology: The broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions. American Psychologist, 56, 218-226.
- Fredrickson, B. L., & Branigan, C. (2005). Positive emotions broaden the scope of attention and thought-action repertoires. Cognition and Emotion, 19, 313-332.
- Brown, N. J. L., Sokal, A. D., & Friedman, H. L. (2013). The complex dynamics of wishful thinking: The critical positivity ratio. American Psychologist, 68, 801-813.