Positive Emotions Trigger Upward Spirals Toward Emotional Well-Being

The broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions predicts that positive emotions broaden the scopes of attention and cognition, and, by consequence, initiate upward spirals toward increasing emotional well-being. The present study assessed this prediction by testing whether positive affect and broad-minded coping reciprocally and prospectively predict one another. One hundred thirty-eight college students completed self-report measures of affect and coping at two assessment periods 5 weeks apart. As hypothesized, regression analyses showed that initial positive affect, but not negative affect, predicted improved broad-minded coping, and initial broad-minded coping predicted increased positive affect, but not…