Writing About Intensely Positive Emotions
A study conducted by Chad M. Burton and Laura A. King showed that writing about intensely positive experiences improved subjects’ happiness and health. Subjects were instructed to write about an intensely positive experience for twenty minutes each day for three days while a control group was instructed to write about a neutral topic for the same period of time. Following the study, the experimental group demonstrated an increase in happiness levels while the control group did not. The researchers recorded how many times the subjects went to the doctor for an illness over the next three months and found that the experimental group visited the doctor’s office far less often than the control group. These results can be interpreted using Fredrickson’s broaden-and-build theory. Reliving positive experiences induces positive emotions, and positive emotions help us to broaden-and-build. Therefore, subjects who wrote about positive experiences were able to use those positive emotions to broaden their experiences and build relationships and skills. This broadening-and-building gave the subjects long-term benefits in well-being. Those subjects who did not write about positive experiences did not experience an increase in positive emotions and therefore did not build the resources to help them feel happier and healthier in the following months.
Read more about this topic: Broaden-and-build
Famous quotes containing the words writing, intensely, positive and/or emotions:
“As if reasoning were any kind of writing or talking which tends to convince people that some doctrine or measure is true and right.”
—Catherine E. Beecher (1800–1878)
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“Regna regnis lupi, The State is a wolf unto the State. It is not a pessimistic lamentation like the old homo homini lupus [Man is a wolf to Man], but a positive creed and political ideal.”
—Johan Huizinga (1872–1945)
“Our basic ideas about how to parent are encrusted with deeply felt emotions and many myths. One of the myths of parenting is that it is always fun and games, joy and delight. Everyone who has been a parent will testify that it is also anxiety, strife, frustration, and even hostility. Thus most major parenting- education formats deal with parental emotions and attitudes and, to a greater or lesser extent, advocate that the emotional component is more important than the knowledge.”
—Bettye M. Caldwell (20th century)