Daily variation in prioritizing positivity and well-being

• Main Authors: CATALINO, Lahnna I., TOV, William
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2022
• Subjects: well-being; positivity; positive emotion; Social Psychology
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/3721; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/soss_research/article/4979/viewcontent/2022_CatalinoTov.pdf
• Institution: Singapore Management University

Prioritizing positivity is the tendency to use pleasant states (e.g. contentment, joy) as a key criterion to structure daily life. Research shows that people who tend to possess this trait are happier (between-person effect), but a separate question remains: on days people prioritize positivity, relative to their own baseline, do they feel happier (within-person effect)? In a sample of college students (n = 301) who completed a 2-week diary study resulting in 3,894 reports, we evaluated this hypothesis using hedonic and eudaimonic indicators of well-being. We also tested whether between-person differences in prioritizing positivity (measured as a trait and mean daily state) predicted daily well-being—people’s actual, lived experience of well-being, as opposed to their global reports. Results showed that daily variation in prioritizing positivity predicted higher daily well-being (more positive emotions, satisfaction, and meaning; fewer negative emotions). Exploratory analyses revealed these within-person effects were stronger for people who scored higher on mean daily prioritizing positivity. Last, between-person differences in prioritizing positivity (trait, mean daily state) predicted most aspects of daily well-being, and these effects held when adjusting for other traits (extraversion, attitude towards joy). The results shed light on how people can effectively pursue happiness in their daily lives and show that the benefits of prioritizing positivity are not limited to people’s ‘top-down” evaluations of their well-being, but also extend to their actual, lived experience.