Positive Affect and Human Flourishing

Abstract

Flourish means to live within an optimal range of human functioning, one that connotes goodness, generativity, growth, and resilience. People experience a range of pleasant and unpleasant emotions and moods, and they express a variety of positive and negative evaluative sentiments or attitudes. Affect represent spectrum of valance feeling states and attitudes, with positive affect and positivity interchangeably representing the pleasant end (e.g., feeling grateful, upbeat; expressing appreciation, liking) and negative affect and negativity representing the unpleasant and (e.g., feeling contemptuous, irritable, expressing disdain, disliking). Positive affect involves both pleasant feeling states and good moods. The strongest links between positive affect and health are found in studies that examine trait affective style, which reflects a person’s typical emotional experience, rather than state affect, which reflects momentary responses to events. The review highlights consistent patterns in the literature associating positive affect and health. Evidence suggests an association of trait positive affect and lower morbidity (illness onset), lower mortality (increased longevity), survival from life-threatening disease, decreased symptoms and pain. Positive affect confers specific and measurable benefits for cognition and thought-action repertoires across a range of domains.