Thought I’d just chime in with a relevant reference, in case anyone was curious:
Diener, E., Kanazawa, S., Suh, E. M., & Oishi, S. (2014). Why People Are in a Generally Good Mood. Personality and Social Psychology Review. doi: 10.1177/1088868314544467
“Evidence shows that people feel mild positive moods when no strong emotional events are occurring, a phenomenon known as positive mood offset. We offer an evolutionary explanation of this characteristic, showing that it improves fertility, fecundity, and health, and abets other characteristics that were critical to reproductive success. We review research showing that positive mood offset is virtually universal in the nations of the world, even among people who live in extremely difficult circumstances. Positive moods increase the likelihood of the types of adaptive behaviors that likely characterized our Paleolithic ancestors, such as creativity, planning, mating, and sociality. Because of the ubiquity and apparent advantages of positive moods, it is a reasonable hypothesis that humans were selected for positivity offset in our evolutionary past. We outline additional evidence that is needed to help confirm that positive mood offset is an evolutionary adaptation in humans and we explore the research questions that the hypothesis generates.”
Certainly chimes more with my intuition.
For the curious;-):
‘adaptive functioning’ or the ability to handle strong emotional events, seems to be ameanable to change through practice (but there might be a selection effect worth mulling over)
http://self-compassion.org/UTserver/pubs/baermeditators.pdf (don’t worry, journal of Cognitive Psychotherapy, just published here to get past paywall)
Thought I’d just chime in with a relevant reference, in case anyone was curious:
Diener, E., Kanazawa, S., Suh, E. M., & Oishi, S. (2014). Why People Are in a Generally Good Mood. Personality and Social Psychology Review. doi: 10.1177/1088868314544467
“Evidence shows that people feel mild positive moods when no strong emotional events are occurring, a phenomenon known as positive mood offset. We offer an evolutionary explanation of this characteristic, showing that it improves fertility, fecundity, and health, and abets other characteristics that were critical to reproductive success. We review research showing that positive mood offset is virtually universal in the nations of the world, even among people who live in extremely difficult circumstances. Positive moods increase the likelihood of the types of adaptive behaviors that likely characterized our Paleolithic ancestors, such as creativity, planning, mating, and sociality. Because of the ubiquity and apparent advantages of positive moods, it is a reasonable hypothesis that humans were selected for positivity offset in our evolutionary past. We outline additional evidence that is needed to help confirm that positive mood offset is an evolutionary adaptation in humans and we explore the research questions that the hypothesis generates.”
http://psr.sagepub.com/content/early/2014/09/09/1088868314544467.abstract
Thanks for sharing! That’s good to know.
Certainly chimes more with my intuition. For the curious;-): ‘adaptive functioning’ or the ability to handle strong emotional events, seems to be ameanable to change through practice (but there might be a selection effect worth mulling over) http://self-compassion.org/UTserver/pubs/baermeditators.pdf (don’t worry, journal of Cognitive Psychotherapy, just published here to get past paywall)
Long term meditators also report feeling positive background moods that are quite dramatic https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_30JzRGDHI
Which doesn’t necessarily change much about the debate.