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Emotion is Energy-in-Motion. It is a way of expressing oneself in life and the quality of how one relates to life. People vary widely in their typical emotional style that is whether they tend to feel generally positive or generally negative. The present paper discusses the role of positive emotions in the development of psychological well-being. Positive emotions form the experiential foundation for mentally healthy people. Positive emotions provide a foundation for growth and exploration and build the intellectual, social and physical capital for further growth and development. Positive emotion has been implicated as an important component in the link between religion and health. Experiencing positive emotions helps people to become more resilient, more creative, wiser, more virtuous, more socially integrated, and physically healthier. Psychological well-being, broadly defined as happiness, life satisfaction, and self-growth, represents one of the most important aspects of efficient psychological functioning. Indeed, much research reveals that happy people experience a number of benefits ranging from physical health to better relationships to high-level performance. Psychological well-being is the combination offeeling good and functioning effectively.
Keywords: positive emotion, psychological well-being
This review focuses on the role of positive emotions in the development of psychological well-being. Individuals who experienced more positive emotions than others became more resilient to adversity over time. In turn, enhanced coping skills predicted increased positive emotions over time (Fredrickson & Joiner, 2000). Evidence for the undoing effect of positive emotions suggests that people might improve their psychological wellbeing, and perhaps also their physical health, by cultivating experiences of positive emotions at opportune moments to cope with negative emotions (Fredrickson, 2000a). Folkman and colleagues have made similar claims that experiences of positive affect during chronic stress help people cope (Folkman, 1997; Folkman & Moskowitz, 2000; Lazarus, Kanner, & Folkman, 1980). The capacity to experience positive emotions remains a largely untapped human strength. An important feature of positive emotions is that their effects do not end once suffering is prevented or alleviated. The repercussions of experiencing positive emotions resonate further: Positive emotions can optimize health, subjective well-being, psychological resilience and well-being. Positive emotion have a beneficial effect on the development of psychological well-being.
Emotion is Energy-in-Motion. It is a way of expressing oneself in life. It is the quality of how...