Abstract
We examined individual differences in the motivation to regulate affect intensity. In three samples (total n = 1082) we used structural equation modeling and found support for a serial mediation model in which positive trait affect predicted the motivation to increase the intensity of positive affect and decrease the intensity of negative affect, indirectly, through the commonality and value of positive affect. These findings indicate that trait affect drives regulation motives for multiple parameters of affect: people most value, and are motivated to feel, moods and emotions that match their typical experiences on intensity as well as valence.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
Some findings support an affect-reactivity hypothesis in which extraverts (vs. introverts) are more sensitive to positive or appetitive stimuli (e.g., Lucas and Diener 2001; Smillie et al. 2015; Smillie et al. 2012), and other work supports an affect-level hypothesis suggesting that the core of extraversion involves a higher baseline level of pleasant affect (e.g., Hermes et al. 2011; Lucas and Baird 2004; Lucas et al. 2008). By contrast, instrumental approaches suggest that extraversion is associated with social behaviors that indirectly enhance pleasant affect (e.g., Ashton et al. 2002; Pavot et al. 1990; Watson et al. 1992).
There is conceptual overlap between positive trait affect and positive affect commonality; however as measured here, positive trait affect is a broad personality characteristic representing a predisposition for positive affect, rather than the direct assessment of consistent affect. Indeed, unlike other commonly used measures of trait affect (e.g., Spielberger 1983, 1999) the measures of self-esteem and extraversion we used here did not include any items asking about affective experiences (with the single exception being the ‘cheerful person’ extraversion item). Our affect commonality measure is a direct assessment of consistent affective experiences, and represents a manifestation of the affective potential found in self-esteem and extraversion. These measurement choices were guided by our theoretically derived model and are supported by our CFA, which revealed the discriminant validity of these constructs (see Table 2). Finally, and further indicating its unique contributions to regulatory processes, in all 3 samples positive affect commonality was significantly correlated with all 3 forms of positive affect value and with PA/NA up, PA down (and NA Down in Samples 1, 3), even when controlling for extraversion and self-esteem (partial rs range from |.16 – .64|, all ps < .01).
References
Aldao, A., & Nolen-Hoeksema, S. (2013). One versus many: Capturing the use of multiple emotion regulation strategies in response to an emotion-eliciting stimulus. Cognition and Emotion, 27, 753–760. https://doi.org/10.1080/02699931.2012.739998.
Ashton, M. C., Lee, K., & Paunonen, S. V. (2002). What is the central feature of extraversion? Social attention versus reward sensitivity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 83, 245–252. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.83.1.245.
Augustine, A. A., & Hemenover, S. H. (2009). On the relative effectiveness of affect regulation strategies: A meta-analysis. Cognition and Emotion, 23, 1181–1220. https://doi.org/10.1080/02699930802396556.
Augustine, A. A., Hemenover, S. H., Larsen, R. J., & Shulman, T. E. (2010). Composition and consistency of the desired affective state: The role of personality and motivation. Motivation and Emotion, 34, 133–143. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11031-010-9162-0.
Baumeister, R. F., Campbell, J. D., Krueger, J. I., & Vohs, K. D. (2003). Does high self-esteem cause better performance, interpersonal success, happiness, or healthier lifestyles? Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 4(1), 1–44. https://doi.org/10.1111/1529-1006.01431.
Bentler, P. M. (1990). Comparative fit indexes in structural models. Psychological Bulletin, 107, 238–246. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.107.2.238.
Bentler, P. M. (2004). EQS 6 structural equations program manual. Encino, CA: Multivariate Software.
Block, J., & Robins, R. W. (1993). A longitudinal study of consistency and change in self-esteem from early adolescence to early adulthood. Child Development, 64(3), 909–923. https://doi.org/10.2307/1131226.
Bozdogan, H. (1987). Model selection and Akaike’s Information Criterion (AIC): The general theory and its analytical extensions. Psychometrika, 52(3), 345–370. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02294361.
Cacioppo, J. T., Gardner, W. L., & Berntson, G. G. (1999). The affect system has parallel and integrative processing components: Form follows function. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 76, 839–855. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.76.5.839.
Canli, T., Zhao, Z., Desmond, J. E., Kang, E., Gross, J., & Gabrieli, J. E. (2001). An fMRI study of personality influences on brain reactivity to emotional stimuli. Behavioral Neuroscience, 115, 33–42. https://doi.org/10.1037/0735-7044.115.1.33.
Costa, P. T., & McCrae, R. R. (1992). Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R) and NEO Five-Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI) professional manual. Odessa, FL: Psychological Assessment Resources.
Costa, P. T., McCrae, R. R., & Arenberg, D. (1980). Enduring dispositions in adult males. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 38, 793–800. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.38.5.793.
Côté, S., & Moskowitz, D. S. (1998). On the dynamic covariation between interpersonal behavior and affect: Prediction from neuroticism, extraversion, and agreeableness. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 75, 1032–1046. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.75.4.1032.
Danielsson, M., & Bengtsson, H. (2016). Global self-esteem and the processing of positive information about the self. Personality and Individual Differences, 99, 325–330. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2016.05.014.
Diener, E., Larsen, R. J., Levine, S., & Emmons, R. A. (1985). Intensity and frequency: Dimensions underlying positive and negative affect. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 48, 1253–1265. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.48.5.1253.
Fisher, A. J., Medaglia, J. D., & Jeronimus, B. F. (2018). Lack of group-to-individual generalizability is a threat to human subjects research. PNAS Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 115, E6106–E6115. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1711978115.
Ford, B. Q., & Tamir, M. (2014). Preferring familiar emotions: As you want (and like) it? Cognition and Emotion, 28, 311–324. https://doi.org/10.1080/02699931.2013.823381.
Garcia, D., & Erlandsson, A. (2011). The relationship between personality and subjective well-being: Different association patterns when measuring the affective component in frequency and intensity. Journal of Happiness Studies, 12, 1023–1034. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-010-9242-6.
Goodall, K. (2015). Individual differences in the regulation of positive emotion: The role of attachment and self esteem. Personality and Individual Differences, 74, 208–213. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2014.10.033.
Gross, J. J. (1998). The emerging field of emotion regulation: An integrative review. Review of General Psychology, 2(3), 271–299. https://doi.org/10.1037/1089-2680.2.3.271.
Gross, J. J. (2015). Emotion regulation: Current status and future prospects. Psychological Inquiry, 26, 1–26. https://doi.org/10.1080/1047840X.2014.940781.
Harmon-Jones, E., Harmon-Jones, C., Amodio, D. M., & Gable, P. A. (2011). Attitudes toward emotions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 101, 1332–1350. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0024951.
Heintzelman, S. J., Trent, J., & King, L. A. (2016). How would the self be remembered? Evidence for posthumous self-verification. Journal of Research in Personality. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2015.12.004.
Heiy, J. E., & Cheavens, J. S. (2014). Back to basics: A naturalistic assessment of the experience and regulation of emotion. Emotion, 14, 878–891. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0037231.
Hemenover, S. H. (2003). Individual differences in rate of affect change: Studies in affective chronometry. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85, 121–131. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.85.1.121.
Hemenover, S. H., & Harbke, C. R. (2019). Individual differences in negative affect repair style. Motivation and Emotion. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11031-019-09752-2.
Hermes, M., Hagemann, D., Naumann, E., & Walter, C. (2011). Extraversion and its positive emotional core: Further evidence from neuroscience. Emotion, 11, 367–378. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0021550.
Higgins, E. T. (1997). Beyond pleasure and pain. American Psychologist, 52, 1280–1300. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.52.12.1280.
Hu, L., & Bentler, P. M. (1999). Cutoff criteria for fit indexes in covariance structure analysis: Conventional criteria versus new alternatives. Structural Equation Modeling, 6, 1–55. https://doi.org/10.1080/10705519909540118.
Kämpfe, N., & Mitte, K. (2009). What you wish is what you get? The meaning of individual variability in desired affect and affective discrepancy. Journal of Research in Personality, 43, 409–418. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2009.01.007.
Kenny, D. A. (2008). Reflections on mediation. Organizational Research Methods, 11, 353–358. https://doi.org/10.1177/1094428107308978.
Kille, D. R., Eibach, R. P., Wood, J. V., & Holmes, J. G. (2017). Who can't take a compliment? The role of construal level and self-esteem in accepting positive feedback from close others. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 68, 40–49. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2016.05.003.
Kitayama, S., Mesquita, B., & Karasawa, M. (2006). Cultural affordances and emotional experience: Socially engaging and disengaging emotions in Japan and the United States. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 91, 890–903. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.91.5.890.
Koopmann-Holm, B., & Tsai, J. L. (2014). Focusing on the negative: Cultural differences in expressions of sympathy. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 107, 1092–1115. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0037684.
Larsen, J. T., & McGraw, A. P. (2011). Further evidence for mixed emotions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 100, 1095–1110. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0021846.
Larsen, R. J. (2009). Affect intensity. In M. R. Leary & R. H. Hoyle (Eds.), Handbook of individual differences in social behavior (pp. 241–254). New York, NY: Guilford Press.
Leung, A. K., Liou, S., Qiu, L., Kwan, L. Y., Chiu, C., & Yong, J. C. (2014). The role of instrumental emotion regulation in the emotions–creativity link: How worries render individuals with high neuroticism more creative. Emotion, 14, 846–856. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0036965.
Lischetzke, T., & Eid, M. (2006). Why extraverts are happier than introverts: The role of mood regulation. Journal of Personality, 74, 1127–1162. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6494.2006.00405.x.
Lucas, R. E., & Baird, B. M. (2004). Extraversion and emotional reactivity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 86, 473–485. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.86.3.473.
Lucas, R. E., & Diener, E. (2001). Understanding extraverts' enjoyment of social situations: The importance of pleasantness. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 81, 343–356. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.81.2.343.
Lucas, R. E., & Fujita, F. (2000). Factors influencing the relation between extraversion and pleasant affect. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79, 1039–1056. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.79.6.1039.
Lucas, R. E., Le, K., & Dyrenforth, P. S. (2008). Explaining the extraversion/positive affect relation: Sociability cannot account for extraverts' greater happiness. Journal of Personality, 76, 385–414. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6494.2008.00490.x.
Markovitch, N., Netzer, L., & Tamir, M. (2016). Will you touch a dirty diaper? Attitudes towards disgust and behaviour. Cognition and Emotion, 30, 592–602. https://doi.org/10.1080/02699931.2015.1020049.
Markovitch, N., Netzer, L., & Tamir, M. (2017). What you like is what you try to get: Attitudes toward emotions and situation selection. Emotion, 17, 728–739. https://doi.org/10.1037/emo0000272.
Mauss, I. B., Tamir, M., Anderson, C. L., & Savino, N. S. (2011). Can seeking happiness make people unhappy? Paradoxical effects of valuing happiness. Emotion, 11(4), 807–815. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0022010.
Maxwell, S. E., & Cole, D. A. (2007). Bias in cross-sectional analysis of longitudinal mediation. Psychological Methods, 12, 23–44. https://doi.org/10.1037/1082-989X.12.1.23.
Mayer, J. D., & Stevens, A. A. (1994). An emerging understanding of the reflective (meta-) experience of mood. Journal of Research in Personality, 28, 351–373. https://doi.org/10.1006/jrpe.1994.1025.
Millgram, Y., Joormann, J., Huppert, J. D., & Tamir, M. (2015). Sad as a matter of choice? Emotion-regulation goals in depression. Psychological Science, 26, 1216–1228. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797615583295.
Ng, W., & Diener, E. (2009). Personality differences in emotions: Does emotion regulation play a role? Journal of Individual Differences, 30, 100–106. https://doi.org/10.1027/1614-0001.30.2.100.
Parkinson, B., & Totterdell, P. (1999). Classifying affect-regulation strategies. Cognition and Emotion, 13, 277–303. https://doi.org/10.1080/026999399379285.
Pavot, W., Diener, E., & Fujita, F. (1990). Extraversion and happiness. Personality and Individual Differences, 11, 1299–1306. https://doi.org/10.1016/0191-8869(90)90157-M.
Pietromonaco, P. R., & Barrett, L. F. (2009). Valence focus and self-esteem ability: Reacting to hedonic cues in the social environment. Emotion, 9, 406–418. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0015691.
Preacher, K. J., & Hayes, A. F. (2008). Asymptotic and resampling strategies for assessing and comparing indirect effects in multiple mediator models. Behavior Research Methods, 40, 879–891. https://doi.org/10.3758/BRM.40.3.879.
Pytlik Zillig, L. M., Hemenover, S. H., & Dienstbier, R. A. (2002). What do we assess when we assess a Big 5 trait? A content analysis of the affective, behavioral and cognitive processes represented in the Big 5 personality inventories. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 28(6), 847–858. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167202289013.
Rosenberg, M. (1965). Society and the adolescent self-image. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Rusting, C. L., & Larsen, R. J. (1995). Moods as sources of stimulation: Relationships between personality and desired mood states. Personality and Individual Differences, 18, 321–329. https://doi.org/10.1016/0191-8869(94)00157-N.
Salovey, P., Mayer, J. D., Goldman, S. L., Turvey, C., & Palfai, T. P. (1995). Emotional attention, clarity, and repair: Exploring emotional intelligence using the Trait Meta-Mood Scale. In J. W. Pennebaker (Ed.), Emotion, disclosure, & health (pp. 125–154). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
Satorra, A., & Bentler, P. M. (1994). Corrections to test statistics and standard errors in covariance structure analysis. In A. von Eye & C. C. Clogg (Eds.), Latent variables analysis: Applications for developmental research (pp. 399–419). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Scheibe, S., Sheppes, G., & Staudinger, U. M. (2015). Distract or reappraise? Age-related differences in emotion-regulation choice. Emotion, 15(6), 677–681. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0039246.supp.
Schimmack, U. (2003). Affect measurement in experience sampling research. Journal of Happiness Studies, 4, 79–106. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1023661322862.
Sheppes, G., Scheibe, S., Suri, G., Radu, P., Blechert, J., & Gross, J. J. (2014). Emotion regulation choice: A conceptual framework and supporting evidence. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 143, 163–181. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0030831.
Smillie, L. D., Cooper, A. J., Wilt, J., & Revelle, W. (2012). Do extraverts get more bang for the buck? Refining the affective-reactivity hypothesis of extraversion. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 103, 306–326. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0028372.
Smillie, L. D., DeYoung, C. G., & Hall, P. J. (2015). Clarifying the relation between extraversion and positive affect. Journal of Personality, 83, 564–574. https://doi.org/10.1111/jopy.12138.
Spielberger, C. D. (1983). State-Trait Anxiety Inventory for adults: Manual, instrument, and scoring guide. MindGarden: Palo Alto.
Spielberger, C. D. (1999). STAXI-2: State-Trait Anger Expression Inventory Professional Manual. Psychological Assessment Resources: Odessa.
Stinson, D. A., Logel, C., Holmes, J. G., Wood, J. V., Forest, A. L., … Gaucher, D. (2010). The regulatory function of self-esteem: Testing the epistemic and acceptance signaling systems. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 99, 993–1013. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0020310.
Stone-Romero, E. F., & Roposa, P. (2008). The relative validity of inferences about mediation as a function of research design characteristics. Organizational Research Methods, 11, 326–352. https://doi.org/10.1177/1094428107300342.
Swann, W. J., & Brooks, M. (2012). Why threats trigger compensatory reactions: The need for coherence and quest for self-verification. Social Cognition, 30, 758–777. https://doi.org/10.1521/soco.2012.30.6.758.
Swann, W. J., & Buhrmester, M. D. (2012). Self-verification: The search for coherence. In M. R. Leary & J. P. Tangney (Eds.), Handbook of self and identity (2nd ed., pp. 405–424). New York, NY: Guilford Press.
Tamir, M. (2005). Don't worry, be happy? Neuroticism, trait-consistent affect regulation, and performance. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 89, 449–461.
Tamir, M. (2009a). Differential preferences for happiness: Extraversion and trait-consistent emotion regulation. Journal of Personality, 77, 447–470. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6494.2008.00554.x.
Tamir, M. (2009b). What do people want to feel and why?: Pleasure and utility in emotion regulation. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 18, 101–105. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8721.2009.01617.x.
Tamir, M. (2016). Why do people regulate their emotions? A taxonomy of motives in emotion regulation. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 20, 199–222. https://doi.org/10.1177/1088868315586325.
Tamir, M., & Gutentag, T. (2017). Desired emotional states: Their nature, causes, and implications for emotion regulation. Current Opinion in Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2017.06.014.
Tamir, M., Robinson, M. D., & Clore, G. L. (2002). The epistemic benefits of trait-consistent mood states: An analysis of extraversion and mood. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 83, 663–677. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.83.3.663.
Tamir, M., Schwartz, S. H., Cieciuch, J., Riediger, M., Torres, C., … Scollon, C. (2016). Desired emotions across cultures: A value-based account. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 111, 67–82. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspp0000072.
Tsai, J. L., Ang, J. Z., Blevins, E., Goernandt, J., Fung, H. H., … Jiang, D. (2016). Leaders’ smiles reflect cultural differences in ideal affect. Emotion, 16, 183–195. https://doi.org/10.1037/emo0000133.
Urry, H. L., & Gross, J. J. (2010). Emotion regulation in older age. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 19(6), 352–357. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721410388395.
Watson, D., Clark, L. A., McIntyre, C. W., & Hamaker, S. (1992). Affect, personality, and social activity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 63, 1011–1025. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.63.6.1011.
Watson, D., Clark, L. A., & Tellegen, A. (1988). Development and validation of brief measures of positive and negative affect: The PANAS scales. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54, 1063–1070. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.54.6.1063.
Wood, J. V., Heimpel, S. A., Manwell, L. A., & Whittington, E. J. (2009a). This mood is familiar and I don't deserve to feel better anyway: Mechanisms underlying self-esteem differences in motivation to repair sad moods. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 96, 363–380. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0012881.
Wood, J. V., Heimpel, S. A., & Michela, J. L. (2003). Savoring versus dampening: self-esteem differences in regulating positive affect. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85, 566–580. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.85.3.566.
Wood, J. V., Perunovic, W. E., & Lee, J. W. (2009b). Positive self-statements: Power for some, peril for others. Psychological Science, 20, 860–866. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2009.02370.x.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of interest
Author A declares that s/he has no conflict of interest. Author B declares that s/he has no conflict of interest. The research reported in this paper was not supported by any funding source.
Informed consent
Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in this study and all procedures performed in the studies reported here involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Electronic supplementary material
Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.
Appendices
Appendix 1
Item-Total Correlations and Cronbach’s Alphas for the Affect Intensity Motive Items
Sample 1 (n = 320) | Sample 2 (n = 360) | Sample 3 (n = 402) | |
|---|---|---|---|
PA up items | |||
Make myself feel even better | 0.76 | 0.72 | 0.72 |
Strengthen my pleasant feelings | 0.86 | 0.83 | 0.79 |
Make my pleasant feelings even stronger | 0.84 | 0.82 | 0.80 |
Make my pleasant feelings grow | 0.76 | 0.80 | 0.75 |
Overall Cronbach’s Alpha | 0.91 | 0.91 | 0.89 |
PA down items | |||
Decrease my pleasant feelings | 0.51 | 0.58 | 0.50 |
Weaken my pleasant feelings | 0.59 | 0.61 | 0.63 |
Make myself feel less pleasant | 0.60 | 0.56 | 0.64 |
Make my pleasant feelings weaker | 0.63 | 0.65 | 0.69 |
Overall Cronbach’s Alpha | 0.77 | 0.76 | 0.79 |
NA up items | |||
Make my unpleasant feelings even stronger | 0.74 | 0.82 | 0.80 |
Strengthen my unpleasant feelings | 0.67 | 0.72 | 0.73 |
Make myself feel even worse | 0.73 | 0.73 | 0.79 |
Increase my unpleasant feelings | 0.72 | 0.80 | 0.72 |
Overall Cronbach’s Alpha | 0.82 | 0.90 | 0.89 |
NA down items | |||
Make my unpleasant feelings weaker | 0.54 | 0.51 | 0.55 |
Decrease my unpleasant feelings | 0.50 | 0.54 | 0.50 |
Make myself feel less unpleasant | 0.50 | 0.47 | 0.48 |
Weaken my unpleasant feelings | 0.54 | 0.54 | 0.56 |
Overall Cronbach’s Alpha | 0.73 | 0.72 | 0.73 |
Appendix 2
Item-total correlations and alphas for the positive affect commonality and value items
Positive affect commonality items | Sample 1 (n = 320) | Sample 2 (n = 360) | Sample 3 (n = 402) |
|---|---|---|---|
It is rare for me to feel positive moods or emotions* | 0.71 | 0.73 | 0.68 |
I almost never feel positive moods or emotions* | 0.70 | 0.67 | 0.65 |
I am used to feeling positive moods or emotions | 0.73 | 0.71 | 0.68 |
A regular part of my life is feeling positive moods or emotions | 0.77 | 0.72 | 0.69 |
Overall Cronbach’s Alpha | 0.87 | 0.86 | 0.84 |
Positive affect value items (general) | |||
Positive feelings are a weakness humans have* | 0.66 | 0.69 | 0.63 |
It is usually a waste of time to think about your positive feelings* | 0.72 | 0.71 | 0.65 |
Positive moods and emotions are valuable in my life | 0.54 | 0.51 | 0.56 |
The experience of positive emotions/moods seem pointless to me* | 0.73 | 0.74 | 0.70 |
Overall Cronbach’s Alpha | 0.83 | 0.83 | 0.81 |
Positive affect value items (epistemic) | |||
Positive moods and emotions help me make sense of the person I am | 0.57 | 0.45 | 0.54 |
Positive moods and emotions help me understand who I am | 0.60 | 0.47 | 0.56 |
I gain a deeper sense of who I am ignoring my positive moods/emotions* | 0.49 | 0.44 | 0.51 |
Positive moods and emotions rarely help me understand who I am* | 0.48 | 0.39 | 0.45 |
Overall Cronbach’s Alpha | 0.74 | 0.65 | 0.72 |
Positive affect value items (instrumental) | |||
Positive moods and emotions help me function better in my life | 0.65 | 0.61 | 0.69 |
Positive moods and emotions help me reach my goals | 0.68 | 0.70 | 0.73 |
Whenever I need to get something done my positive feelings are helpful | 0.66 | 0.61 | 0.71 |
My positive feelings often prevent me from performing at my best* | 0.52 | 0.38 | 0.57 |
Overall Cronbach’s Alpha | 0.80 | 0.77 | 0.83 |
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Hemenover, S.H., Harbke, C.R. Individual differences in motives for regulating affect intensity: positive trait affect and the value of trait-consistent affect. Motiv Emot 44, 755–771 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11031-020-09844-4
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11031-020-09844-4