In this article, the author describes a new theoretical perspective on positive emotions and situates this new perspective within the emerging field of positive psychology. The broaden-and-build theory posits that experiences of positive emotions broaden people's momentary thought-action repertoires, which in turn serves to build their enduring personal resources, ranging from physical and intellectual resources to social and psychological resources. Preliminary empirical evidence supporting the broaden-and-build theory is reviewed, and open empirical questions that remain to be tested are identified. The theory and findings suggest that the capacity to experience positive emotions may be a fundamental human strength central to the study of human flourishing.

http://www.elaborer.org/cours/A13/lectures/Fredrickson2001.pdf

The role of positive emotions in positive psychology. The broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions.

The neural basis of drug craving: An incentive-sensitization theory of addiction

Well-being : the foundations of hedonic psychology

This article opens by noting that positive emotions do not fit existing models of emotions. Consequently, a new model is advanced to describe the form and function of a subset of positive emotions, including joy, interest, contentment, and love. This new model posits that these positive emotions serve to broaden an individual's momentary thought-action repertoire, which in turn has the effect of building that individual's physical, intellectual, and social resources. Empirical evidence to support this broadenand-build model of positive emotions is reviewed, and implications for emotion regulation and health promotion are discussed. Even though research on emotions has this new perspective are featured. My hope is flourished in recent years, investigations that that this article will unlock scientific curiosity expressly target positive emotions remain few and far between. Any review of the psychological literature on emotions will show that psychologists have typically favored negative emotions in theory building and hypothesis testing. In so doing, psychologists have inadvertently marginalized the emotions, such as joy, about positive emotions, not only to test the ideas presented here, but also to build other new models that might illuminate the nature and value of positive emotions. Psychology sorely needs more studies on positive emotions, not simply to level the uneven knowledge bases between negative and positive emotions, but interest, contentment, and love, that share a more critically, to guide applications and pleasant subjective feel. To date, then, psychology's knowledge base regarding positive emotions is so thin that satisfying answers to the question "What good are positive emotions?" have yet to be articulated. This is unfortunate. Experiences of positive emotion are central to human nature and contribute richly to the quality of people's lives (Diener & Larsen,

http://www.gruberpeplab.com/teaching/psych3131_spring2015/documents/15.1_Fredrickson1998_WhatGoodarePositiveEmotions.pdf

What Good Are Positive Emotions

Psychology has long been enamored of the dark side of human existence, rarely exploring a more positive view of the mind. What has psychology contributed, for example, to our understanding of the various human virtues? Regrettably, not much. The last decade, however, has witnessed a growing movement to abandon the exclusive focus on the negative. Psychologists from several subdisciplines are now asking an intriguing question: "What strengths does a person employ to deal effectively with life?" The Handbook of Positive Psychology provides a forum for a more positive view of the human condition. In its pages, readers are treated to an analysis of what the foremost experts believe to be the fundamental strengths of humankind. Both seasoned professionals and students just entering the field are eager to grasp the power and vitality of the human spirit as it faces a multitude of life challenges. The Handbook is the first systematic attempt to bring together leading scholars to give voice to the emerging field of positive psychology.

Handbook of positive psychology

What is emotion

A given stimulus can induce a pleasant or unpleasant sensation depending on the subject's internal state. The word alliesthesia is proposed to describe this phenomenon. It is, in itself, an adequate motivation for behavior such as food intake or thermoregulation. Therefore, negative regulatory feedback systems, based upon oropharingeal or cutaneous thermal signals are peripheral only in appearance, since the motivational component of the sensation is of internal origin. The internal signals seem to be complex and related to the set points of some regulated variables of the "milieu interieur," like set internal temperature in the case of thermal sensation (15). Alliesthesia can therefore explain the adaptation of these behaviors to their goals. Only three sensations have been studied- thermal, gustatory, and olfactory, but it is probable that alliesthesia also exists in such simple ways as in bringing a signal, usually ignored, to the subject's attention. For example, gastric contractions, not normally perceived, are felt in the state of hunger (16). Since alliesthesia relies on an internal input, it is possible that alliesthesia exists only with sensations related to some constants of the "milieu interieur" and therefore would not exist in visual or auditory sensations. As a matter of fact, luminous or auditory stimuli can be pleasing or displeasing in themselves, but there seems to be little variation of pleasure in these sensations, that is, no alliesthesia. There may be some esthetic value linked to these stimuli but it is a striking coincidence that they are in themselves rather neutral and that it is difficult to imagine a constant of the "milieu interieur" which could be possibly modified by a visual or an auditive stimulus-such as light of a certain wavelength or sound of a given frequency. In the light of this theory, it is possible to reconsider the nature of the whole conscious experience. The existence of alliesthesia implies the presence of internal signals modifying the concious sensations aroused from peripheral receptors. It is therefore necessary to question the existence of sensations aroused by direct stimulation of central receptors, such as hypothalamic temperature detectors, osmoreceptors, and others. Does their excitation arouse sensations of their own, or does the sensation have to pass through peripheral senses? Only human experimentation could answer this question. In the same way, it is possible that selfstimulation of the brain is pleasant, not by giving a sensation in itself, but because the electrical stimulus (17), renders peripheral stimuli pleasant.

http://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/173/4002/1103.full.pdf

Physiological Role of Pleasure

Pleasure: the common currency.

1. The technique of perceptual rating of thermal stimuli was used, in eight human subjects immersed in warm water, in order to appreciate whether they were hypo-, normo- or hyperthermic. Oesophageal, tympanic and forehead skin temperatures were recorded, as also was the temperature of the skin above the angularis oculi vein. Once the subjects gave clearly hyperthermic ratings, one arm was exposed to a 6 m/s wind. After 5--10 min the arm was re-immersed and the face was fanned. 2. Fanning of the arm resulted in lowering of body core temperature. However ratings of thermal stimuli remained hyperthermic. 3. Face fanning decreased forehead skin, angularis oculi vein and tympanic temperatures. Hyperthermic ratings were replaced by normothermic ratings, although oesophageal temperature continued to rise. 4. The upper limit of oesophageal temperature for normothermic ratings was 37.o6 +/- 0.09 degrees C during the control period without fanning. This temperature rose to 37.91 +/- 0.09 degrees C during facial ventilation. 5. These results suggest a selective cerebral cooling due to venous blood returning from facial skin via the ophthalmic vein to the cavernous sinus, where a cooling of arterial blood ascending to the brain can take place.

https://physoc.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1113/jphysiol.1979.sp012617

Michel Cabanac

Papers

What is emotion

Physiological Role of Pleasure

Pleasure: the common currency.

Natural selective cooling of the human brain: evidence of its occurrence and magnitude.

Tympanic temperature is a core temperature in humans