In recent studies of the structure of affect, positive and negative affect have consistently emerged as two dominant and relatively independent dimensions. A number of mood scales have been created to measure these factors; however, many existing measures are inadequate, showing low reliability or poor convergent or discriminant validity. To fill the need for reliable and valid Positive Affect and Negative Affect scales that are also brief and easy to administer, we developed two 10-item mood scales that comprise the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS). The scales are shown to be highly internally consistent, largely uncorrelated, and stable at appropriate levels over a 2-month time period. Normative data and factorial and external evidence of convergent and discriminant validity for the scales are also presented.

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Development and validation of brief measures of positive and negative affect: The PANAS scales.

A hypothesized need to form and maintain strong, stable interpersonal relationships is evaluated in light of the empirical literature. The need is for frequent, nonaversive interactions within an ongoing relational bond. Consistent with the belongingness hypothesis, people form social attachments readily under most conditions and resist the dissolution of existing bonds. Belongingness appears to have multiple and strong effects on emotional patterns and on cognitive processes. Lack of attachments is linked to a variety of ill effects on health, adjustment, and well-being. Other evidence, such as that concerning satiation, substitution, and behavioral consequences, is likewise consistent with the hypothesized motivation. Several seeming counterexamples turned out not to disconfirm the hypothesis. Existing evidence supports the hypothesis that the need to belong is a powerful, fundamental, and extremely pervasive motivation.

The need to belong: Desire for interpersonal attachments as a fundamental human motivation.

We developed a multidimensional coping inventory to assess the different ways in which people respond to stress. Five scales (of four items each) measure conceptually distinct aspects of problem-focused coping (active coping, planning, suppression of competing activities, restraint coping, seeking of instrumental social support); five scales measure aspects of what might be viewed as emotional-focused coping (seeking of emotional social support, positive reinterpretation, acceptance, denial, turning to religion); and three scales measure coping responses that arguably are less useful (focus on and venting of emotions, behavioral disengagement, mental disengagement). Study 1 reports the development of scale items. Study 2 reports correlations between the various coping scales and several theoretically relevant personality measures in an effort to provide preliminary information about the inventory's convergent and discriminant validity. Study 3 uses the inventory to assess coping responses among a group of undergraduates who were attempting to cope with a specific stressful episode. This study also allowed an initial examination of associations between dispositional and situational coping tendencies.

Assessing Coping Strategies: A Theoretically Based Approach

The literature on subjective well-being (SWB), including happiness, life satisfaction, and positive affect, is reviewed in three areas: measurement, causal factors, and theory. Psychometric data on single-item and multi-item subjective well-being scales are presented, and the measures are compared. Measuring various components of subjective well-being is discussed. In terms of causal influences, research findings on the demographic correlates of SWB are evaluated, as well as the findings on other influences such as health, social contact, activity, and personality. A number of theoretical approaches to happiness are presented and discussed: telic theories, associationistic models, activity theories, judgment approaches, and top-down versus bottom-up conceptions.

Subjective Well-Being

W. Wilson's (1967) review of the area of subjective well-being (SWB) advanced several conclusions regarding those who report high levels of "happiness". A number of his conclusions have been overturned: youth and modest aspirations no longer are seen as prerequisites of SWB. E. Diener's (1984) review placed greater emphasis on theories that stressed psychological factors. In the current article, the authors review current evidence for Wilson's conclusions and discuss modern theories of SWB that stress dispositional influences, adaptation, goals, and coping strategies. The next steps in the evolution of the field are to comprehend the interaction of psychological factors with life circumstances in producing SWB, to understand the causal pathways leading to happiness, understand the processes underlying adaptation to events, and develop theories that explain why certain variables differentially influence the different components of SWV (life satisfaction, pleasant affect, and unpleasant affect).

Subjective Well-Being: Three Decades of Progress

Recent debates on the status of contemporary trait psychology (Pervin, 1994) have revived old questions about the role of traits in the explanation of behavior: are traits mere descriptions of beha...

Trait explanations in personality psychology.

The fifth factor in lexical studies of trait adjectives is commonly interpreted as Intellect, whereas the corresponding factor derived from questionnaire studies is typically identified as Openness...

https://zenodo.org/record/1229330/files/article.pdf

Openness to Experience: Expanding the boundaries of Factor V

Both laypersons and social scientists typically assume that psychological well-being or happiness is a response to objective circumstances or events. The present study contributes to recent literature showing that stable individual differences are more useful than life circumstances in predicting well-being. Responses to items from the General Well-being Schedule were examined for 4942 men and women surveyed in a follow-up of a national sample. Results showed substantial stability for well-being scales for total group and demographically defined subgroups, and stability coefficients were as high for those who had experienced changes in marital or employment status or state of residence as for those who had not. These findings point out the need for caution in interpreting well-being scores as indices of the quality of life, because well-being is strongly influenced by enduring characteristics of the individual.

Environmental and dispositional influences on well‐being: Longitudinal follow‐up of an American national sample

http://psych.colorado.edu/~carey/pdfFiles/Personality_Loehlin.pdf

Heritabilities of Common and Measure-Specific Components of the Big Five Personality Factors

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses the empirical evidence on the stability of personality Personality researchers and theorists are realizing that the period of adulthood cannot be ignored, just as gerontologists have come to recognize that personality is central to the study of aging Aging faces two formidable problems rarely encountered in other branches of psychology: (1) the independent variable, maturation cannot be manipulated In consequence, only quasi-experimental designs can be used and these face well-known threats to their validity (2) Aging is a process which requires decades to unfold Researchers who wish to study changes must study the life span in segments or build upon the work of earlier researchers The personality stability or change concerns normative shifts in the mean levels of personality The fact that mean levels of most personality variables show little or no change with age does not necessarily imply that individuals do not change Mean level stability cannot be observed even if all the individuals in the sample have undergone dramatic changes in the level of all personality variables The major stability concerns the maintenance of rank order in individual differences This form of stability is usually measured as a stability coefficient, a retest correlation based on re-administration of a measure after a period of years

Robert R. McCrae

Papers

Trait explanations in personality psychology.

Openness to Experience: Expanding the boundaries of Factor V

Environmental and dispositional influences on well‐being: Longitudinal follow‐up of an American national sample

Heritabilities of Common and Measure-Specific Components of the Big Five Personality Factors

Longitudinal Stability of Adult Personality