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. 2013 Jan;4(1):54-61.
doi: 10.1177/1948550612444616.

When Feeling Bad Can Be Good: Mixed Emotions Benefit Physical Health Across Adulthood

Hal E Hershfield  1 , Susanne Scheibe, Tamara L Sims, Laura L Carstensen
Affiliations

When Feeling Bad Can Be Good: Mixed Emotions Benefit Physical Health Across Adulthood

Hal E Hershfield et al. Soc Psychol Personal Sci. 2013 Jan.

Abstract

Traditional models of emotion-health interactions have emphasized the deleterious effects of negative emotions on physical health. More recently, researchers have turned to potential benefits of positive emotions on physical health as well. Both lines of research, though, neglect the complex interplay between positive and negative emotions and how this interplay affects physical well-being. Indeed, recent theoretical work suggests that a strategy of "taking the good with the bad" may benefit health outcomes. In the present study, the authors assessed the impact of mixed emotional experiences on health outcomes in a 10-year longitudinal experience-sampling study across the adult life span. The authors found that not only were frequent experiences of mixed emotions (co-occurrences of positive and negative emotions) strongly associated with relatively good physical health, but that increases of mixed emotions over many years attenuated typical age-related health declines.

Keywords: emotion–health interactions; health; longitudinal data; mixed emotions.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Partial plots showing relationship between mixed emotions and physical health symptoms, controlling for age, positive emotions, and negative emotions. (A) Average mixed emotions (Fisher’s r-to-z transformation of Pearson’s r correlation between aggregates of positive and negative emotions) are negatively associated with average physical health symptoms. (B) Changes in mixed emotions over time (hierarchical linear modeling [HLM] coefficient indicating change in mixed emotions over waves of participation) are negatively associated with changes in health symptoms over time (HLM coefficient indicating change in health symptoms over waves of participation).
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