We examined the organization of individual differences in pleasant affect, unpleasant affect, and six discrete emotions. We used several refinements over past studies: a) systematic sampling of emotions; b) control of measurement error through the use of latent traits; c) multiple methods for measuring affect; d) inclusion of only affects that are widely agreed to be emotions; e) a statistical definition of "independence;" and f) a focus on the frequency and duration of long-term affect. There was strong convergence between the two pleasant emotions (love and joy) and between the four unpleasant emotions (fear, anger, sadness, and shame). The results indicated, however, that individual differences in the discrete emotions cannot be reduced to positive and negative affect. The latent traits of pleasant and unpleasant affect were correlated -.44, and a two-factor model accounted for significantly more variance than a one-factor model. This finding indicates that longterm pleasant and unpleasant affect are not strictly orthogonal, but they are separable. Bradburn (1969;Bradburn & Caplovitz, 1965) proposed that pleasant and unpleasant affect' are independent. He found in national surveys that the two types of emotion correlated at very low levels with each other and showed different patterns of relations with external variables. Similarly, Herzberg (1966) found that the experience of well-being at work was composed of separable positive and negative factors. Bradburn's conclusion was also supported by Costa and McCrae (1980), who found that extraversion correlated with positive affect, but not with negative affect, and that neuroticism correlated more strongly with negative affect than with positive affect. Similarly, Zevon and Tellegen (1982);Warr, Barter, and Brownbridge (1983); ; and Watson and his colleagues (Watson, 1988;Watson, Clark, & Tellegen, 1984;Watson & Tellegen, 1985) found that positive and negative emotions often show low correlations with each other. The findings on independence have been replicated in Japan and Russia (Balatsky & Diener, 1993). Tedlie and Hull (1994) found that different patterns of coping were associated with pleasant and unpleasant affect. Similar to the independence of pleasant and unpleasant affect, optimism and pessimism seem to show a degree of separability (Marshall, Wortman, Kusulas, Hervig, & Vickers, 1992;Plomin et al., 1992). Furthermore, Kennedy-Moore, Greenberg, Newman, and Stone (1992) found that pleasant and unpleasant moods showed different patterns across the days of the week.Despite the evidence for two separable global types of emotion, the idea of affect independence is still debated. A single pleasant-versus-unpleasant bipolar affect dimension has a long history in psychology (e.g., Woodworth & Schlosberg, 1954),

Data from a 4-year longitudinal study of young adults were used to examine the causal pathways between personality and life events. To reduce measurement artifacts, analyses were conducted using reports of more objective life events. It was found that extraversion predisposed participants to experience more positive objective life events, whereas neuroticism predisposed people to experience more negative objective events. In contrast, personality was somewhat stable, and life events were found not to have a prospective influence on it. Objective positive and negative life events covaried, suggesting that people who experience more of 1 type of event are also likely to experience more events of the opposite valence as well. The findings indicate that life events cannot be viewed as a source of influence independent of personality. Although factors that are independent of the person undoubtedly influence life events to some degree, the personality of the individual also appears to do so.

The effect of life events on subjective well-being (SWB) was explored in a 2-year longitudinal study of 115 participants. It was found that only life events during the previous 3 months influenced life satisfaction and positive and negative affect. Although recent life events influenced SWB even when personality at Time 1 was controlled, distal life events did not correlate with SWB. SWB and life events both showed a substantial degree of temporal stability. It was also found that good and bad life events tend to covary, both between individuals and across periods of the lives of individuals. Also, when events of the opposite valence were controlled, events correlated more strongly with SWB. The counterintuitive finding that good and bad events co-occur suggests an exciting avenue for explorations of the structure of life events.

Affect intensity (AI) may reconcile 2 seemingly paradoxical findings: Women report more negative affect than men but equal happiness as men. AI describes people's varying response intensity to identical emotional stimuli. A college sample of 66 women and 34 men was assessed on both positive and negative affect using 4 measurement methods: self-report, peer report, daily report, and memory performance. A principal-components analysis revealed an affect balance component and an AI component. Multimeasure affect balance and AI scores were created, and t tests were computed that showed women to be as happy as and more intense than men. Gender accounted for less than 1% of the variance in happiness but over 13% in AI. Thus, depression findings of more negative affect in women do not conflict with well-being findings of equal happiness across gender. Generally, women's more intense positive emotions balance their higher negative affect.

Using data from 17 years of a large and nationally representative panel study from Germany, the authors examined whether there is a set point for life satisfaction (LS)-stability across time, even though it can be perturbed for short periods by life events. The authors found that 24% of respondents changed significantly in LS from the first 5 years to the last 5 years and that stability declined as the period between measurements increased. Average LS in the first 5 years correlated .51 with the 5-year average of LS during the last 5 years. Height, weight, body mass index, systolic and diastolic blood pressure, and personality traits were all more stable than LS, whereas income was about as stable as LS. Almost 9% of the sample changed an average of 3 or more points on a 10-point scale from the first 5 to last 5 years of the study.The purpose of this study was to explore the degree to which life satisfaction (LS) varies around an individual set point, a personal baseline that remains constant over time. The set-point concept was borrowed from the idea of a weight set point and implies that there is a stable baseline of LS, with homeostatic forces returning it to its original level after life events or changing circumstances change it. We analyzed in a large probability sample whether annual reports of LS followed a set-point pattern over a 17-year period.The concept of set point is a pivotal one to the field of subjective well-being (SWB) for both theoretical and applied reasons. In terms of theory, the idea of set point makes strong predictions about the relation of temperament and events in influencing SWB.