We introduce the EPOCH Measure of Adolescent Well-Being, which assesses 5 positive psychological characteristics (Engagement, Perseverance, Optimism, Connectedness, and Happiness) that might foster well-being, physical health, and other positive outcomes in adulthood. To create the measure, a pool of 60 items was compiled, and a series of 10 studies with 4,480 adolescents (age 10-18) from the United States and Australia were used to develop and test the measure, including the factor structure, internal and test-retest reliability, and convergent, discriminant, and predictive validity. The final 20-item measure demonstrated adequate psychometric properties, although additional studies are needed to further validate the measure, extend to other population groups, and examine the extent to which it predicts long-term outcomes. As a brief multidimensional measure, the EPOCH measure contributes to the empirical testing and application of well-being theory, and offers a valuable addition to batteries designed to assess adolescent positive psychological functioning. (PsycINFO Database Record

This study provides recommendations for the calculation of diversity-type IIV constructs and illustrates the potential for study of emodiversity to contribute to understanding of successful aging.

No abstract

There is growing evidence that inflammatory responses may help to explain how emotions get “under the skin” to influence disease susceptibility. Moving beyond examination of individuals’ average level of emotion, this study examined how the breadth and relative abundance of emotions that individuals experience— emodiversity—is related to systemic inflammation. Using diary data from 175 adults aged 40 to 65 who provided end-of-day reports of their positive and negative emotions over 30 days, we found that greater diversity in day-to-day positive emotions was associated with lower circulating levels of inflammation (indicated by IL-6, CRP, fibrinogen), independent of mean levels of positive and negative emotions, body mass index, anti-inflammatory medications, medical conditions, personality, and demographics. No significant associations were observed between global or negative emodiversity and inflammation. These findings highlight the unique role daily positive emotions play in biological health.

Life span developmental theories suggest that as individuals age, they accumulate knowledge about how to deploy emotion regulation (ER) strategies effectively and learn how to match their ER strategy use with changes in situational demands. Using an event-contingent experience sampling design wherein 150 adults Age 18 to 89 years reported on 64,213 social interactions (M ϭ 427.41, SD ϭ 145.66) during 9 weeks of daily life, this study examines (a) age-related differences in individuals' usual ER strategy use (reappraisal, suppression) during everyday social interactions, (b) age-related differences in how much individuals' use of these two strategies varies across social situations-ER variability, and (c) age-related differences in the extent to which ER strategy use covaries with relational (close vs. nonclose others) and emotional (happy, sad) contextual features of those social situations-ER flexibility. In line with a small body of prior work, usual ER strategy use did not differ across adulthood and ER variability was lower at older ages. Results from multilevel models of intraindividual covariation suggested that individuals flexibly matched their ER strategy implementation to changes in emotional context-especially when interacting with close others. The results also provided evidence that the intraindividual covariation between relational context and use of suppression was weaker at older ages. Beyond these specific findings, this study demonstrated the utility of experience sampling designs, event-contingent reports, and the measurement/modeling of intraindividual variation and covariation for study of emotional development across the life span.