Ideal affect in daily life: implications for affective experience, health, and social behavior

Abstract

Over the last decade, researchers have increasingly demonstrated that ideal affect—the affective states that people value and ideally want to feel—shapes different aspects of daily life. Here I briefly review Affect Valuation Theory (AVT), which integrates ideal affect into existing models of affect and emotion by identifying the causes and consequences of variation in ideal affect. I then describe recent research that: (1) applies AVT to the valuation of negative states as well as more complex states, (2) examines how ideal affect shapes momentary affective experience, (3) suggests that ideal affect has both direct and indirect effects on health, and (4) illustrates that people’s ideal affect shapes how they judge and respond to others. Finally, I discuss the implications of cultural and individual differences in ideal affect for clinical, educational, work, and leisure settings.

Cultural Models of Well-Being Implicit in Four Ghanaian Languages

“…More generally, results did not provide much evidence for the emphasis on psychological fulfillment associated with standard, growth-oriented conceptions of well-being in hegemonic psychological science. Instead, interview responses emphasized themes of social responsibility, materiality ( Coe, 2011 ), and low arousal positive affect (e.g., peace of mind; Tsai, 2007 , 2017 ) that our theoretical framework associates with sustainability or maintenance-oriented conceptions of well-being in cultural ecologies of embeddedness and interdependence ( Adams and Dzokoto, 2003 ).…”

“…They afford a promotion-oriented conception of well-being as personal fulfillment or self-expansion, in which a “full and satisfying life” involves exploration and expression of authentic interests and desires. The subjective experience of satisfaction looms large in this conception of well-being, as people exercise freedom of choice toward attractive options in pursuit of high-arousal positive affect ( Tsai, 2007 , 2017 ; Adams et al, 2019 ).…”

The Role of Cognitive Control in Age-Related Changes in Well-Being

“…However, it does not mean that individuals achieve better well-being in a similar manner across different cultures. Past studies suggest that people from different cultures often take different behaviors to achieve better well-being (Tsai, 2017 ). For example, in East Asian cultures that are more collectivistic, people tend to focus more on interpersonal relatedness to achieve better well-being than those in Western cultures (Fung et al, 2008b ).…”

The influence of affect on HPV vaccine decision making in an HPV vaccine naïve college student population

“…Worry and fear are both high arousal negative affective states. Given previous work showing that disparities between actual and ideal affect can motivate behavior ( Tsai, 2017 ), the relation between affectively-based perceived risk may be strengthened when individuals have more high arousal negative affect associated with genital warts and cancer, the two primary morbidities of HPV infection, but value low arousal positive affect. As such, we are interested in the extent that a discrepancy between actual and ideal affect moderates the relation between perceived risk of HPV-related health outcomes and HPV vaccine intentions.…”