Image: *MarS

In my September Positive Psychology News Daily post, I look at the question of quantity versus quality of positive emotion, and which has the greater impact on well-being.

Research suggests that different nations expereince the same emotions differently, which means that context is more important than we might think.

On a more light-hearted note, you might like to visit Professor Richard Wiseman’s online “Earth Movement” calculator, which will show you by how much the earth moves for you: the answer, it seems, is always ‘yes’ but how much is partly dependent on where in the world you are at the time…

No wonder so many children’s stories end with ‘happily ever after’. Psychology research shows that ending on a higher note is critical to well-being, even if the experience itself wasn’t pleasant. In one study, participants provided moment-by-moment ratings of discomfort while undergoing two separate painful experiences: in the short trial, they held their hands in ice cold water for 60 seconds. In the long trial, they held their hands in ice cold water for 60 seconds, and then continued to keep their hands in the water for another 30 seconds while the water temperature was raised slightly.

Raising the temperature slightly caused a significant drop in discomfort ratings for most participants, even though the overall discomfort lasted longer. Additionally, when asked which of the two experiences they would repeat for their third trial, 69% of the participants chose to repeat the long one! This doesn’t seem logical. Why wouldn’t they simply minimise their exposure to pain altogether by choosing the shorter trial?

The answer seems to be in what psychologists call “the peak-and-end rule” and “duration neglect” which is that how you feel at the end of an experience turns out to be more important than how you felt during the experience. Additionally (and counter-intuitively) even making a painful experience last longer can improve how you later feel about it, providing the pain you feel at the end is less than the peak pain you felt during the experience.

So what does this tell us about maximising well-being? Well, simply that we should attend to endings more  – from a work perspective endings of meetings, appraisals, feedback sessions, presentations, projects and so on. In presentations, for example, always rehearse how you’re going to end, so that you can finish on a confident and compelling note. When you’re giving feedback to colleagues, make sure you finish with some positive feedback. And in meetings, take a moment to thank people for their time and contributions.

Research: Fredrickson, B. (2000). Extracting meaning from past affective experiences: The importance of peaks, ends, and specific emotions. Cognition & Emotion.