Positive Emotions Broaden the Scope of Attention and Thought-action Repertoires What about Positive Emotions? the Broaden Hypothesis Existing Empirical Evidence Overview of Studies Experiments 1 and 2 Method

The broaden-and-build theory (Fredrickson, 1998, 2001) hypothesises that positive emotions broaden the scope of attention and thought-action repertoires. Two experiments with 104 college students tested these hypotheses. In each, participants viewed a film that elicited (a) amusement, (b) contentment, (c) neutrality, (d) anger, or (e) anxiety. Scope of attention was assessed using a global-local visual processing task (Experiment 1) and thought-action repertoires were assessed using a Twenty Statements Test (Experiment 2). Compared to a neutral state, positive emotions broadened the scope of attention in Experiment 1 and thought-action repertoires in Experiment 2. In Experiment 2, negative emotions, relative to a neutral state, narrowed thought-action repertoires. Implications for promoting emotional well-being and physical health are discussed. Emotions are short-lived experiences that produce coordinated changes in people's thoughts, actions, and physiological responses. Several emotion the-orists have explained these coordinated changes with the construct of specific During emotions, this reasoning holds, specific action tendencies infuse both mind and body, simultaneously narrowing individuals' action urges (e.g., flight in fear, attack in anger) while mobilising appropriate bodily support for those specific actions (e.g., increased blood flow to large muscles in fear). Specific action tendencies are also invoked to explain the evolutionary adaptive value of emotions: The specific action urges called forth during emotions are said to represent those actions that best ensured our ancestors' survival in life-or-death situations (Tooby & Cosmides, 1990). Although most emotion theorists who discuss specific action tendencies extend their theorising to include positive emotions like joy and contentment (e. that such extension is unwarranted. We base this conclusion on multiple observations within the scattered empirical and theoretical literature on positive emotions. One is that the action tendencies identified for positive emotions (e.g., free activation in joy, inactivity in contentment) are vague, better described as nonspecific than specific (Fre-drickson & Levenson, 1998). A second is that positive emotions are often characterised by a relative lack of autonomic reactivity (Levenson, Ekman, & Friesen, 1990). To the extent that autonomic reactivity supports specific action tendencies, these two observations go hand-in-hand: If no specific action is called forth during positive emotional states, then no particular pattern of autonomic reactivity should be expected. The broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions If positive emotions do not share with negative emotions this hallmark feature of promoting and supporting specific action, then what good are they? Do positive emotions have any evolved adaptive value? Fredrickson's (1998, 2001) broaden-and-build theory of …