Explain positive emotions and related interventions with special reference to Broaden and Build model.
Answers
The broaden-and build-theory could be defined as a model for explaining the mechanisms behind positive emotions in our minds and bodies, what their effects are, what the evolutionary reason is behind them and why studying them is so important for our well-being.
Studying emotions has always been a challenge. There are different points of view as to what is considered an emotion. Barbara Fredrickson refers to them as “multicomponent response tendencies that unfold over relatively short time spans”.
Models based on this perspective have usually studied emotions like fear, anger, disgust (i.e. negative emotions), leaving the whole array of positive emotions unattended.
They are few and less differentiated than negative emotions. Mainly, they all have similar facial patterns, little or no autonomic response, and recalling is often undifferentiated (meaning, it’s hard for someone to remember if they felt joy, contentment, pride, etc.).
The problem-focused approach (which has characterized Psychology for years). Since they don’t arise when there are problems, they’re not studied when needing a solution.
Models built on prototypes. Finally, positive emotions have been left aside because they don’t exactly fit the model where they serve as a signal for a specific action tendency.
Positive emotions
Positive emotions are a key component in happiness or subjective well-being, as Myers and Diener put it. This raised some questions in Fredrickson’s mind, mainly “How?” How do positive emotions contribute to happiness? If they don’t fit the model of emotions it would be understandable not to invest resources into them. So, why do we feel them? Why, after centuries, haven’t we lost the ability to experience positive emotions? Let’s take a closer look.
Fredrickson, in her 1998 article, started to look into some positive emotions. For instance, she realized that Joy is an emotion that’s often experienced while playing, and that it leads to approaching behavior. Also, through play, kids build important physical, intellectual and social abilities. Interest stimulates exploration, which is the base for knowledge and personal growth.
Feeling contentment allows for people to expand their world view and the view of themselves, which later leads to building better social relations and skills. Love could be defined as a combination of these three emotions, and in close relationships, it promotes cycles where all of these can be experienced.
This author realized that the positive emotions she studied shared a pattern, and it was different from the one that was elicited by negative emotions.