Emotional Nuance: Examining Positive Emotional Granularity and Well-Being

The focus of this review is on positive emotional granularity. Emotional granularity is the level of specificity that characterizes verbal representations of an affective experience. Although there has been research on negative emotional granularity, relatively less attention has been given to the study of positive emotional granularity. Positive emotions are theorized to motivate an individual to broaden and build one's scope of cognition, attention, and behavior. Distinct positive emotion concepts may provide individuals with more informational value than that provided by global mood. Indeed, individuals who are higher in positive emotional granularity report being better at coping with stressful experiences. In this review, we discuss growing research on positive emotional granularity and well-being. Issues of measurement, interventions, and considerations for future lines of research are discussed.

Automated summary

This review focuses on positive emotional granularity, specifically emphasizing the lack of research in this area compared to negative emotional granularity. It highlights how positive emotions can motivate individuals to broaden their cognition, attention, and behavior, and suggests that distinct positive emotion concepts provide more informational value. Individuals with higher positive emotional granularity report better coping with stress.