On the morning of the second day of the conference Randy Larsen gave a talk entitled “Overcoming the Hedonic Treadmill: Self Regulation of Emotional Well-Being.” He stated that our overall satisfaction with life is correlated to the effects that our experiences have on us.  In general, he presented the idea that our Subjective Well-Being (SWB) is a ratio of how effected we are by the positive events in our lives to the negative events.

He offered this equation:

SWB = S (PA) / S (NA)

In this equation Positive Affect (PA) and Negative Affect (NA) contribute equally to one’s SWB.

However, negative affect is actually stronger than positive affect; therefore, the equation is incorrect, Larsen revealed. He said that R. Baumeister et al. commented in their 2001 study: “Bad [affect] is stronger than good [affect].” Positive affect is frail, not strong, whereas negative affect is strong to begin with.

To show that negative affect is stronger than positive, Larsen asked the audience to consider the following examples:

• Loosing $50 is much more painful than winning $50 is positive.
• A positive first impression can easily be reversed if one learns something negative about the person. However, a negative first impression is rarely if ever reversed.

There is a negative bias, which is stronger and lasts longer.

In Ed Diener’s study (1991), he questioned why positive affect is stronger than negative affect. (To evaluate your SWB, take Diener’s Satisfaction with Life Scale in the Quizzes section of MyHappy: http://www.myhappy.com/quizes/.) Larsen conducted research in order to study why negative affect is stronger with regard to three aspects: reactivity, duration, and cognitive involvement.

He performed two studies: one on people’s reactions to negative and positive events and one on the duration of their reactions. To test cognitive involvement, he used four experiments conducted by Peter Lang. (Explanations of the 6 studies and their results are available here.) His results were conclusive. Negative affect creates stronger responses and lasts longer than positive affect.

With this new information Larsen wanted to know exactly how much stronger is negative affect to positive affect. He questioned how his initial equation needed to be modified.

He cited four studies that had found varying answers to this question:

Larsen 2002 – For people with average levels of SWB, they usually have three good days to every one bad day. PA to NA is about a 3 to 1 ratio.

Schwartz et al. 2002- For recovered depressed people (those who were once depressed but are now no longer depressed), the ratio was 2.3-4.3 to 1.

Fredrickson and Losada (2005) – For flourishing workgroupsâ, the ratio is 2.9 to 1. Flourishing individuals were 3.2 to 1 in one study and 3.4 to 1 in another study.

Gottman (1994) – In highly satisfied married couples the ratio was a bit larger: 4.7 to 1, which indicates that for every bad event, it takes nearly 5 good events to reverse the effects!

Therefore, Larsen said that his conclusion was only an estimate. It seems that the ratio of PA to NA is about pi or 3.1415. His equation is then changed to SWB = S (PA) / S (NA/ pi).

As a final word, Larsen commented that PA and NA are the emotional core of SWB. Moreover, they help determine the global SWB. The negative bias in us creates an asymmetry. Diener believes that we need to figure out how to encourage positive affect and cope with negative affect. Larsen suggests that efforts to speed adaptation to negative events may be more important to SWB than increasing the duration of positive events is to SWB.

Larsen’s talk ended with that final point. I had a few questions: How could we speed adaptation of negative affect? How could we lessen our intense reactions? What interventions might be possible?