Abstract
Abstract. Based on the framework of Personality Systems Interactions theory, this article addresses the functional mechanisms by which positive affect influences motivational and self-regulatory determinants of health-relevant behavior on an elementary level of processing. Research encompassing experimental procedures such as the Stroop task will be presented which suggest that positive affect is necessary not only to facilitate self-regulation of negative emotions but also to facilitate self-motivation, i.e., the enactment of difficult intentions that entail the risk of procrastination. We also highlight the role of state and trait accessibility of self-referential information (”self-access”) in generating such positive affect. The relevance of the findings for health maintenance is addressed.
References
2005). Striving for unwanted goals: Stress-dependent discrepancies between explicit and implicit achievement motives reduce subjective well-being and increase psychosomatic symptoms. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 89, 781–799.
(2007). Affect sensitivity and affect regulation in dealing with positive and negative affect. Journal of Research in Personality, 41, 239–248.
(2003). Self-Infiltration: Confusing assigned tasks as self-selected in memory. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 29, 487–497.
(2005). Left-hemispheric activation and self-infiltration: Testing a neuropsychological model of internalization. Motivation and Emotion, 29, 135–163.
(2006). Motivation und Gesundheit: Bedürfnisfrustration als Vermittler zwischen Selbststeuerungsdefiziten und psychosomatischen Symptomen. Zeitschrift für Gesundheitspsychologie, 14, 46–53.
(2003). What is an unconscious emotion? (The case for unconscious ”liking”). Cognition and Emotion, 17, 181–211.
(2002). Selbststeuerung und affektive Sensibilitaet: Persoenlichkeitsspezifische Antezedenzien der Depressivitaet. Zeitschrift fuer Psychologie, 210, 74–86.
(1995). Mood and judgment: The affect infusion model (AIM). Psychological Bulletin, 117, 39–66.
(1998). Maintaining a healthy diet: effects of personality and self-reward versus self-punishment on commitment to and enactment of self-chosen and assigned goals. Psychology and Health, 13, 651–681.
(1993). Representation of intentions: Persisting activation in memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 19, 1211–1226.
(1987). The psychology of fear and stress (2nd ed.). Cambridge: University Press.
(1987). Self-discrepancy: A theory relating self and affect. Psychological Review, 94, 319–340.
(1999). Positive affect. In , Handbook of cognition and emotion (pp. 521–539). John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
(2003). Self-infiltration vs. self-compatibility checking in dealing with unattractive tasks and unpleasant items: The moderating influence of state vs. action-orientation. Motivation and Emotion, 27, 157–197.
(2005). Intention memory and achievement motivation: Volitional facilitation and inhibition as a function of affective contents of need-related stimuli. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 89, 426–448.
(2008). The psychology of emotion regulation: How people manage their emotional lives.
(Manuscript submitted for publication .2004). Getting a grip on your feelings: Effects of action orientation and external demands on intuitive affect regulation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 87, 974–990.
(2000a). A functional-design approach to motivation and self-regulation: The dynamics of personality systems and interactions. In , Handbook of self-regulation (pp. 111–169). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
(2000b). A theory of self-development: Affective fixation and the STAR model of personality disorders and related styles. In , Motivational psychology of human development: Developing motivation and motivating development (pp. 187–211). New York, NY: Elsevier Science.
(2001). Motivation und Persönlichkeit. Interaktionen psychischer Systeme [Motivation and personality: Interactions of mental systems]. Göttingen: Hogrefe.
(1986). Motivational and volitional determinants of depression: The degenerated-intention hypothesis. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 95, 247–251.
(2003). Entwicklungsorientiertes Scanning (EOS) [Development-oriented Scanning (EOS)]. In , Handbuch der Kompetenzmessung (pp. 428–453). Heidelberg: Spektrum Akademischer Verlag.
(1994). Self-discrimination and memory: State orientation and false self-ascription of assigned activities. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 66, 1103–1115.
(1999). Volitional facilitation of difficult intentions: Joint activation of intention memory and positive affect removes stroop interference. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 128, 382–399.
(2006). Putting self-regulation theory into practice: A user’s manual. Applied Psychology, 55, 408–418.
(1987). Self-complexity as a cognitive buffer against stress-related illness and depression. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 52, 663–676.
(2005). Does Positive Affect Influence Health? Psychological Bulletin, 131, 925–971.
(2008). When Nonsense Sounds Happy or Helpless: The Implicit Positive And Negative Affect Test (IPANAT).
(Manuscript under revision .in press ). Implicit Affectivity Predicts Circadian and Reactive Cortisol: Using the Implicit Positive and Negative Affect Test. Journal of Personality.2008). You can’t always remember what you want: The role of cortisol in self-ascription of assigned goals.
(Manuscript under revision .2008). Intuiting the Self: Development and Validation of the Experiential Self-Access Questionnaire.
(Manuscript in preparation . University of Osnabrueck.2008). Die Theorie der Persönlichkeits-System-Interaktionen [The Theory of Personality Systems Interactions (PSI)]. In , Handbuch der Allgemeinen Psychologie: Motivation und Emotion. Göttingen: Hogrefe.
(2005). Die Förderung des Selbstzugangs in der Psychotherapie: Therapiebegleitende Funktionsdiagnostik in der Langzeitkatamnese psychiatrischer Patienten. In , Wenn das Selbst zum Feind wird – Autoaggression, Suizidalität und selbstschädigendes Verhalten. Dortmund: Psychogen-Verlag.
(2004). Stress-buffering effects of self-complexity: Reduced affective spillover or self-regulatory processes? Self and Identity, 3, 263–281.
(2008). Counter-Regulation in Affective Attentional Biases: A Basic Mechanism that Warrants Flexibility in Emotion and Motivation. Emotion, 8, 34–36.
(1997). Extraversion, neuroticism, and susceptibility to positive and negative affect: A test of two theoretical models. Personality and Individual Differences, 22, 607–612.
(1996). Organization of self-knowledge: Implications for recovery from sad mood. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 70, 578–590.
(