INTENSE EMOTION REACTIONS PREDICT ENHANCED WELL-BEING AND ADAPTIVE CHOICES A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the North Dakota State University of Agriculture and Applied Science By Robert John Klein In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Major Department: Psychology July 2020 Fargo, North Dakota North Dakota State University Graduate School Title INTENSE EMOTION REACTIONS PREDICT ENHANCED WELL- BEING AND ADAPTIVE CHOICES By Robert John Klein The Supervisory Committee certifies that this disquisition complies with North Dakota State University’s regulations and meets the accepted standards for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY SUPERVISORY COMMITTEE: Michael D. Robinson Chair Clayton Hilmert Mark McCourt Joel Hecktner Approved: July 17, 2020 Mark Nawrot Date Department Chair ABSTRACT Existing evidence has linked individual differences in emotion reaction intensity to both enhanced and decreased psychological well-being. We propose that this contradiction is related to methodological shortcomings in some existing research. We present a novel emotion reactivity task capable of addressing these methodological shortcomings by continuously measuring the subjective intensity of individual emotion episodes with high temporal resolution. Four studies were conducted (total n = 499). In Studies 1, 2, and 4, participants continuously reported their emotions while viewing objectively pleasant or unpleasant images. Thousands of reaction intensities were coded using algorithms developed for this purpose. We expected that people showing more intense emotion reactions, regardless of valence, would report greater subjective well-being in the lab and in daily life. One reason that such situationally-congruent reactions might be beneficial is that that they enable more flexible situationally-appropriate behavior. In Study 3, participants were asked to rate their emotional responses to pleasant and unpleasant images. Following this, people choose a location for their Self avatar within a computerized environment that included one image of each valence. We expected that the tendency to report intense emotion responses to these images would predict both adaptive location choice and subjective well-being. Results confirmed most major hypotheses: more intense reactions to both positive and negative stimuli were predictive of greater subjective well-being in the lab and in daily life, and analogous reactivity patterns were associated with more flexible, adaptive avatar placement. The results suggest that a key feature of maladaptive emotion generation systems (and lower well- being) may not be overly intense reactions as has been suggested, but a failure to flexibly adapt emotion output to match changing circumstances. iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS First and foremost, I would like to thank Dr. Michael Robinson for his guidance, knowledge, patience, creativity, and foresight throughout my dissertation process (more accurately, throughout my entire training at NDSU). I also would like to acknowledge the research assistants that helped collect the present data. I thank Ganesh Padmanabhan for assisting me with E-Prime programming. I am pleased do acknowledge Graham Anderson, one of my oldest friends, for his Python programming and support with encoding the scoring algorithms. All these people were essential to the success of this project. I would also like to thank my committee for their time and support. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ............................................................................................................................. iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ......................................................................................................... iv LIST OF FIGURES ................................................................................................................. viii INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................................................1 Subjective Well-being and Reaction Intensity .........................................................................4 The Present Studies .................................................................................................................8 Study 1 ................................................................................................................................8 Study 2 ................................................................................................................................9 Study 3 ................................................................................................................................9 Study 4 .............................................................................................................................. 11 STUDY 1 .................................................................................................................................. 12 Method.................................................................................................................................. 12 Participants and General Procedures .................................................................................. 12 Subjective Well-Being (SWB) Assessment ........................................................................ 13 Dynamic Affective Reactivity Task (DART) ..................................................................... 14 Data Manipulation and Cleaning........................................................................................ 17 Results .................................................................................................................................. 19 Preliminary Models ........................................................................................................... 19 Hypothesized Effects ......................................................................................................... 20 STUDY 2 .................................................................................................................................. 23 Methods ................................................................................................................................ 23 Participants and General Procedures .................................................................................. 23 Subjective Well-Being Assessment .................................................................................... 23 Dynamic Affective Reactivity Task ................................................................................... 23 v Data Manipulation and Cleaning........................................................................................ 26 Results .................................................................................................................................. 26 Preliminary Models ........................................................................................................... 26 Hypothesized Effects ......................................................................................................... 27 DISCUSSION AND STUDY 3 ................................................................................................. 29 Method.................................................................................................................................. 29 Participants and General Procedures .................................................................................. 29 Subjective Well-Being Assessment .................................................................................... 30 Hedonic Choice Assessment .............................................................................................. 30 Results .................................................................................................................................. 34 DISCUSSION AND STUDY 4 ................................................................................................. 37 Method.................................................................................................................................. 37 Participants and General Procedures .................................................................................. 37 Dynamic Affect Reactivity Task ........................................................................................ 38 Data Cleaning and Variable Quantification ........................................................................ 40 Daily Protocol ................................................................................................................... 41 Results .................................................................................................................................. 42 Average Peak Intensity Predicting Daily SWB .................................................................. 42 Average Intensity Difference Predicting Daily SWB ......................................................... 43 GENERAL DISCUSSION ........................................................................................................ 45 Methodological Implications ................................................................................................. 45 Theoretical and Applied Implications .................................................................................... 50 A Conception of Duration as Reactivity ................................................................................ 54 Future Research