Barbara L. Fredrickson’s research while affiliated with University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and other places

Natural language is a vital source of evidence for the social sciences. Yet quantifying large volumes of text rigorously and precisely is extremely difficult, and automated methods have struggled to match the “gold standard” of human coding. The present work used GPT-4 to conduct an automated analysis of 1,356 essays, rating the authors’ spirituality on a continuous scale. This presents an especially challenging test for automated methods, due to the subtlety of the concept and the difficulty of inferring complex personality traits from a person’s writing. Nonetheless, we found that GPT-4’s ratings demonstrated excellent internal reliability, remarkable consistency with a human rater, and strong correlations with self-report measures and behavioral indicators of spirituality. These results suggest that, even on nuanced tasks requiring a high degree of conceptual sophistication, automated text analysis with Generative Pre-trained Transformers can match human-level performance. Hence, these results demonstrate the extraordinary potential for such tools to advance social scientific research.

There are various ways in which, and reasons why, people can think that they matter. In three studies (total N = 1,528 US adults and undergraduates) we investigated perceptions of mattering overall, to other people (generally), to close others (like family and friends), in one’s society, and in the grand scheme of the universe. Each was a distinct construct, displaying unique patterns of association with psychological traits and mental health outcomes, including perceived meaning in life and suicidal ideation. We content-coded participants’ explanations of their overall perceptions, finding that most participants mentioned people and other Earthly concerns, whereas few mentioned the cosmos. In a randomized, controlled experiment, participants reminded of the size of the universe perceived themselves to matter less in the cosmos, but more to close others. Overall, results demonstrate important differences between forms of perceived mattering and suggest that social factors play an outsized role in overall perceptions.

Behavioral-variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD) is characterized by impairment in socioemotional functioning. Spouses caring for individuals with bvFTD often experience profound health/well-being declines, compared to Alzheimer’s disease (AD) caregivers and non-caregiving older adults. We hypothesized that disrupted positive emotional connections between spousal caregivers and individuals with bvFTD contribute to caregivers’ lower emotional well-being. 23 bvFTD-caregiver, 23 AD-caregiver, and 17 control dyads had a 10-minute conflict conversation in the laboratory. Positive emotional connections were measured as the covariation of partners’ positive emotional behaviors during the conversation. Caregiver emotional well-being was assessed via questionnaire (SF-36). We found that bvFTD caregivers had lower emotional well-being than AD caregivers and controls (who did not differ from each other, t=.80, p=.43), c=-.70, p<.01. Importantly, this effect was fully mediated by bvFTD caregivers' lower positive emotional connections, c’=-.38, n.s. We speculate that lower positive emotional connections can cause social isolation and contribute to bvFTD caregivers’ health/well-being declines.

Pleasantness and meaningfulness are sometimes seen as opposing pursuits. Yet past research has found that the pursuit of meaning often leads to pleasure. In four longitudinal studies—three observational, one experimental, ranging from 5 weeks to 18 months—we investigated an inverse process, whereby specific kinds of pleasant states can foster a sense of meaning in life. We hypothesized that perceptions of positivity resonance, a form of co-experienced positive affect characterized by mutual care and synchrony, are experienced as particularly meaningful in the moment and, over time, build social resources (e.g., supportive relationships and communities) that foster an enduring sense of meaning in life. Results indicate that perceived positivity resonance is associated with perceived meaning both between- and within-persons, links that emerge independently of overall pleasant emotion and social interaction quantity. Perceived social resources mediate between-persons links, and changes in perceived social resources mediate longitudinal links. Overall, these findings suggest that co-experienced, caring, and synchronous pleasant states may be uniquely suited to cultivating a person’s sense that life is meaningful.

Past research has found that people who behave morally are seen as happier than people who behave immorally—even when their psychological states are described identically. This has led researchers to conclude that the ordinary concept of happiness includes a role for moral factors as well as psychological states. In three experiments (total N = 1,185), we found similar effects of moral evaluations on attributions of a range of psychological states, including positive attitudes towards one’s life and activities (Study 1), pleasant and unpleasant emotions in general (Studies 2-3) and life-satisfaction (Studies 2-3). This suggests that moral evaluations have pervasive effects on the psychological states that people attribute to others. We propose that this is because immorality is seen as disrupting intrapersonal harmony. That is, immoral people are thought to be less happy because they are thought to experience less positive psychological states, and this occurs when and because they are seen as being internally conflicted. Supporting this explanation, we found that immoral agents are seen as more internally conflicted than moral agents (Study 2), and that the effect of moral evaluations on positive psychological state attributions disappears when agents are described as being at peace with themselves (Study 3).

There are various ways in which, and reasons why, people can think that they matter. In three studies (total N = 1,528 US adults and undergraduates) we investigated perceptions of mattering overall, to other people (generally), to close others (like family and friends), in one’s society, and in the grand scheme of the universe. Each was a distinct construct, displaying unique patterns of association with psychological traits and mental health outcomes, including perceived meaning in life and suicidal ideation. We content-coded participants’ explanations of their overall perceptions, finding that most participants mentioned people and other Earthly concerns, whereas few mentioned the cosmos. In a randomized, controlled experiment, participants reminded of the size of the universe perceived themselves to matter less in the cosmos, but more to close others. Overall, results demonstrate important differences between forms of perceived mattering and suggest that social factors play an outsized role in overall perceptions.

Objectives: To describe trends in caregiver stress and stress-related symptoms (anxiety, depression, fatigue, and sleep disturbance) across 12 weeks post-transplantation. Sample & setting: 11 caregivers were recruited from a National Cancer Institute-designated comprehensive cancer center's bone marrow transplantation (BMT) outpatient clinic in the southeastern United States. Methods & variables: A visual case-oriented analysis was conducted on data from 11 caregivers' weekly self-reported data to identify trends after allogeneic BMT. Results: The authors identified three primary trends as follows: U-shaped (highest symptoms at start of transplantation and end of study; n = 3), negatively sloped (highest symptoms at beginning of transplantation and decreasing over time; n = 2), and V-shaped predischarge (highest symptoms at start of transplantation and right before discharge home; n = 4). Two caregivers did not have postdischarge data because of patient death prior to study completion. Implications for nursing: Caregivers may benefit from additional support to manage their stress-related symptoms at the start of transplantation and just before discharge.

Objectives Two cross‐sectional (Studies 1, N = 283 and 2, N = 275) and one prospective (Study 3, N = 238) studies investigated the role of passion (for academia) and emotions in the process of resilience in the education domain and in life in general. Method Participants were examined when facing a stressful situation related to their passion for academia (end‐of‐term exam period and a timed education task). Results All three studies showed that harmonious passion, through its positive relationship with positive emotions, was positively associated with high positive outcomes in the education domain (satisfaction with one's studies, subjective and objective performance in one's studies) and in life in general via the subjective evaluation of one's life and general health indicators (subjective vitality and fewer negative physical symptoms). On the other hand, obsessive passion was related to mixed effects on resilience. Specifically, obsessive passion related to low levels of functioning (Studies 1 and 3) and also hindered the positive outcomes (Studies 1–3) through its positive relationships with positive and negative emotions, respectively. Conclusions In sum, under stress, harmonious passion facilitates high resilience across life domains, whereas obsessive passion yields low resilience across the life or no resilience at all.

Purpose: To describe caregiver psychological processing during the 12 weeks after transplant and the potential role of positive emotions in caregiving experiences. Methods: We conducted a longitudinal qualitative descriptive study and interviewed 11 BMT caregivers monthly for 12-weeks post-transplant about their experiences and psychological processing. We analyzed 38 interviews using directed content analysis based on guiding theories and inductive in vivo coding to develop themes. Results: The majority of participants appraised caregiving as a challenge that needed to be met. Caregivers described feeling positive emotions throughout the time after transplant (gratitude, interest, and hope). We identified two new themes: mirroring (caregiver feelings reflecting patient status) and emotion regulation (hiding negative emotions and displaying positive emotions when with the patient). Implications: Findings provide further evidence that interventions focused on emotion regulation and positive emotion experiences during caregiving to reduce the negative effects of caregiving related stress may be promising.

Intensive longitudinal data (ILD) is an increasingly common data type in the social and behavioral sciences. Despite the many benefits these data provide, little work has been dedicated to realize the potential such data hold for forecasting dynamic processes at the individual level. To address this gap in the literature, we present the multi-VAR framework, a novel methodological approach allowing for penalized estimation of ILD collected from multiple individuals. Importantly, our approach estimates models for all individuals simultaneously and is capable of adaptively adjusting to the amount of heterogeneity present across individual dynamic processes. To accomplish this, we propose a novel proximal gradient descent algorithm for solving the multi-VAR problem and prove the consistency of the recovered transition matrices. We evaluate the forecasting performance of our method in comparison with a number of benchmark methods and provide an illustrative example involving the day-to-day emotional experiences of 16 individuals over an 11-week period.