Abstract
A number of studies have found that individuals pursue emotional experiences that match their personality traits. For the trait negative individual (e.g., neurotic) who pursues experiences that create negative emotions, this finding is inconsistent with the hedonic hypothesis that their activity is controlled by the pursuit of good feelings. As a resolution of the conflict between these two positions, it was predicted that people with traits that elicit negative affect would pursue trait-affect consistency (a long-term outcome) except when their emotional state was very negative. At this point their hedonic tendencies (short-term) would take over and they would pursue experiences that produced happiness. College students responded to measures of Extroversion, Neuroticism, SPANE Trait Positive Affect, SPANE Trait Negative Affect, and Depression. Then, for five mood states, ranging from Ecstasy to Black and Leaden, they whether they would like to play a sad song, happy song, song that produced negative affect, and song that produced positive affect. For the positive traits, trait-affect consistency was predicted. For the negative traits, trait affect consistency was predicted for all of the moods except for the most negative mood condition. No support was found for the hedonic hypothesis. It was found that for mood state participants preferred happy songs that produced positive affect when feeling positive (e.g., Ecstasy) and sad songs that produced negative affect when feeling negative (e.g., Black and Leaden). Evidence was found for both trait- and state-affect matching. The results were explained in terms the need for epistemic certainty.
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This study’s datasets are available from the corresponding author. Personal data (including any individual details, videos, or images) are not included in this manuscript.
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Mathes, E.W. The effects of trait and state affect, on affect-consistent, emotional regulation. Curr Psychol 43, 6217–6224 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-023-04809-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-023-04809-5