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Heads of Worry, Hearts of Joy: Daily Diary Investigations of Self-Location and Well-Being

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Abstract

When people are asked to locate the self, they frequently choose the head and heart regions of the body. These bodily regions, in turn, are linked to an extensive set of metaphors, including those that conceptualize the heart as the locus of authenticity, love, and passion. Based on such considerations as well as frameworks within the self and well-being literatures, four samples of participants in three studies (total N = 527) were asked whether, on particular days, they perceived themselves to be located in their head regions of their bodies or their heart regions. When the self was perceived to be in the heart to a greater extent, participants reported higher levels of affective and eudaimonic well-being, as mediated by processes related to reward perception (Study 1), savoring (Study 2), and social activity (Study 3). In terms of daily experiences, the heart-located self is a happier self.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. North Dakota State University, Psychology, NDSU Dept 2765, PO Box 6050, ND, 58108-6050, Fargo, USA

    Roberta L. Irvin & Michael D. Robinson

  2. University of Houston, Houston, Texas, USA

    Dongjie Wu & Adam K. Fetterman

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  1. Roberta L. Irvin
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Correspondence to Roberta L. Irvin.

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Data Availability

Datasets for all studies can be found at https://osf.io/jxa8e/?view_only=cd4ca254c718473f9792ce9de083f769.

Author Contribution

All authors contributed to the designs and analyses of these studies. The first author wrote the paper, the second author performed analyses, the third author helped design the studies, and the fourth author contributed to analyses as well as paper preparation.

Ethics Approval

The studies were approved by the first author’s institutional IRB and conducted in accordance with the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki.

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Datasets for all studies can be found at https://osf.io/jxa8e/?view_only=cd4ca254c718473f9792ce9de083f769. None of these studies was preregistered.

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Irvin, R.L., Wu, D., Fetterman, A.K. et al. Heads of Worry, Hearts of Joy: Daily Diary Investigations of Self-Location and Well-Being. Affec Sci 4, 744–756 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42761-023-00196-z

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