Daily life affect dynamics

Optimists have the general tendency to always look at the bright side of life. This attitude toward life seems quite beneficial, as optimists lead happier and physically and mentally healthier lives than pessimists.

This is a Dutch summary of my PhD thesis Happy faces and other rewards. Positieve informatie roept vaak sterke reacties op, maar niet bij iedereen. Wie minder sterk reageert op positieve informatie heeft een zogenaamde lage positieve bias. In dit …

People generally show strong responses to positive or rewarding experiences, for example, winning a prize or seeing someone smile. However, not all people respond the same to positive information; some people show weaker responses to positive …

There is evidence that people commonly show a bias toward happy facial emotions during laboratory tasks, that is, they identify other people’s happy facial emotions faster than other people’s negative facial emotions. However, not everybody shows …

My main line of research concerns positive bias, i.e., the phenomenon that many people see the world more brightly and more positive than it really is, and whether and at what ages individual differences in positive bias are associated with differences in mental and social functioning.