Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences - Theses
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ItemPersonality processes of mixed emotions: describing, measuring, and explaining variation in dispositional, daily life, and experimentally elicited mixed emotions( 2018)It is not always possible to describe affective experiences as positive or negative. Sometimes (e.g., in the face of significant life transitions), individuals experience simultaneous feelings of positive and negative valence known as mixed emotions. Mixed emotions have been successfully elicited in many laboratory studies, and often occur throughout the course of daily life. However, there are several knowledge gaps in the description and explanation of mixed emotions, regarding 1) individual differences in mixed emotions, 2) underlying mechanisms of mixed emotions, and 3) measurement of mixed emotions. The core of this thesis is a multi-methodological examination (across six data-sets) of the relations between the basic domains of personality, known as the Big Five, and dispositional, daily life, and experimentally elicited mixed emotions. As Extraversion and Neuroticism are the trait domains most strongly associated with positive and negative emotionality, respectively, it is hypothesised that an interaction between these traits would predict mixed emotions, such that individuals high on both traits would experience more mixed emotions than those low on either or both traits. It is also hypothesised that Openness/Intellect, the trait domain reflecting cognitive exploration, would be positively associated with mixed emotions, due to the tendency for individuals high on this trait to make more numerous, divergent, and potentially conflicting evaluations of complex stimuli, leading to the experience of more mixed emotions. Results show that Neuroticism is positively associated with dispositional and daily life mixed emotions. In contrast, Extraversion is found to predict susceptibility to mixed emotions in the presence of a mixed-valenced stimulus. Extraversion and Neuroticism sometimes interact to predict mixed emotions, but not consistently. Finally, Openness/Intellect is positively associated with dispositional mixed emotions, and the relation between mixed emotions and Openness/Intellect is shown to be stronger and more positive, but still non-significant, in the presence of a mixed-valenced (vs. control) stimulus in the lab. A secondary focus of the thesis is an examination of potential mechanisms that may explain these relations between Big Five traits and mixed emotions. It is shown that in daily life, momentary increases in negative affect are tightly linked with increases in mixed emotions, and that the tendency to experience stronger average increases in negative affect mediates the relation between Neuroticism and mixed emotions. In addition, a more cognitive mechanism proposed to underlie mixed emotions, the tendency to make mixed-valenced appraisals (i.e., conflicting positive and negative cognitive evaluations), is shown to be associated with Openness/Intellect. Finally, the measurement of mixed emotions is considered, and it is proposed that the balance of mixed emotions (i.e., similarity in intensity of the two component emotions) is a meaningful and hitherto understudied component of mixed emotions. It is shown that indeed, the balance of mixed emotions varies meaningfully within and between persons, and the mixed statistic, which modifies a previous measure of the intensity of mixed emotions to incorporate a measure of balance, is proposed as a more comprehensive measure of mixed emotions. In sum, this thesis contributes to the description, explanation, and measurement of mixed emotions.