What you wish is what you get? The meaning of individual variability in desired affect and affective discrepancy

Journal of Research in Personality 43 (2009) 409–418

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What you wish is what you get? The meaning of individual variability in desired affect and affective discrepancy Nicole Kämpfe *, Kristin Mitte Department of Differential Psychology, Personality Psychology and Psychological Diagnostic, University of Jena, Humboldtstrasse 11, D-07743 Jena, Germany

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Article history: Available online 17 January 2009 Keywords: Desired affect Affective discrepancy Affective motivation Hedonism Personality Mood regulation

a b s t r a c t The present research focuses on the meaning of desired affect and affective discrepancy, or the divergence between desired and actual affect, for affect regulation and psychological well-being. According to a control model of affect [Larsen, R. J. (2000). Toward a science of mood regulation. Psychological Inquiry, 11, 129-141], desired affect is a major factor influencing affect regulation around a person’s affective set-point. The high frequency of a critical discrepancy between desired and actual affect is assumed to foster affect regulation. Using three independent samples and different approaches to assess affect, desired affect and affective discrepancy were investigated together with personality, self-efficacy in affect regulation, life satisfaction, and depression. Apart from a general hedonistic motivation, we observed a meaningful interindividual variation in desired affect and affective discrepancy. The findings are discussed with regard to the role desired affect plays for interindividual differences in affect regulation and the appropriate assessment of affective discrepancy. Ó 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction 1.1. Desired affect Human affect1 is a complex phenomenon comprising of not only the mere experience of pleasure or discomfort paired with different level of activation (Russell, 1980; Watson & Tellegen, 1985; Watson, Wiese, Vaidya, & Tellegen, 1999), but also meta-affective experiences (e.g. Salovey, Mayer, Goldman, Turvey, & Palfai, 1995), and affectregulatory processes (Gross, 1999; Larsen, 2000). Empirical research has provided evidence for a substantial relationship between certain aspects of personality and affective experiences of individuals. Accordingly, extraversion is positively associated with the frequency of experiencing pleasant affect while neuroticism relates to general unpleasant affect (Costa & McCrae, 1989; Watson & Clark, 1992). Apart from the individual proneness towards affect, aspects of its regulation are also assumed to contribute to general affective experiences. There is an unbowed interest in psychological research and practice on examining the phenomenon of affect regulation. Taking a differential perspective on the process, Larsen (2000), for example, proposes a control model of affect, which borrows from cybernetic models of self-regulation. The central assumption of this model is a comparator function contrasting the individual affective set-point termed desired affect with the current affective state of a person. * Corresponding author. Fax: +91 44 4219 7763. E-mail address: [email protected] (N. Kämpfe). 1 Throughout the article we use affect as the broadest term encompassing feelings, moods and emotions (Russell, 2000). 0092-6566/$ - see front matter Ó 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jrp.2009.01.007

Whenever a critical threshold of a discrepancy between both affect states is detected, regulatory endeavors are fostered (cf. Higgins, 1997). Thus, the desired affect of a person defines the affective end state or goal the individual is motivated to achieve. As a consequence, understanding how people feel and what they do in order to influence their affects requires understanding of people’s affective motivation. However, contrary to research on goal-striving, studies investigating desired affect are surprisingly rare. This might be owing to the fact that pleasant moods are highly socially desirable just as much as unpleasant moods are undesirable. A number of empirical studies have confirmed the prevalence of a general hedonic principle mirrored in a strong preference of pleasant and activated affects over unpleasant and unactivated affects, particularly for Western cultures (Feldman Barrett, 1996; Rusting & Larsen, 1995; Sommers, 1984; Tsai, Knutson, & Fung, 2006; Västfjäll, Gärling, & Kleiner, 2001). Accordingly, every person was simply assumed to desire maximum pleasure and minimum pain (Kahneman, Diener, & Schwarz, 1999). From this point of view, asking people how they would generally like to feel seems rather odd, because one would expect the obvious answer of ‘‘Good, of course!”. However, despite the rationality of assuming a general hedonic principle, alternative perspectives on well-being have raised doubts and concerns, and it is not acceptable to presume that all people seek only maximum pleasure and minimum pain (Deci & Ryan, 2001) or as Higgins (1997, S.1280) stated: ‘‘The problem with the hedonic principle is not that it is wrong but that psychologists have relied on it too heavily as an explanation for motivation. . .”.

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There is empirical evidence for meaningful interindividual variability in desired affect (Rusting & Larsen, 1995; Tsai et al., 2006). Rusting and Larsen (1995), for example, referred to personality theories of optimal level of arousal (e.g. Eysenck, 1967) and expected extraverts (characterized by chronically lower levels of arousal compared to introverts) to particularly prefer activated over inactivated affect states contrary to introverts. However, rather than a relationship between extraversion and desired activation, Rusting and Larsen (1995) observed a preference of pleasant affects and a dislike of unpleasant affects amongst extraverted persons. Hence, level of activation did not emerge as an important dimension of desired affect; regardless of whether the affect was activated or unactivated, extraverts simply desired more pleasant affect compared to introverts. Neuroticism on the other hand was significantly (positively) correlated only with unactivated-pleasant affect and unactivated affects. Consequently, similar patterns of correlations with personality were observed for general and desired affect, which themselves were supposedly positively correlated; Tsai et al. (2006) observed moderate correlations between actual and ideal affect ranging from .11 to .53. Summarizing, although a general hedonistic motivation is supported by several studies, hedonism alone is insufficient in explaining the full effects of affective motivation as it is seen that there are interindividual differences in desired affect. Imagine a person who reports experiencing a low level of pleasant affects in general. According to the assumptions of hedonism, one would conclude that this person has primarily failed to regulate his or her affects appropriately, and that he or she would be dissatisfied. However, this might be wrong in as much as the person might not even desire to experience stronger positive affect. Hence, the individual should reveal little discrepancy between the actual level of pleasant affect and the desired level of pleasant affect. 1.2. Affective discrepancy Self-regulation research suggests that neither the current state, nor the goal itself are factors solely sufficient for predicting regulatory endeavors or well-being, but more especially are the discrepancies between both. Empirical research on goal-attainment has consistently shown that the performance-goal-discrepancy is negatively related to satisfaction (e.g. Bandura & Cervone, 1986; Kernan & Lord, 1991). Moreover, Rice, McFarlin, and Bennett (1989) proved the difference between the state of performance and the goal to be incrementally valid for satisfaction over both single components. According to Larsen’s (2000) model, affect regulatory efforts are supposed to start as soon as the individual realizes a noticeable affective discrepancy between actual affect and desired affect; in other words, if the person is not satisfied with his or her actual affect. This hypothesis has not yet been investigated to our knowledge. Further to this, it has neither theoretically nor empirically been considered whether the mere perception of an affective discrepancy and its size provide different information regarding the prediction of regulatory endeavors. Additionally, the experience of discontent with actual affect should only lead to negative outcomes if this experience of discontent occurs frequently and if the discrepancy cannot be successfully reduced by the individual. Hence, the short and long-term effects of affective discrepancy and the role of self-efficacy in affect regulation might differ considerably. In a given situation, the experience of an affective discrepancy could be completely independent from the person’s general affect-regulatory efficacy, whereas in the long run, persons possessing especially high affect regulatory efficacy should manage to maintain a low level of affective discrepancy. Alternatively, individuals rarely experiencing affective discrepancies should be in

less need to regulate their affects. Both should result in higher levels of satisfaction or well-being and lower levels of depression. It might be inferred that as with general affect, general affective discrepancy might be a relatively stable individual characteristic. Very little is known, however, about the meaning of interindividual differences in affective discrepancy. To our knowledge, there is only one available empirical study regarding the relevance of interindividual differences in affective discrepancy (Tsai et al., 2006). While the authors reported a positive relationship between the actual-ideal affect discrepancy and depression, unfortunately no other relevant information was available. Moreover, the study focused exclusively on high versus low activated pleasant affect; consequently, there are no results for the discrepancy between actual and desired unpleasant affects. Albeit that Larsen (2000) assumes that any discrepancy is a signal for affect regulation, discrepancies for pleasant and unpleasant affect might have a different meaning given the relative importance of negative over positive affect (Baumeister, Bratslavsky, Finkenauer, & Vohs, 2001). 2. Present research So far, the general hedonic principle is challenged by interindividual differences in desired affect that relate to relatively stable personality characteristics (Rusting & Larsen, 1995; Tsai et al., 2006). The affective discrepancy between actual and desired affect is assumed highly relevant for effort of affect regulations (Larsen, 2000). In the long term, it should relate to self-efficacy in affect regulation and affect-related criteria. However, research on desired affect and affective discrepancy is scant, and many questions still remain open. Two empirical studies were conducted intending to confirm and extend earlier findings for desired affect and discrepancy between actual and desired affect. We pursued the following research aims. First, in line with prior results, we attempted to replicate the general hedonic principle by confirming a relative preference of pleasant over unpleasant affects (e.g., Feldman Barrett, 1996; Västfjäll et al., 2001). Also, and importantly, we anticipated significant differences between general and desired affect, such that the majority of persons desire more pleasant and less unpleasant affect than they actually experienced. Secondly, we expected to find meaningful interindividual differences in desired affect supported by significant correlations between desired affect and other variables, including personality (Rusting & Larsen, 1995). In particular, significant positive relationships were expected between extraversion and the desire for pleasant affects. For neuroticism earlier findings suggest a significantly positive association only with desired pleasant unactivated affect. Thirdly, we investigated interindividual differences in affective discrepancy and relationships to long-term affect-related criteria, for example satisfaction and depression, self-efficacy in affect regulation, and personality. We anticipated affective discrepancy to correlate negatively with life satisfaction and positively with depression (Tsai et al., 2006). A negative relationship is suggested between self-efficacy in affect regulation and general affective discrepancy, as persons with high regulatory efficacy should be successful in reducing affective discrepancy more frequently than low-efficient individuals; this should result in a smaller averaged discrepancy. Concerning the relationship between affective discrepancy and personality, no prior research is available. However, since both neuroticism and extraversion are significantly (yet contrarily) associated with measures of satisfaction (e.g. Diener & Lucas, 1999), and general affective discrepancy might itself be an indicator of satisfaction, neuroticism should positively correlate with affective discrepancy, while extraversion is expected to correlate negatively with affective discrepancy. Fourth, referring to goal-attainment research (Rice et al., 1989), we inves-

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tigated whether affective discrepancy would independently predict affect-related criteria such as life satisfaction and depression over and above general affect and self-efficacy in affect regulation. 3. Overview of Study 1 The first study is based on data from two independent samples; it was particularly conducted to examine the relationships between: (a) desired affect and personality; (b) desired and actual affect, as well as; (c) affective discrepancy and personality. Moreover, we investigated the meaning of desired affect and general affective discrepancy for self-efficacy in affect regulation and life satisfaction (Sample 2). According to prior research (Tsai et al., 2006), a negative relationship was expected between affective discrepancy and life satisfaction. Similarly, we anticipated a negative correlation between affective discrepancy and self-efficacy. Finally, we aimed at investigating whether affective discrepancy was incrementally valid over personality, general affect, and desired affect regarding the prediction of life satisfaction. 3.1. Method 3.1.1. Participants Sample 1 consisted of 171 students (63.8% females) of the University of Jena with a mean age of 21.8 (SD = 5.01), who received course credits for participation. Sample 2 consisted of a mixed sample of 109 persons (60.6% females) including students and non-students with a mean age of 26.2 years (SD = 5.7), who received a lottery ticket for participation.

at all apply to me”) to 5 (‘‘does perfectly apply to me”). Cronbach’s Alphas were .84 for extraversion and .75 for neuroticism. In Sample 2, general and desired affect were assessed using the German version of the Positive Affect Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS; Krohne, Egloff, Kohlmann, & Tausch, 1996), which consists of 10 positive and 10 negative affective adjectives. On a five-point scale ranging from 1 (‘‘never”) to 5 (‘‘very often”) participants indicate how frequently they generally experience each affect and how frequently they wish to feel it. Cronbach’s Alphas were .79 for positive affect (PA) and .78 for negative affect (NA). Neuroticism and extraversion were assessed using the subscales of the NEO-FFI (Costa & McCrae, German version by Borkenau & Ostendorf, 1993). Both revealed satisfactory reliabilities (Cronbach’s Alpha for neuroticism: .88; for extraversion: .84). Further instruments used were the German version of the Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS, Diener, Emmons, Larsen & Griffin, 1985), in which five items are rated on a seven-point liker scale (Cronbach’s Alpha: .87), and the Self-efficacy in Affect regulation Scale (SEA, Mitte & Kämpfe, 2007). The SEA comprises of a 10-item measure (5 proand 5 con-traits) that was constructed in order to capture the full range of affect regulation, rather than only hedonistic regulation (e.g, ‘‘I know what I need to do to achieve my desired mood in a situation”, ‘‘I have no idea how to influence my mood”). In several studies an average internal consistency of .86 was observed, along with a re-test reliability of .66 (1 month interval). In the present study, Cronbach’s Alpha was .86. Each participant first rated his or her general affect followed by desired affect and personality. 3.2. Results

3.1.2. Materials and procedure In order to achieve results that are generalizable across assessment measures, we used different questionnaires in the two samples. In Sample 1, general and desired affect were assessed utilizing German translations of the 48 mood adjectives, as used by Rusting and Larsen (1995), which themselves represent the affect octants of the valence-activation circumplex (Russell, 1980). Examples of the used adjectives were for activated: active, energetic; for activated pleasant: enthusiastic, excited; for pleasant: happy, joyful; for unactivated pleasant: pleased, contented; for unactivated: sleepy, drowsy; for unactivated unpleasant: melancholic, depressed; for unpleasant: unhappy, sad; for activated unpleasant: angry, nervous. For each affect, participants were requested to indicate how they generally felt or wished to feel. The response scales for general and desired affect both ranged from 1 (‘‘never”) to 5 (‘‘very often”). Additionally, in line with Rusting and Larsen (1995), neuroticism and extraversion were assessed using the German version of the Eysenck Personality Inventory (EPI, Eggert, 1983), for which answers were given on a five-point-scale ranging from 1 (‘‘does not

3.2.1. General and desired affect Descriptive statistics and internal consistencies are displayed in Table 1 (Sample 1) and Table 3 (Sample 2). In order to clarify the importance of the hedonistic view, t-tests were computed in the first instance. As was expected, mean pleasant affect was significantly preferred over unpleasant affect state in both samples (t (170) = 52.24, p < .001 and t (108) = 58.60, p < .001, respectively). Additionally, desired positive affect was significantly higher than general positive affect (t (170) = 20.17, p < .001 and t (108) = 17.07, p < .001, respectively), whereas desired negative affect was significantly lower than current negative affect (t (170) = 26.85, p < .001 and t (108) = 21.04, p < .001, respectively). The next step was to investigate how many participants could be defined as hedonists when applying a-priori defined criteria. Thus, we split the sample both regarding positive and negative desired affect: pleasure seekers were defined as persons who score 4 or higher on average desired pleasant affect, and pain avoiders were defined as persons who score 2 or lower on average desired

Table 1 Study 1, Sample 1: descriptive statistics and internal consistency. General affect

Desired affect

Affective discrepancy

M

SD

Rel.

M

SD

Rel.

M

SD

High activation Activated pleasant Pleasant Unactivated pleasant Low activation Unactivated unpleasant Unpleasant Activated unpleasant

3.35 3.28 3.79 3.17 2.60 2.56 2.54 2.72

.55 .57 .58 .62 .57 .60 .63 .57

.77 .77 .88 .83 .72 .70 .87 .75

3.75 3.92 4.53 4.30 2.31 1.47 1.43 1.47

.58 .59 .44 .48 .45 .40 .45 .42

.78 .76 .85 .71 .61 .75 .82 .78

.55 .68 .77 1.15 .53 1.09 1.11 1.25

.48 .50 .57 .69 .42 .60 .67 .65

Mean pleasant Mean unpleasant

3.41 2.60

.52 .52

.91 .87

4.25 1.46

.44 .38

.88 .84

.87 1.15

.50 .55

Note. Mean pleasant: mean of pleasant, pleasant activated, and pleasant unactivated affect; mean unpleasant: mean of unpleasant, unpleasant activated, and unpleasant unactivated affect; affective discrepancy: absolute values of difference between desired and actual affect.

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Table 2 Study 1, Sample 1: correlations. General affect

Desired affect

N

E

N

Affective discrepancy E

N

E

High activation Activated-pleasant Pleasant Unactivated-pleasant Low activation Unactivated-unpleasant Unpleasant Activated-unpleasant

.35*** .37*** .52*** .58*** .21** .66*** .67*** .47***

.46*** .55*** .58*** .40*** .31*** .43*** .42*** .16*

.14 .17* .14 .05 .02 .24** .13 .07

.37*** .50*** .42*** .29*** .11 .28*** .30*** .19*

.19* .16* .38** .45** .20** .51** .54** .36**

.12 .06 .27** .17* .21** .24** .19* .01

Mean pleasant Mean unpleasant

.56*** .70***

.57*** .40***

.14 .16*

.47*** .28***

.40** .55**

.20** .17*

* **

p < .05. p < .01. p < .001.

***

unpleasant affect. Accordingly, the majority of both samples was classified as pleasure-seeker (73% and 87%, respectively), and importantly, even more participants were characterized as painavoiders (93% and 94%, respectively). Thus, avoiding pain was observed to be important for more participants than achieving maximum pleasure. Next, we investigated correlational pattern of general and desired affect. First, in line with our expectations, general and desired affect were significantly associated with each other both in Sample 1 (ranging from r = .16 (p < .05) for activated-unpleasant affect to .54 (p < .001) for activated-pleasant affect; average r = .32) and Sample 2 (PA: r = .39, p < .001 and NA: r = .30, p < .001). Moreover, general and desired affect revealed comparable patterns of correlations with personality (see Tables 2 and 3). In Sample 1, extraversion related positively to pleasant and activated desired affects and negatively to unpleasant and unactivated affects. Neuroticism was weakly but positively correlated with the desire for unpleasant unactivated affect. In Sample 2, extraversion correlated significantly positively with desired PA; the correlation between neuroticism and desired affect was rather small, yet a positive relationship was observed between neuroticism and desired NA. Interestingly, there was no significant relationship between neuroticism and desired positive affect in both samples. To investigate whether personality was related to the previously mentioned hedonistic subgroups, we computed two logistic regressions in both samples using extraversion and neuroticism as predictors for the two hedonist grouping variables (high vs.

Table 3 Study 1, Sample 2: descriptive statistics and correlations. Actual affect

Desired affect

Affective discrepancy

PA

NA

PA

NA

PA

Descriptives M SD ra

3.66 .42 .41**

2.56 .49

4.35 .32 .17

1.55 .34

Correlations Neuroticism Extraversion SEA SWLS

.48** .57** .45** .46**

.71** .24* .44** .42**

.01 .35** .11 .05

.18 .01 .29** .12

.70 .39 .42** .51** .32** .38** .41**

NA 1.01 .49

.57** .23* .24* .33**

Note. PA = positive affect, NA = negative affect; SEA = scale of efficacy in affect regulation. a Correlations between PA and NA; SWLS = satisfaction with life scale; SEA = selfefficacy of affect regulation. * p < .05. ** p < .01.

low pleasure seekers, high vs. low pain avoiders). Median split and cross-tabs were additionally used to report the exact number of people falling into each combination. In Sample 1, both regression analyses revealed significant effects of extraversion. In both cases, increasing scores on extraversion significantly increased the chance of being classified as a high pleasure seeker (Beta = 1.65, Wald = 15.97, p < .001, Exp (B) = 5.21) and a high pain avoider, respectively (Beta = 1.55, Wald = 5.20, p < .05, Exp (B) = 4.69). Neuroticism did not predict the hedonistic classification (pleasureseeking: Beta = .09, Wald = .11, p = .75, Exp (B) = 1.10; pain-avoidance: Beta = .12, Wald = .07, p = .79, Exp (B) = .89). These results were confirmed by chi-square-tests according to which the small group of non-hedonists were significantly more introverted than the hedonists (pleasure seeker: n = 34 introverts versus n = 12 extraverts; pain avoider: n = 10 introverts versus N = 2 extraverts), whereas no differences were found regarding neuroticism. The results in Sample 2 were very similar. While neuroticism was unrelated to the hedonist groups (pleasure-seeking Beta = .16, Wald = .14, p = .71, Exp (B) = 1.18; pain-avoidance: Beta = .80, Wald = 2.42, p = .12, Exp (B) = .45), extraversion significantly predicted the pleasure-seeking classification (Beta = .95, Wald = 4.29, p < .05, Exp (B) = 2.60). Amongst the low pleasure seekers were again more introverts (N = 11) than extraverts (N = 2). In Sample 2 however, extraversion did not predict pain avoidance classification (Beta = .52, Wald = .58, p = .45, Exp (B) = .60). 3.2.2. Affective discrepancy The affective discrepancy was calculated for each affect as the absolute difference between general and desired affect. We found a significantly positive correlation of mean affective discrepancy in pleasant and unpleasant affect (Sample 1: average r = .55, p < .01; Sample 2: .43, p < .01). Accordingly, persons who experience a larger discrepancy for pleasant affects also experience a larger discrepancy for unpleasant affects. Obviously, affective discrepancy was rather valence-independent. This finding is supported by a similar correlational pattern obtained for the discrepancy in pleasant and unpleasant affect. For each affect, but most strongly for unpleasant affects, the discrepancy between general and desired affect was positively correlated with neuroticism, signifying larger affective discrepancies for neurotic compared to emotionally stable persons (see Tables 2 and 3). To the contrary, extraversion was weaker but consistently negatively correlated with affective discrepancies. Hence, extraverted persons tend to reveal lower discrepancies between general and desired affects when compared with introverted persons. For Sample 2, additional data were available concerning potential correlates of the affective discrepancy (see Table 3). As ex-

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pected, both the affect regulatory self-efficacy and life satisfaction were consistently negatively correlated with the affective discrepancy for PA and NA. Accordingly, persons with a larger affective discrepancy reported lower levels of regulatory self-efficacy and life satisfaction. To investigate whether affective discrepancy in PA and NA is incrementally valid over personality, general, and desired affect, we aimed at conducting regression analyses using neuroticism, extraversion, general affect, current affect, and affective discrepancy to predict life-satisfaction. However, requirements for regression analysis were not fulfilled as tests for multicollinearity were significant, indicating that affective discrepancy was not sufficiently distinct from general affect for both PA and NA. Hence, regression analyses were not conducted. 3.3. Discussion With Study 1, we not only supported prior results to a considerable degree but also broadened our knowledge about the concept of desired affect and its relationship with personality. As hypothesized, desired affect mirrored hedonistic affective motivation. The largest proportion of our sample could be described as hedonists, as they were recorded desiring and seeking pleasure, and wishing to avoid pain, whereas striving for minimum pain was observed to be even more important than striving for maximum pleasure, underlining the importance of negative relative to positive affects (Baumeister et al., 2001). However, desired affect also showed meaningful interindividual variability. First, we observed positive correlations between desired and general affect for all octants of the circumplex. For instance, persons with a stronger desire for pleasant affects reported to experience more pleasant affects and persons desiring more unpleasant affects were experiencing more unpleasant affects. Furthermore, extraverted persons reported experiencing and desiring more pleasant and less unpleasant affects compared to introverts. In line with Rusting and Larsen (1995), we observed a positive relationship between neuroticism and the desire for unactivated affects. Divergent from the prior study however, we found a positive relationship between neuroticism and desired unactivated-unpleasant affect, again reflecting a correspondence between actual affective experience and desired affect. At present, the causality of these relationships remains unclear because a discrepancy between actual and desired affect is reducible by either changing the actual state through affect regulation, or by adjusting the desired state in the sense of realistic goal-setting. External criteria are required to investigate the nature of desired affect. Importantly, we found consistent relationships between personality and affective discrepancy, which was operationalized as the difference between general and desired affect. Persons especially high in neuroticism, hence persons with a high disposition to experience unpleasant affect (Costa & McCrae, 1989; Watson & Clark, 1992), wish to feel different to the way they generally do, especially regarding unpleasant affects. Thus, the finding of a positive correlation between depression and discrepancy in pleasant affects (Tsai et al., 2006) is extended for personality and the whole affective spectrum. However, since a strong hedonic principle held especially for unpleasant affects, and given the weak correlations between neuroticism and desired affect, the distinctiveness of unpleasant affective discrepancy from general unpleasant affect is highly questionable. Correlations between neuroticism and affective discrepancy might simply mirror the general affective experience. In contrast, the relationship between extraversion and the affective discrepancy was rather weak although consistent correlations were found for general and desired affect. However, at present it remains unclear as to whether the observed interindividual differences in affective discrepancy are either functions of (un)realistic goal-setting, or (un)successful affect-regulation. It

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can be argued that higher affect-regulatory efficacy should result in lower affective discrepancy in the long term. A second main focus was on the relationships of desired affect and affective discrepancy with self-efficacy in affect regulation and life satisfaction. In general, desired affect did not reveal strong associations with both criteria. It was completely unrelated to life satisfaction indicating that the affective goals of individuals seemed relatively unimportant for their overall well-being. The discrepancy between actual affective experience and affective desire, however, revealed substantial relationships with both criteria. As expected, higher discrepancy levels were associated with lower scores in self-efficacy in affect regulation, as well as life satisfaction. Importantly, the same pattern of correlations was observed for the discrepancy scores regarding pleasant and unpleasant affect, suggesting a common basis for affective discrepancy. However, the results also revealed that affective discrepancy merely mirrored general affect. Hence, and contrary to findings for general goal-attainment (Rice et al., 1989), the difference score did not reveal unique importance over the two components upon which it was calculated. This might be caused by the way affective discrepancy was operationalized as the difference between two algebraic indices. Deriving a measure of discrepancy from collapsing two indices into a single one has several substantial and methodological problems (Edwards, 1994). According to the hedonic principle, most people desire to feel more pleasant, and indeed less unpleasant than they actually do; this is indicated by the non-zero difference between general and desired affect. However, persons frequently experiencing pleasant affects and therefore often choosing the response ‘‘very often” for general affect, cannot express a possible desire to feel pleasant even more often (ceiling and floor effects). In addition, assessing people’s general desired affect might merely reflect the social desirability of pleasant affects in western cultures (Feldman Barrett, 1996; Sommers, 1984; Västfjäll et al., 2001), rather than the individual level of hedonistic motivation. Following these considerations, we conducted a second study in which we used a different measurement technique for desired affect as well as a situation-specific approach. 4. Overview of Study 2 The second study was conducted with a particular focus on the role of affective discrepancy. According to findings of Study 1, referring affective discrepancy from the difference between general and desired affect seems to be problematic. In Study 2, we aimed at more directly approaching affective discrepancy, in order to circumvent the shortcoming of the difference score approach and to allow the disentangling of the mere occurrence of affective discrepancies from its size. The control model of mood regulation (Larsen, 2000), asserts that a person experiences an affective discrepancy as soon as he or she realizes any discontent with the actual affect, and any desire to feel differently. For example, a person who desires to feel more excited than he or she actually feels in a given situation is supposed to experience an affective discrepancy or discontent. To the contrary, a person being completely satisfied with the actual affect state is not expected to experience an affective discontent, and hence should not desire to feel differently. Accordingly, participants of Study 2 reported whether or not, and to which extent they desired to feel differently. As a second contrast to Study 1, we adopted a situation-specific approach in Study 2. Despite the socially or culturally shared affective standards (e.g. Sommers, 1984; Västfjäll et al., 2001), there is also evidence for considerable cross-situational variability in desired affect (Erber & Erber, 2000; Parrott, 1993). Situational demands like distress and cognitive load or situation-specific social constraints (e.g. attending a funeral) are expected to influence the

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current desired affect of a person, which could even result in anhedonistic motivation. Thus, a situation-specific approach to measure affective discrepancy should have a high ecological validity. Participants in Study 2 reported how they wished to feel in different episodes of their previous day. As a consequence, this approach allows one to independently measure the frequency of experiencing an affective discrepancy (affective discontent), and the size of the discrepancy (strength of hedonistic motivation, hence, pleasure seeking and pain avoidance). The latter refers closely to desired affect as assessed in Study 1. There are two further important consequences of the direct and situation-specific approach to affective discrepancy. First, although situation-specific desired affect is not expected to consistently mirror the hedonic principle (Erber & Erber, 2000), averaging across occasions should re-expose the general preference of pleasant over unpleasant affects. Secondly, low levels of affective discrepancy should not simply be interpreted as a result of successful affect regulation, because the inverse relationship between efficacy in affect regulation and affective discrepancy (Study 1) might only hold for the long term. Current affective discrepancy should be a significant predictor of current affect-regulatory need but says nothing about the general success of affect regulation. Whereas general affective discrepancy was shown to be highly relevant for the prediction of long-term affect-related criteria (e.g. depression, Tsai et al., 2006), no data are yet available to elucidate whether this relationship holds for a situation-specific approach. Summing up, in the second study we used a direct and situation-specific approach to affective discrepancy in order to separate the mere prevalence of an affective discontent from the hedonistic motivation of an individual. Our research aims were: first, to replicate the hedonistic principle on an average level (across situations and participants); second, to replicate the correlational pattern for desired affect and affective discrepancy using personality, life satisfaction, depression and self-efficacy in affect regulation; and third, to examine the incremental validity of affective discontent and hedonistic motivation in predicting (a) the current need to regulate one’s affects (Larsen, 2000) and (b) depression. 4.1. Method The sample consisted of 90 students (74.4% females) with a mean age of 22.0 years (SD = 2.23, Range = 19–32). 4.1.1. Materials and procedure The present study was part of a larger research project. Here, only the measures relevant for the present research will be reported. For the situation-specific assessment of affect and affective discrepancy, we adapted the Day Reconstruction Method (DRM), as

was introduced by Kahneman, Krueger, Schkade, Schwarz, and Stone (2004). The DRM retrospectively assesses real-time experiences of the previous day, thereby keeping errors and recall biases low, and reducing the enormous costs of the Experience Sampling Method (ESM). It provides an almost complete picture of the full day, rather than a random sample of moments. We used two separate packets. The first packet was a short diary for private use only, with which participants individually restructured the day into consecutive episodes of a maximum of five episodes for the three time periods, they being the morning, the afternoon as well as the evening. Participants were invited to give each episode a name, to fill in the starting and ending times, and to briefly recall what they were doing and how they felt. Within the possible range of 15 episodes, the choice of number or timing of episodes was completely up to the participants. The second packet was a booklet of fifteen identical questionnaires, one for each episode, with which actual and desired affect were assessed according to the specific situation. In order to keep the effort of the repeated measurement within a convenient range, we used a 10-item measure to assess current affect in a maximum of 15 situations. Accordingly, five composite items were used for each pleasant and unpleasant affect. Pleasant items were ‘‘happy/ enthusiastic/cheerful”, ‘‘contented/satisfied/enjoying”, ‘‘interested/ attentive”, ‘‘friendly/warm”, and ‘‘competent/capable”. The five unpleasant items were ‘‘melancholic/sad”, ‘‘anxious/worried/nervous”, ‘‘stressed out/frustrated”, ‘‘angry/enraged/annoyed”, and ‘‘embarrassed/ashamed”. Mean internal consistencies of both scales were .88 for pleasant and .71 for unpleasant affect. To report the intensity of their current affect, participants were provided with a seven-point scale ranging from 1 ‘‘not at all” to 7 ‘‘very much”, headlined with ‘‘mood during the episode”. In the same manner, affective discrepancy was measured with a second scale headlined with ‘‘Did you wish to feel differently?” The scale ranged from 3 ‘‘wished to feel minimum of this mood” to 3 ‘‘Wished to feel maximum of this mood”, with a mid-point of 0 ‘‘Was absolutely okay with my mood”. Thus, for all affects, participants indicated whether they were satisfied with the current intensity (mid-point of the scale), or whether and how much they wished to experience more (right from the middle) or less of the affect (left from the middle, Fig. 1). Finally, in each episode, a global item asked participants for their mood-regulatory need (‘‘Did you feel a want to change your mood?”); responses to that item were given on a five-point scale ranging from 1 ‘‘not at all”, to 5 ‘‘very much”. Finally, personality, self-efficacy of affect regulation, and life satisfaction were assessed as in Sample 2 of Study 1. Cronbach’s Alphas were .82 for neuroticism, .73 for extraversion, .86 for SEA, and .83 for SWLS. To measure depression, we included the German ver-

Fig. 1. Assessment of actual affect and affective discrepancy in Study 2.

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N. Kämpfe, K. Mitte / Journal of Research in Personality 43 (2009) 409–418 Table 4 Study 2: descriptive statistics and correlations. Actual affect

Descriptives M SD Correlations Actual PA Actual NA Affective discontent PA Affective discontent NA Hedonistic motivation PA Hedonistic motivation NA Neuroticism Extraversion SEA SWLS Depression

Affective discontenta

Hedonistic motivationb

PA

NA

PA

NA

PA

NA

3.84 .92

2.48 .64

64.00 23.08

41.13 16.24

1.70 .45

2.53 .36

.17 .11 .17 .23* .09 .14 .05 .29** .12 .03

.31** .81** .28** .39** **

.34 .17 .14 .19 .33**

.48** .28* .21* *

.21 .17 .19 .26* .26*

.16 .51** **

.33 .27* .13 .25* .45**

.45 .28 .26* .19 .48** .35** .22* .09

.31** .06 .05 .13 .09 .03

Need for regulation

.21* .30** .08 .26* .35**

.11 .02 .01 .15 .14

a

Percentage of responses other than satisfaction with current affect. Intensity of pleasure seeking and pain avoidance ranging from 1 to 3; SWLS = satisfaction with life scale; SEA = self-efficacy of affect regulation. * p < .05. ** p < .01.

b

sion of the Beck’s Depression Inventory (BDI, Hautzinger, Bailer, Worrall & Keller, 1995, Cronbach’s Alpha = .88). The assessment took place within two independent groups of participants in a large lecture hall. One group was administered on a Monday and the second group was administered on a Thursday. Participants completed the diary report first, followed by the general questionnaires. The total assessment took about 60 min. Participants received 8 € for taking part in the study. 4.2. Data preparation Because the data obtained from the affective discrepancy measure should not be treated as interval-scaled, and in order to separate the mere existence of an affective discrepancy from its size, the raw scores were coded in different ways. First, we investigated the distribution of responses on the affective discrepancy scale in order to examine whether the general hedonic principle also held when specific occasions were considered.2 Therefore, we sorted the affective discrepancy responses for pleasant and unpleasant affects separately into one of three categories: (a) satisfaction with the actual affect (indicated by the 0-response in the middle of the scale), (b) hedonistic motivation of desiring more pleasant (pleasure-seeking) or less unpleasant affects (pain avoidance), and (c) anhedonistic motivation of pleasure avoidance or pain seeking. Next, we calculated the percentage of responses in each of the three categories. Secondly, we created an indicator for the frequency of affective discontent by summing up responses sorted into categories (b) and (c). To whit, the frequency of affective discontent included every 2 Prior to the analyses, we checked for invalid responses defined as responses indicating that participants wished to feel more of a pleasant affect, although they already experienced maximum of it, as well as for responses indicating a desire of less intense unpleasant affect, although participants reported not feeling the unpleasant affect at all. As an interesting result in itself, we observed an impressive difference between pleasant and unpleasant affect regarding such invalid responses. While for pleasant affects, the number of invalid responses ranged from 0 to 1 (M = .06, SD = .23), for unpleasant affect we identified between 0 and 50 responses, in which the affect was not felt at all but was still desired to be diminished (M = 6.44, SD = 6.04). Qualified with the individual number of episodes, invalid moments were observed on average in .11% (SD = .44) of responses for PA and in 12.08% (SD = 9.13) of responses for NA. These desired affect responses were not valid in term of the measurement procedure, and thus were excluded from the analyses. The number of invalid cases, however, was unrelated to any other variable.

response that indicated having desired to feel differently. Hence, values close to 100% indicate that participants wished to feel differently most of the time in most (pleasant and unpleasant) affects. Third, we computed an indicator for hedonistic motivation (pleasure-seeking and pain avoidance) by averaging responses that fell into category (b) separately for pleasant and unpleasant affect. According to the response scale, hedonistic motivation can vary from 1 to 3 for both pleasant and unpleasant affect, whereas values close to three-point toward stronger hedonistic motivation. Finally, the global regulatory need item was dichotomized, where 0 indicated ‘‘no regulatory need at all”, and 1 indicated ‘‘at least some regulatory need”. The final indicator of the individual need for affect-regulation was obtained by averaging the dichotomized measures across episodes. 4.3. Results On average, participants filled out M = 10.38 episodes (SD = 1.97, Range = 7–15) while 81% of the sample filled out between 9 and 13 episodes. Hence, the total number of data moments for PA and NA each varied between 35 and 75.3 Descriptive statistics for the diary measure and correlations are presented in Table 4. As a first step, we investigated the distribution of responses for affective discrepancy according to the three categories. Accordingly, for pleasant affect (a) 64.00% of responses indicated satisfaction with actual affect, (b) 29.21% of responses were classified as pleasure seeking, and (c) 1.21% of responses indicated pleasure avoidance. For unpleasant affects, distribution was as follows: (a) 41.13%; (b) 40.47%; (c) 3.67%.4 Taken together, participants reported an affective discrepancy, that is a wish to feel differently in 30% of responses to pleasant affects, and in 44% of responses to unpleasant affect. Reconfirming the hedonic principle, the majority of responses that indicated an affective discrepancy pointed towards either seeking pleasure or avoidance pain. Next, we investigated the intercorrelations of actual affect, affective discontent and hedonistic motivation (Table 4). While actual PA and NA were rather independent from each other, affective discontent with PA and NA, as well as hedonistic motivation regarding PA and NA were significantly positively interrelated. Hence, partici3 For instance, 5 PA items times 7 up to 15 episodes. The number of completed episodes was uncorrelated to any of the other variables. 4 Due to exclusion criteria for invalid data moments (see Footnote 2), distribution of responses into the three categories do not sum up to 100%.

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pants who frequently reported discontent with PA also reported discontent with NA more frequently on average, and participants with a stronger tendency of pleasure seeking also revealed a stronger tendency of pain avoidance compared to individuals with lower levels of hedonistic motivation. Actual PA related significantly but weakly to hedonistic motivation in PA. Accordingly, persons actually experiencing high levels of pleasant affect revealed a less intensive pleasure seeking compared to individuals with low levels in PA. Interestingly, we found no significant relationship between actual PA and the frequency of affective discontent. Actual NA, however, correlated strongly positively with the frequency of affective discrepancy in NA, moderately positively with the frequency and the hedonistic motivation in PA, and negatively with the hedonistic motivation in NA. Accordingly, individuals who experienced more unpleasant affect during their previous day frequently reported a wish to feel differently, especially regarding unpleasant affects, as well as a less strong motivation of pain avoidance. For the next step, we examined the relationships between the diary measures, personality and the affect-related criteria. For both PA and NA, the frequency of affective discontent was significantly positively associated with neuroticism and depression and significantly negatively correlated with SWLS. In addition, discontent with NA was significantly negatively correlated with extraversion. Accordingly, participants who frequently experienced affective discontent in PA or NA tended to be more neurotic, more depressed, and less satisfied with life. The strength of pleasure seeking was unrelated to any of the variables. However, pain avoidance showed significant negative associations with neuroticism and depression, and positive associations with extraversion and life satisfaction. As a final step, we conducted two hierarchical regression analyses to test whether the measures of affective discontent and hedonic motivation would uniquely account for averaged regulatory needs as well as depression over and above personality, and the actual affect of the previous day. In the first step, we entered the neuroticism, extraversion and the averaged current PA and NA of the previous day to the model. In the second step the frequency of affective discontent with PA and NA was included fol-

lowed by the hedonistic motivation of pleasure seeking and pain avoidance in the third step. The change in R2 from steps 1 to 2 was used to investigate whether the frequency of affective discrepancy would incrementally add to the explanation of the averaged regulatory need over personality and current affect. Similarly, the change in R2 from steps 2 to 3 would indicate whether the size of the affective discrepancy would uniquely account for the strength of regulatory need over personality, current affect and affective discontent. Table 5 displays the results of the full regression analyses. For need for regulation, the change in R2 from steps 1 to 2 was significant, but not the change from steps 2 to 3. Indeed affective discontent with PA and NA were the only significant predictors of the need for regulation. Interestingly, neither personality nor actual affect were significant predictors in any of the three steps of the analysis. For depression, a different picture emerged with personality being strongly predictive throughout each step of the hierarchical regression analysis. In fact, already in the first step, 50% of the total variance of depression was explained particularly by neuroticism and extraversion, whereas current affect did not contribute significantly. After including affective discontent with PA and NA to the model, a significant increment in R2 of 5% was achieved mainly due to affective discontent with NA; moreover, the regression weight of extraversion no longer reached significance. The inclusion of pleasure seeking and pain avoidance into the model (step 3) resulted in a non-significant change in R2 of 1% as well as in a drop of the regression weight of affective discontent with PA below the significance level (p < .07), leaving only neuroticism as the significant predictor of depression. Hence, hedonistic motivation did not uniquely add to explaining the criteria but annulled the significant contribution of affective discontent with NA. In sum, all predictors together accounted for 34% of the variance of current regulatory need, which was a highly situation-specific measure and for 55% of the variance in depression, which was assessed more generally. More than the hedonistic motivation, affective discontent was not only especially important for predicting the regulatory need, but also showed predictive power regarding depression.

Table 5 Study 2: hierarchical regression analyses. Variables

AV: need for regulation B

Neuroticism Extraversion Actual PA Actual NA R2 Neuroticism Extraversion Actual PA Actual NA Affective Discontenta PA Affective Discontenta NA Change in R2 Neuroticism Extraversion Actual PA Actual NA Affective discontenta PA Affective discontenta NA Pleasure seeking Pain avoidance Change in R2 (step 3) Total multiple R2

AV: depression SE B

.02 .02 .05 .05 .00 .06 .03 .11 .01 .01 .01 .06 .02 .14 .01 .01 .07 .01

.05 .06 .04 .05 .06 .04 .05 .03 .07 .00 .00 .27** .04 .06 .03 .07 .00 .00 .07 .10 .01 .34**

b.

B

SE B

.06 .04 .15 .12

4.57 1.86 .48 1.13

.01 .11 .08 .27 .42** .39*

4.41 1.50 .62 1.81 .01 .13

.02 .11 .05 .34 .38** .45* .13 .02

4.38 1.45 .59 1.76 .01 .12 .02 .69

Note. Step 1: Actual PA, Actual NA, SEA; Step 2: Affective Discontent (PA and NA) or Hedonistic Motivation (PA and NA). a Percentage of responses other than satisfaction with current affect. * p < .05. ** p < .01.

.68 .88 .50 .78 .50* .66 .87 .49 1.45 .02 .06 .04* .67 .89 .51 1.48 .02 .06 1.08 1.62 .00 .55**

b. .60** .18* .08 .13 .58** .15 .11 .20 .03 .39* .58** .14 .10 .20 .04 .36 .00 .05

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4.4. Discussion Study 2 replicated and extended the previous findings using a direct and situation-specific approach to affective discrepancy, contrary to the general difference approach used in prior research (e.g. Tsai et al., 2006; present Study 1). One direct advantage of the current approach is that it allows disentangling the existence of an affective discrepancy from its size. Taken together, a (retrospective) desire to feel differently was reported quite often by our participants. Moreover, those persons who had wished to feel differently more often – whether for pleasant or unpleasant affects – tended to be more neurotic, less extraverted, less satisfied with their lives, and more depressed compared to persons who had been more satisfied with their affective experiences throughout the previous day. However, regarding the strength of hedonistic motivation, we only found pain avoidance to significantly relate to external variables. A stronger tendency to avoid unpleasant affects was observed amongst emotional stable, extraverted, satisfied, and less depressed participants. Consequently, participants with a predisposition of experiencing more pleasant and less unpleasant affect (extraverted individuals, emotionally stable individuals) were particularly characterized by a strict avoidance of unpleasant affects. Although the causality of these results is not clear at this point in time, our findings support the idea that high levels of subjective well-being, conceptualized as the ratio between pleasant and unpleasant affect (Diener & Larsen, 1993), particularly benefit from a minimization of unpleasant affects, rather than the maximization of pleasant affects. According to expectancies following from the control model of Larsen (2000), the strongest desire to change one’s mood was observed on average amongst participants who had frequently experienced discontent with PA and NA throughout the previous day. Our findings demonstrated that both discontent with pleasant and unpleasant affective experiences uniquely contribute to affect regulatory intentions, while the size of the affective discrepancy was not incrementally predictive. Depression – the indicator for a lack of long-term well-being – was merely predicted by neuroticism. However, discontent with NA still revealed incremental validity. Again, the magnitude of the affective discrepancy did not explain a unique amount of variance in the criterion. Taken together, findings of Study 2 were in strong accordance with those of Study 1, and particularly supported the research of Larsen (2000), confirming that the frequency of experiencing an affective discrepancy is more informative than the relative size of the discrepancy. A promising pathway for future research on affect regulation is undoubtedly to investigate the role of meta-affective experiences like attention to affect, clarity of affect, and acceptance (Salovey et al., 1995) of affective discrepancy. For example, individuals high in attention might detect emerging affective discrepancies at an earlier point in time and hence, start regulating their mood comparatively early. According to Gross (1999), emotion regulation at an early stage of the emotional process should have beneficial long-term outcomes compared to emotion regulation that is only started after the emotion has fully developed. According to our results however, frequent experiences of affective discrepancies were associated with lower subjective well-being. This might reflect the tendency of chronically unhappy people to construe the same life events less favorable than chronically happy people (Lyubomirsky & Tucker, 1998). Clearly, longitudinal ESM studies providing hierarchically structured data (situations nested in persons) are required to disentangle the short and long-term consequences of affective discrepancies. 5. General discussion Research on desired affect and the relationship between personality and desired affect is still in its early stages. The present

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data are thus important for the full understanding of individual affective experiences. Before discussing the impact of our results, several methodological strengths must to be considered. First, we utilized different methods of assessing affect, desired affect and affective discrepancy, thereby promoting the generalizability of our results. Secondly, with the DRM diary measure, we successfully applied an economic method for collecting repeated measures within individuals that circumvents the cost-and time-intensive experience sampling method. Third, we adopted a direct approach to affective discontent by which the problems of deriving affective discrepancy from algebraic indices are bypassed. 5.1. Desired affect and personality Larsen (2000) introduced the concept of desired affect as the affective set-point of an individual that is constantly compared with the actual affective experience. Identical with the latter, desired affect was assumed to closely relate to personality, thereby questioning the universality of the hedonistic assumption. Indeed, we found strong evidence for meaningful interindividual variation in desired affect, especially with regard to extraversion, which appeared considerably stable across measurement approaches to affect and personality. Taken together, extraverts were shown to desire more pleasant and less unpleasant affect states when compared to introverts in all three samples. However, the present results also suggest that introverts simply do not strive for more pleasant affect than they already have. Obviously, introverts seem to set affective goals that correspond to what is achievable to them. Evidence was also found for a positive yet weak relationship between neuroticism and the desire for unpleasant affects. However, neurotic individuals were not more frequently characterized as anhedonists. That is to say that amongst neurotic participants, individuals with realistic affective desires occurred just as frequently as neurotic as individuals with rather unrealistic affective desires. Our results show, that on average, desired affect is closely related to the actual affective experience of people. Thus, it can be argued that, desired affect reflects mainly the realistic outcome expectancies of individuals rather than successful regulation towards desired affect states, especially with regard to pleasant affect. In other words, people by and large might strive for maintaining congruency in their affect-related self-concept by desiring what they regard realistic. In a related research, Wood, Heimpel, and Michela (2003) observed neurotic and low self-esteem individuals to more likely inhibit positive affects than emotionally stable and individuals with high self-esteem. Other studies have demonstrated individuals to process information in a trait-consistent manner (Lyubomirsky & Tucker, 1998) and also to benefit from trait-consistent mood states for information processing (e.g. Tamir, Robinson, & Clore, 2002). As a consequence, maximum levels of pleasure and complete absence of pain are not necessarily appropriate for all individuals. Rather, individuals seem to prefer affect states they are familiar with and which match their self-concept. In order to clarify the causal nature of the positive relationship between desired affect and actual affective experiences, longitudinal studies are strongly required. 5.2. Affective discrepancy and personality According to Larsen’s (2000) model of mood regulation, the affective discrepancy of actual and desired affect is the central determinant of affect regulation. Across our three samples we observed that persons with a large difference between general and desired affect were more neurotic, less extraverted, and reported lower level of the life satisfaction and self-efficacy in affect regulation. These findings match results from goal-attainment research showing that there is a negative relationship between perfor-

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mance-goal discrepancy and satisfaction (e.g. Bandura & Cervone, 1986, 1970; Kernan & Lord, 1991; Rice et al., 1989). Importantly, we extended earlier findings of a positive relationship between affective discrepancy and negative affectivity (Tsai et al., 2006) for the full range of affects. Indeed, we found affective discrepancy to be rather valence-independent. Individuals having a larger discrepancy in pleasant affects also appeared to have a larger discrepancy in unpleasant affects. Our results also supported the usefulness of distinguishing between the prevalence of an affective discrepancy from the size. The latter seems less important to external criteria than the former. In summary, the present research shows that the investigation of affective discrepancy is most efficacious aiding the understanding of affect regulation in itself, as well as possible outcomes of affect regulation. 5.3. Future directions Our research has provided evidence for meaningful variation in desired affect and affective discrepancy. However, experimental and longitudinal studies are required to investigate the proposed linkages between the subjective experience of affective discrepancy and efforts as well as outcomes of affect regulation. So far, we could demonstrate the validity of a direct and situation-specific approach to affective discrepancy and the usefulness of separating the mere experience of an affective discrepancy from its size. Future research will be necessary to elaborate whether this approach will be also suitable for the assessment of affective discrepancy in general. In addition, more research is required on the role of meta-affective experiences for affective discrepancy as well as on the stability and malleability of desired affect and affective discrepancy. As the present studies show, full understanding of individual affective experiences requires the combination of approaches and methods of emotion research and motivation research. References Bandura, A., & Cervone, D. (1986). Differential engagement of self-reactive influences in cognitive motivation. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 38, 92–113. Baumeister, R. F., Bratslavsky, E., Finkenauer, C., & Vohs, K. D. (2001). Bad is stronger than good. Review of General Psychology, 5, 323–370. Borkenau, P., & Ostendorf, F. (1993). NEO-Fünf-Faktoren-Inventar (NEO-FFI) nach Costa und McCrae. Göttingen: Hogrefe. Feldman Barrett, L. (1996). Hedonic tone, perceived arousal, and item desirability: Three components of self-reported mood. Cognition & Emotion, 10, 47–68. Costa, P. T., & McCrae, R. R. (1989). The NEO PUFF1 manual supplement. Odessa, Florida: Psychological Assessment Resources. Deci, R. M., & Ryan, E. L. (2001). On happiness and human potentials: a review of reserach on hedonic and eudaimonic well-being. Annual Review of Psychology, 52, 141–166. Diener, E., & Larsen, R. (1993). The experience of emotional well-being. In M. Lewis & J. M. Haviland (Eds.), Handbook of emotions (pp. 405–415). New York: Guilford.

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