Endowment and contrast: the role of positive and negative emotions on well-being appraisal

Linear additive models of affect and subjective well-being do not account for why people can uphold their sense of well-being during adversity. This paper presents a multiplicative model––the Affective Endowment-Contrast Theory, and reports a prospective study testing the theory. Endowment means that the accumulation of positive (PA) and negative affect (NA) has direct effects on well-being. Contrast, represented by the product term PA × NA, means that the effect of PA is stronger when NA is high than when NA is low. The effect of contrast thus partly compensates the main effect of NA during difficult times. Seventy-one university students completed affect diaries over a 4-week period. The results provided support for the well-being repair function of contrast.