Although earlier studies have related positive emotions to attentional broadening, recent findings point out the complexity of this relation and show that these broadening effects interact with factors such as characteristics of the information that is presented. Besides stimuli characteristics, individual characteristics such as the presence of depressive symptoms could also influence the broadening effects as depressive symptoms have previously been related to a more narrow attentional scope. Therefore, the aim of this study was to further investigate the attentional broadening effects of positive emotions, testing whether this is influenced by the emotional valence of the information presented and secondly, how the presence of depressive symptoms might interact with this relationship. We used a performance-based measure to assess fluctuations in attentional broadening for positive, neutral, and negative stimuli. We assessed the presence and severity of depressive symptoms in an unselected study sample and tested whether these symptoms moderate the relationship between induced positive mood and attentional breadth for emotional information. Results showed no direct relation between positive mood and attentional breadth, regardless of the emotional valence of the stimuli. However, the presence of depressive symptoms moderated this relationship in such a way that among low levels of depressive symptoms, positive mood was related to attentional broadening specifically when positive information was presented, while at high levels of depressive symptoms this relation was reversed. The current findings suggest that both stimuli characteristics, individual characteristics and their interplay should be taken into account when investigating the broadening effects of positive emotions.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 1. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 11 November 2014.
All research outputs
#18,383,471
of 22,770,070 outputs
Outputs from Frontiers in Psychology
#22,053
of 29,682 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#185,502
of 258,972 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Frontiers in Psychology
#323
of 373 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 22,770,070 research outputs across all sources so far. This one is in the 11th percentile – i.e., 11% of other outputs scored the same or lower than it.
So far Altmetric has tracked 29,682 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 12.5. This one is in the 19th percentile – i.e., 19% of its peers scored the same or lower than it.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 258,972 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one is in the 16th percentile – i.e., 16% of its contemporaries scored the same or lower than it.
We're also able to compare this research output to 373 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one is in the 4th percentile – i.e., 4% of its contemporaries scored the same or lower than it.
