Variety is the Spice of Emotional Life

Recent inquiry suggests that diversity of emotional experience--a rich palette that dynamically
spans joy, sadness, love and anger--is more closely linked to happiness than the common myth that
happiness equals a perpetual state of enthusiasm and cheer. Check out this article for a brief overview of
these findings...

By Kira Newman

This essay originally appeared on Greater Good Opens in new window, the online magazine of the
Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley.

In Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, each dwarf has a distinct personality and
predominant emotion. There’s Happy, forever joyful and laughing; Grumpy, full of dissent and
skepticism; and Bashful, prone to embarrassment and red cheeks. Together, they all have a role
to play in Snow White’s life, driving the plot forward and helping her survive.

It turns out Walt Disney was onto something, even 77 years ago. A new paper in the Journal of
Experimental Psychology: eneral by researchers from four countries and six institutions—
including Yale University and Harvard Business School—finds that experiencing a variety of
emotions may be good for our mental and physical health.

The idea that well-being isn’t about being cheerful all the time and avoiding sadness like the
plague isn’t new to happiness researchers. For example, an October 2012 study found that it
might be better for our overall happiness to feel emotions like anger at appropriate times,
rather than seeking happiness no matter the situation. A famous study by UC Riverside’s Sonja
Lyubormisky showed that it might be possible to gratitude-journal too much, losing gratitude’s
positive effects in the bore of a routine.

For this new study, the researchers surveyed participants’ tendency for positive emotions (like
amusement, awe, and gratitude) and negative ones (like anger, anxiety, and sadness). In
particular, they measured the variety and abundance of these emotions—a new concept they
call “emodiversity.”

An emodiversity score takes into account how many emotions people experience and how
evenly distributed they are. Is there a reason why we have the capacity for so many emotions?
Could emodiversity play a role in well-being, beyond simple levels of positive and negative
emotion?

Their first study surveyed over 35,000 French speakers and found that emodiversity is linked to
less depression. This was the case for all types of emodiversity: positive (experiencing many
different positive emotions), negative (many different negative emotions), and general (a mix of
both). In fact, people high in emodiversity were less likely to be depressed than people high in
positive emotion alone.

Their second study linked emodiversity to better health. In a sample of nearly 1,300 Belgians, the
more emodiverse ones had less medication use, lower government health care costs, and fewer
doctor visits and days in the hospital. They also had better diet, exercise, and smoking habits.
Surprisingly, the effect of emodiversity on physical health was about as strong as the effects of
positive or negative emotion alone.

"Emodiversity and the Emotional Ecosystem"

“Emodiversity is a practically important and previously unidentified metric for assessing the
health of the human emotional ecosystem,” the authors write.

Emodiversity only accounts for 1% of the variance in depression, so it would be interesting to

see future research on its links to subjective well-being and meaning. In the meantime, the
promise of better health is a good reason to enrich our emotional lives. How can we do that?

First, take the test on Emodiversity.org to find out where you stand. Your emodiversity might be
low for various reasons—maybe you have trouble identifying your emotions and tend to feel
generic things like “happy” or “bad.” Maybe you’ve been taught that it’s not dignified to be joyful,
so you limit yourself to feeling content; or that sadness is wimpy, so you stick with anger. Maybe
you’ve got it into your head that you’re an anxious person, so all you notice are your anxious
feelings.

Whatever the case, cultivating self-awareness and allowing yourself to express your authentic
emotions can be beneficial. Branch out of your routine and do something new that might make
you feel awe or pride; in tough situations, allow yourself to feel shame or guilt or jealousy rather
than what you “should” feel. Snow White and the Seven Identical Dwarfs just doesn’t have the same
ring to it.