| Theories of positive emotion suggest that people who feel good are more likely to seek out, participate in, and succeed in social interactions. However, experimental attempts to establish the mechanisms responsible for the association between positive affect and social interaction have been less clear. The current study tested whether other-focused attention can be a mechanism to help explain the social benefits experienced by happy people. A number of measures of focus of attention were used to test whether positive affect was associated with increased other-focus. Poor convergent validity across the various measures of self- and other-focus prohibited strong interpretations regarding this hypothesis. However, happiness was associated with significantly more statements that were about friends, about family members, or social in nature. In all, better measures of other-focus are needed to adequately test whether it can account for why positive affect leads to more successful social interaction. |
