Meyer Thomas, Sickinghe Marthe, Matera Vanessa, Morina Nexhmedin
Institute of Psychology, University of Münster, Münster, Germany.
Sci Rep. 2024 Feb 19;14(1):4063. doi: 10.1038/s41598-024-54681-x.
People can easily rate and express their current levels of wellbeing, but the cognitive foundations for such judgments are poorly understood. We examined whether comparisons to varying standards underlie fluctuating wellbeing judgments within-person (i.e., throughout daily episodes) and between-person (i.e., high vs. low levels of psychopathology). Clinical and non-clinical participants recorded subjective affect for each distinct episode for one week. Participants briefly described current, best, and worst daily episodes, which we coded for presence and type of comparison standard (social, past temporal, criteria-based, counterfactual, prospective temporal, and dimensional). Participants also rated their engagement with these standards and the respective affective impact. During best episodes, participants reported more downward (vs. upward) comparisons that resulted in positive affective impact. In worst episodes, upward (vs. downward) comparisons were more frequent. In best and worst episodes, we most frequently identified past-temporal and criteria-based comparisons, respectively. The clinical group engaged more often with all potential standard types during worst daily episodes and was more negatively affected by comparative thoughts, amid consistently more negative affect levels across all episode types. Our data suggest that judgments of affect and wellbeing may indeed rely on comparative thinking, whereby certain standards may characterize states of negative affect and poor mental health.
人们能够轻松地对自己当前的幸福水平进行评分并表达出来，但对于此类判断的认知基础却知之甚少。我们研究了与不同标准的比较是否构成了个体内部（即，在日常各个时段）以及个体之间（即，高与低精神病理学水平）幸福感判断波动的基础。临床和非临床参与者记录了一周内每个不同时段的主观情感。参与者简要描述了当前、最佳和最差的日常时段，我们对其中比较标准（社会、过去时段、基于标准、反事实、未来时段和维度）的存在情况和类型进行了编码。参与者还对他们与这些标准的关联程度以及相应的情感影响进行了评分。在最佳时段，参与者报告了更多导致积极情感影响的向下（而非向上）比较。在最差时段，向上（而非向下）比较更为频繁。在最佳和最差时段，我们分别最常识别出过去时段和基于标准的比较。临床组在最差的日常时段更频繁地涉及所有潜在的标准类型，并且在所有时段类型中始终处于更高的消极情感水平，受比较性思维的负面影响更大。我们的数据表明，情感和幸福感判断可能确实依赖于比较性思维，据此某些标准可能表征消极情感状态和不良心理健康状况。
