Meaningful endings and mixed emotions: The double-edged sword of reminiscence on good times.

Meaningful endings lead people to experience mixed emotions, but it is unclear why. We hypothesized that it is in part because meaningful endings lead people to reminisce on good times. In Study 1, college students who took part in our study on their graduation day (vs.

Leveraging goals to incentivize healthful behaviors across adulthood.

Despite abundant evidence for the benefits of physical activity on aging trajectories, older Americans remain largely inactive. The present study was designed to examine age differences in responsiveness to financial incentives to increase walking. Grounded in socioemotional selectivity theory, we examined the effectiveness of financial incentives that varied in prosociality.

Valuing calm enhances enjoyment of calming (vs. exciting) amusement park rides and exercise.

Do people derive more enjoyment from activities that match how they ideally want to feel (their "ideal affect")? Affect valuation theory (AVT) predicts that they do; however, no study has directly examined whether this is the case. Therefore, the authors conducted 4 studies that examined whether valuing calm and other low arousal positive states (LAP) increased enjoyment of calming (vs. exciting) activities.

Beyond emotional benefits: physical activity and sedentary behaviour affect psychosocial resources through emotions.

Physical activity is known to improve emotional experiences, and positive emotions have been shown to lead to important life outcomes, including the development of psychosocial resources. In contrast, time spent sedentary may negatively impact emotional experiences and, consequently, erode psychosocial resources. Two studies tested whether activity independently influenced emotions and psychosocial resources, and whether activity indirectly influenced psychosocial resources through emotional experiences.

Exercise holds immediate benefits for affect and cognition in younger and older adults.

Physical activity is associated with improved affective experience and enhanced cognitive processing. Potential age differences in the degree of benefit, however, are poorly understood because most studies examine either younger or older adults. The present study examined age differences in cognitive performance and affective experience immediately following a single bout of moderate exercise.

Acute exercise attenuates negative affect following repeated sad mood inductions in persons who have recovered from depression.

Identifying factors that may protect individuals from developing Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) in the face of stress is critical. In the current study we experimentally tested whether such a potentially protective factor, engaging in acute exercise, reduces the adverse effects of repeated sad mood inductions in individuals who have recovered from depression. We hypothesized that recovered depressed participants who engage in acute exercise report a smaller increase in negative affect (NA) and a smaller decrease in positive affect (PA) when exposed to a repeated sad mood induction (i.