The role of positive emotion eliciting activities at promoting physiological recovery from sadness

Abstract

The current study investigated whether positive emotion eliciting activities facilitate the physiological, as well as subjective emotional, recovery from feelings of sadness and grief. Results indicated that participants who read a funny or neutral article after writing about the death of someone close had greater decreases in sadness and increases in positive emotion than participants who read an article about coping with grief. The funny and neutral articles were also associated with greater decreases in corrugator supercilii muscle activity. Positive emotion eliciting activities had no effect on zygomaticus major and orbicularis oculi muscle activity, heart rate, or respiratory sinus arrhythmia.