Influence of affective personality on cognition-mediated emotional processing: Need for empowerment

Background and Objectives: The notion that both positive and negative affect contribute not only to affective personality profiles but also to self-report estimations of both psychological and physical well-being or discomfort. Method: Two studies are described, based upon applications of psychometric and clinical instruments, including the Positive Affective and Negative Affect Scale (PANAS), Stress and Energy (SE), Dispositional optimism (LOT), Locus of Control, Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), Perfectionism, Hospital Anxirty and Depression (HAD) and the Uppsala Sleep Inventory (USI). In Study 1, one hundred and twenty-two high school students (Gothenburg, Sweden), aged 17-19 years participated, whereas in Study 2, two hundred and eight professional office employees from a number of government agencies and corporations (Borås, Sweden), aged 27-61 years participated. Measures for HAD-anxiety and HAD-depression from five other studies of affective personality profiles were included also. Results: The results indicated marked differences in both psychological and physical well-being or discomfort due to affective personality profiles, whereby "Self-fulfilling" individuals, expressing high positive affect and low negative affect, presented markedly better health profiles than the other three types of affective personality, i.e. "Low affective", "High affective" and "Self-destructive". Conclusions: In this regard the notion of "empowerment" as a vehicle for putative reinforcements of cognitive abilities that modulate emotional systems is discussed