Can Passion be Polyamorous? The Impact of Having Multiple Passions on Subjective Well-Being and Momentary Emotions

Benjamin Schellenberg () and Daniel Bailis ()

Journal of Happiness Studies, 2015, vol. 16, issue 6, 1365-1381

Abstract: Having a harmonious passion (HP) can contribute to overall subjective well-being (Philippe et al. in Appl Psychol Health Well Being 1:3–22, 2009 ). We examined if people who had two passions in life reported even higher levels of well-being, and tested if these relationships depended on the extent to which the passions were harmonious or obsessive (OP). Undergraduates (N = 1,218) completed measures of HP and OP for their favorite and second favorite activities, along with assessments of well-being. In a follow-up study, a subsample of students (N = 62) who reported having an HP for one activity but an OP for another participated in an experiment in which we measured momentary emotions after priming either their HP, OP or a control activity. We found that students with at least one HP reported higher levels of well-being compared to those without an HP, and those with two HPs reported higher levels of well-being compared to those with only one HP, independent of the total time spent in passionate activities. In the follow-up study, participants’ levels of momentary positive and negative affect depended on whether their HP or OP was primed. These results suggest that, rather than introducing conflict or dividing a fixed sum of activity-related potential, having two HPs creates novel opportunities for subjective well-being. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2015

Keywords: Harmonious passion; Obsessive passion; Psychological well-being; Dualistic model of passion; Happiness (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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DOI: 10.1007/s10902-014-9564-x

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