Poerio, G.L., Totterdell, P., Emerson, L.M. et al. (1 more author) (2015) Love is the triumph of the imagination: Daydreams about significant others are associated with increased happiness, love and connection. Consciousness and Cognition, 33. 135 - 144. ISSN 1053-8100
Abstract
Social relationships and interactions contribute to daily emotional well-being. The emotional benefits that come from engaging with others are known to arise from real events, but do they also come from the imagination during daydreaming activity? Using experience sampling methodology with 101 participants, we obtained 371 reports of naturally occurring daydreams with social and non-social content and self-reported feelings before and after daydreaming. Social, but not non-social, daydreams were associated with increased happiness, love and connection and this effect was not solely attributable to the emotional content of the daydreams. These effects were only present when participants were lacking in these feelings before daydreaming and when the daydream involved imagining others with whom the daydreamer had a high quality relationship. Findings are consistent with the idea that social daydreams may function to regulate emotion: imagining close others may serve the current emotional needs of daydreamers by increasing positive feelings towards themselves and others.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2015 The Author(s). This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
Keywords: | Daydreaming; Mind wandering; Emotion regulation; Close relationships; Experience sampling |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Science (Sheffield) > Department of Psychology (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 20 Aug 2015 10:24 |
Last Modified: | 20 Aug 2015 10:24 |
Published Version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.concog.2014.12.011 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Elsevier |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1016/j.concog.2014.12.011 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:88961 |