An Experience‐Sampling Study on the Frequency and Diversity of Positive and Negative Affective States

ABSTRACT Ecological models explain social phenomena by assuming specific properties of the world an individual lives in. The evaluative information ecology model (Unkelbach et al. 2019) assumes two such properties: Positive information is more frequent (i.e., positivity prevalence), but negative information is more diverse (i.e., negativity diversity). However, so far there is no simultaneous test of these two assumed properties. Assuming that evaluative information influences affective states, we tested these properties for people's self‐reported affective states in a preregistered experience‐sampling study. For 5–6 days, five times per day, 453 participants reported currently feeling good versus bad, before freely describing their current affective state (9413 data points). Participants reported more positive than negative affective states, supporting positivity prevalence. In the preregistered analyses, negative descriptors were also relatively more diverse—however, evidence for negativity diversity depended on the analytic method, thereby providing mixed support for negativity diversity.