There has been an explosion of interest on happiness and positive emotion in both the scientific literature and the popular press. While positive emotion is generally considered a source of good outcomes, recent scientific work in psychology has highlighted the ways in which positive emotion facilitates the pursuit of important goals, contributes to vital social bonds, broadens our scope of attention, and increases psychological and physical well-being. But this wave of interest in positive psychology has to date neglected another important possibility regarding positive emotion-that it may, under certain conditions, be maladaptive. Here, Gruber and Moskowitz propose that the field is now ripe to consider the costs, and not just the benefits, of positive emotion. This book offers the first comprehensive exploration of this phenomenon. It offers a comprehensive summary of current theoretical and empirical work on positive emotion and provides empirical examples of the 'light side' or adaptive benefits of positive emotion according to the degree, context (health, social relationships, coping), and type of adaptive outcome. It also provides empirical examples of the 'dark side' or maladaptive aspects of positive emotion organized according to the degree, context, type and reasons for pursuing positive emotion in healthy and clinical populations. It discusses therapeutic applications regarding how to cultivate and foster healthy positive emotion, and suggests future research to better understand the nature of positive emotion.

Considerable research has been devoted to understanding how positive emotional processes influence our thoughts and behaviors, and the resulting body of work clearly indicates that positive emotion is a vital ingredient in our human quest towards well-being and thriving. Yet the role of positive emotion in psychopathology has been underemphasized, such that comparatively less scientific attention has been devoted to understanding ways in which positive emotions might influence and be influenced by psychological disturbance. Presenting cutting-edge scientific work from an internationally-renowned group of contributors, The Oxford Handbook of Positive Emotion and Psychopathology provides unparalleled insight into the role of positive emotions in mental health and illness. The book begins with a comprehensive overview of key psychological processes that link positive emotional experience and psychopathological outcomes. The following section focuses on specific psychological disorders, including depression, anxiety, trauma, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia, as well as developmental considerations. The third and final section of the Handbook discusses translational implications of this research and how examining populations characterized by positive emotion disturbance enables a better understanding of psychiatric course and risk factors, while simultaneously generating opportunities to bridge gaps between basic science models and psychosocial interventions. With its rich and multi-layered focus, The Oxford Handbook of Positive Emotion and Psychopathology will be of interest to researchers, teachers, and students from a range of disciplines, including social psychology, clinical psychology and psychiatry, biological psychology and health psychology, affective science, and neuroscience.