Affect balance in men and women: implications from age and gender

Affect balance is proposed as one of the components, along with life satisfaction, of subjective well-being. Affect balance refers to the emotional responses of a person when doing evaluative judgments on his/her life. It proceeds from the consideration of the positive as well as negative emotions experienced during a given period of time. We present in this study some results regarding the affect balance obtained in a sample of Spanish adults (18 to 64 years; M= 30.54; SD= 10.79; 62.1% females) recruited from several community settings. Participants completed one scale measuring affect balance in Spanish. We found for the studied sample that participants showed positive affect balance. Men showed levels significantly lower of negative affect than women, but also higher levels of positive affect (NS) and, hence, of affect balance (close to significance). Affect balance did not show significant modifications as age increases. Results have allowed us to know the characteristics of emotional well-being of a wide adult sample. This may have great relevance in clinical as well as research contexts.