Associations Between Enjoyable Activities and Uplifting Events: Effects on Momentary Positive Affect in Adulthood

Abstract

This study examined the effects of participation in enjoyable activities and the experience of uplifting events on individuals’ momentary positive affect (PA) and tested for age differences in these effects. 176 adults (ages 25–66) completed ecological momentary assessments (EMAs) 5 times per day for 14 days. We found that individuals reported higher levels of PA at times when an uplifting event had occurred compared to times when an uplifting event had not occurred (p < 0.05), and this association was amplified among those who participated less frequently in enjoyable activities (p < 0.05). The moderating effect of participation in enjoyable activities was invariant across the sample’s age range. The findings demonstrated that individuals who habitually participated in enjoyable activities experienced higher levels of PA in everyday life. In contrast, individuals who infrequently or never engaged in enjoyable activities depended upon recent uplifting events to experience higher levels of PA.

Introduction

Participating in enjoyable activities and uplifting events can enhance positive affect (PA), which is a key indicator of psychological well-being across adulthood (Chen, Jinshil, Graefe, Mowen, Almeida, & Sliwinski, 2020). Experiencing PA is one of the significant benefits of enjoyable activities (Hicks & Siedlecki, 2017). Findings from a meta-analysis indicated that retirees had a stronger relation between enjoyable activities and subjective well-being than did members of the workforce (Kuykendall, Tay, & Ng, 2015; Sin & Almeida, 2018). The emotional benefits of uplifting events seem to be more promising as individuals grow older, even though individuals have fewer opportunities for experiencing uplifting events as they age (Aldwin, Jeong, Igarashi, & Spiro, 2014).

Although participating in enjoyable activities and uplifting events are likely related to PA, they reflect different constructs. Participating in enjoyable activities is often linked with the concept of leisure (Goodman, Geiger, & Wolf, 2016). However, defining leisure as enjoyable activities may have limitations in that the word leisure is meant to capture a state of being and state of mind (Beatty & Tolbert, 2013). As described by Bouwer and van Leeuwen (2017), leisure is “inner dialogue with the source of our own experiencing and being [that] allows us to discover the qualities of the good life” (p. 468). Thus, from the philosophical perspective, leisure is in the condition of an individual’s consciousness, not merely in the form of activity. In this article, we use the term enjoyable activities rather than leisure to describe engagement in activities (e.g., participating in hobbies, socializing, or spending time in nature) during the time free from obligations or responsibilities. Such activities cause individuals to intrinsically experience positive attributes such as enjoyment. Our definition of enjoyable activities aligns well with the measurement (Pittsburgh Enjoyable Activities Test [PEAT]) that we used in conducting the current study.

While participating in enjoyable activities refers to the specific life domain of positive experiences in the engagement, experiencing uplifting events captures positive feelings toward broader life domains (e.g., family, work, leisure) and varies from moment to moment (Zautra, Affleck, Tennen, Reich, & Davis, 2005). A key concept for understanding how different types of events impact PA in everyday life is PA reactivity (Neupert, Almeida, & Charles, 2007), which refers to a change in level of PA in response to uplifting events. While a large body of literature has investigated PA reactivity to daily negative events (e.g., stressors; see, for example, Luong & Charles, 2014; Sliwinski, Almeida, Smyth, & Stawski, 2009; Stawski, Sliwinski, Almeida, & Smyth, 2008), few studies have examined the effects of daily uplifting events. However, it remains unclear how PA reactivity to uplifting events is related to enjoyable activities. Establishing the link between participation in enjoyable activities and PA reactivity to uplifting events is important because these constructs can be seen as contributing to psychological well-being (Houben, Ven Den Noortgate, & Kuppens, 2015). Therefore, this study examines how PA reactivity to uplifting events is related to participation in enjoyable activities and the age differences therein.

Affective Reactions to Uplifting Events: The Role of Enjoyable Activities

The idea that increased PA reactivity to uplifting events is seen among adults who frequently participate in enjoyable activities is derived from the broaden-and-build theory (Fredrickson, 2001). According to the broaden-and-build theory, individuals who experience positive emotions broaden their momentary thought-action repertoires and build their psychological resources over time (Fredrickson, 2001). Empirical studies have supported this theory, showing that individuals who flourish—regularly experiencing positive emotions and creating goodness with others—broaden their attention and build psychological resources that are associated with positive emotional responses. They in turn experience bigger “boosts” in positive emotions in response to everyday pleasant events than those individuals who do not flourish (Catalino & Fredrickson, 2011). Given that participating in enjoyable activities appears to trigger broadening and building processes (Chang, Yarnal, & Chick, 2016), individuals who habitually engage in enjoyable activities may interpret naturally occurring uplifting events as even more pleasant, in which case the events amplify the individuals’ PA more than they do for those who participate less frequently in enjoyable activities.

On the other hand, some empirical evidence has suggested that individuals who frequently participate in enjoyable activities may experience relative emotional stability, in which their affective responses to daily events are reduced (Brose, Scheibe, & Schmiedek, 2013). Studies have supported the idea that experiencing enjoyable activities is associated with favorable emotional regulation strategies (Freire & Teixeira, 2018). Indeed, emotion regulation strategies that involve positive emotions (i.e., emotional sharing) may improve after engaging in travel (Gao, Kerstetter, Mowen, & Hickerson, 2018). Further support for this prediction comes from the phenomenon of hedonic adaptation, which describes the psychological process by which individuals become accustomed to an emotional stimulus and reduce the intensity of their emotional response to the stimulus (Lyubomirsky, 2010). Individuals who usually experience high levels of well-being hedonically adapt as a means of reducing emotional arousal (Armenta, Bao, Lyubomirsky, & Sheldon, 2014). Studies have demonstrated that individuals who frequently engage in enjoyable activities usually perceive higher levels of well-being (Kuykendall et al., 2015) and that individuals who report higher levels of well-being have less emotional responses to positive events (Grosse, Kuppens, Riediger, Blanke, & Brose, 2018). It is reasonable to assume that individuals who participate in enjoyable activities more frequently may experience hedonic adaptation that reduces their affective reactivity to uplifting events compared to individuals who participate in enjoyable activities less frequently.

Recognizing this discrepancy in theoretical reasoning and empirical findings, the current study extends the conceptual understanding of whether PA reactivity to uplifting events is related to participation in enjoyable activities.

Age Differences in Affective Reactivity and Frequency of Enjoyable Activities

Age plays a vital role in determining affective reactivity to daily life events (Charles, Mogle, Urban, & Almeida, 2016). A recent study found that as individuals increase in age from 25 to 65 years old, they change how they react to external stimuli; older adults show less affective reactivity to negative life events than younger adults (Scott, Ram, Smyth, Almeida, & Sliwinski, 2017). One explanation for this age difference in reactivity comes from socioemotional selectivity theory (SST; Charles & Carstensen, 2010), which posits that older adults prioritize emotion-related goals and utilize effective emotion regulation strategies more than younger adults. SST states that the subjective perception of time remaining in life has crucial implications for the prioritization of goals related to meaningful relationships and activities (Charles & Carstensen, 2010; Carstensen, Isaacowitz, & Charles, 1999). Recognizing that time in life is limited, older adults shift their priorities to optimize positive experiences and to minimize unfulfilling experiences in their relationships (Carstensen et al., 1999). SST has been used to explain why older adults show less affective reactivity to arguments (Charles, Piazza, Luong, & Almeida, 2009), unpleasant social interactions (Luong & Charles, 2014), and stressors related to work (Neupert et al., 2007) than younger adults.

However, evidence of age differences in affective reactivity is mixed (Schilling & Diehl, 2015). Particularly, evidence of age differences in affective reactivity within positive life contexts has been limited and inconsistent. Charles et al. (2010) showed that there were no age-based differences in emotional responses to daily uplifts, suggesting that the way older adults benefited from positive events was similar to the way younger adults did, even though the older adults reported less daily uplift exposure. In addition, positive events did not influence age differences in mean levels of emotional experiences, suggesting that positive appraisals may be more important than positive events among older adults (Charles et al., 2016). In contrast, Pasupathi and Carstensen (2003) found that older adults have greater positive emotional reactions when they recall their positive life events than younger adults. Their findings are in line with SST, which indicates that older adults may regulate their emotions by focusing on positive aspects of their life experiences. Studies have also suggested that age-related differences regarding decreases in uplift exposure and increases in uplift intensity reflect aspects of emotion regulation in later life (Aldwin et al., 2014). Taken together, these inconsistent findings suggest the need to examine age differences in affective reactivity to uplifting events in everyday life.

Changes in the frequency with which individuals participate in enjoyable activities that occur over time may also be relevant to affective experiences. Older adults spend 2.6 more hours per day participating in leisure than do younger adults (Marcum, 2013). Given that many enjoyable activities involve elements of social interaction, more frequent activity participation has been identified as a means of maintaining social integration (Toepoel, 2013) and alleviating loneliness (Pettigrew, 2007) in later life, which in turn positively contribute to subjective well-being (Kuykendall et al., 2015). Therefore, participating in enjoyable activities may positively influence older adults’ affective experiences by helping them to fulfill social needs with close family members and friends. However, contradictory findings regarding the frequencies of participation in enjoyable activities with advancing age have emerged over the past decade. Although older adults have more time for leisure than younger adults, they are likely to encounter more leisure constraints (e.g., limitations in physical function) than younger adults (Nimrod & Shrira, 2016) and therefore participate less frequently in enjoyable activities (van der Meer, 2008). Greater attention should be given to understanding the role of leisure across the lifespan in the context of emotional experiences (Pressman et al., 2009; Sin, Graham-Engeland, & Almeida, 2015).

Taken together, relatively little work has examined age differences in affective reactivity and enjoyable activities. In order to more fully explore this nexus, it may be helpful to understand what it means for an individual to vary from moment to moment on repeated measures of PA and uplifting events over time (i.e., within-person change), in addition to what it means for some individuals to be higher or lower relative to others on the measures of age and frequency of enjoyable activities (i.e., between-person differences). The exploration of between-person differences in within-person change helps researchers identify within-person (moment-to-moment) processes based on between-person associations (Bolger & Laurenceau, 2013).

Study Purpose and Research Questions

To address the aforementioned gaps in the literature, we used ecological momentary assessments (EMAs) to examine whether PA reactivity to uplifting events might be related to participation in enjoyable activities. Additionally, we examined whether PA reactivity differs with age. EMAs, also known as experiencing sampling, represent a data collection technique in which repeated and timely assessments are used to capture an individual’s experiences or behaviors in real life (Smyth & Stone, 2003). In recent years, the use of EMAs for data collection has been encouraged in the field of leisure and recreation because EMAs can reduce recall biases and capture how leisure behavior interacts with affective experiences in individuals’ everyday lives (Scott, Wozencroft, & Waller, 2019). Based on the premise that PA and uplifting events are time-varying constructs, EMAs have been used to distinguish variance that differentiates among individuals with higher or lower frequencies of participation in enjoyable activities across adulthood from variance that differentiates among multiple measurement moments nested within individuals. Specifically, at the within-person level, we addressed the associations between daily PA and uplifting events. At the between-person level, we examined the frequencies of participation in enjoyable activities as a predictor of daily PA. Furthermore, we explored the influences of between-person differences (participation in enjoyable activities) in within-person change (PA reactivity to uplifting events), generating the first research question in the current study: How are between-person differences in the frequencies of participation in enjoyable activities related to within-person changes in PA reactivity to uplifting events? Finally, we examined whether the moderating effect of participation in enjoyable activities on PA reactivity to uplifting events varies across age, generating the second research question in the current study: Do age-related differences (e.g., from 25 to 66 years old) influence between-person differences in the frequencies participation in enjoyable activities related to within-person changes in PA reactivity to uplifting events?

Method

Participants

The Effects of Stress on Cognitive Aging, Physiology and Emotion (ESCAPE) study used a prospective longitudinal measurement-burst design to examine the roles of behavioral, cognitive, psychological, and biological factors in health and well-being. We used data from the second wave (2014) of the ESCAPE study because variables of enjoyable activities were not measured during the first wave (2012–2013). Participants completed a 14-consecutive-day measurement of brief surveys via study-provided smartphones as they went about their usual daily tasks. The participants were recruited between May 2012 and December 2013 via systematic probability sampling of New York City’s registered voter lists for the zip code 10475 (Bronx, NY). Eligible participants were restricted to residents of Bronx County between 25–66 years of age who were ambulatory, fluent in English, and free of any visual impairment that would interfere with taking a survey by smartphone. The sample included 176 adults (67% women; mean age = 47.83, SD = 11.21). The participants were recruited in Bronx County because Bronx County’s approximately 60,000 residents are heterogeneous and diverse in their socio-economic status, race-ethnicity, and educational level across adulthood. The participants were racially and ethnically representative of the sampling area (race-ethnicity: Non-Hispanic White: 9.04%, Non-Hispanic Black: 65.54%, Hispanic White: 17.51%, Hispanic Black: 3.95%, Asian: 0.56%, Other: 3.39%). The participants were also diverse in education level (Less than high school: 6.25%, Completed high school or received General Education Diploma: 18.18%, Some college: 28.98%, College degree: 28.98%, Graduate or professional degree: 17.61%) and annual incomes (< $4,999: 8.02%; $5,000–$19,999: 19.75%; $20,000–$39,999: 24.69%; $40,000–$59,999: 15.43%; $60,000–$79,999: 17.90%; $80,000–$99,999: 4.32%; $100,000–$149,000: 9.26%; > $150,000: 0.62%).

Procedures

Participants were mailed a baseline questionnaire to complete at home and bring to their first laboratory visit. At the first laboratory visit, the participants received training in the use of a smartphone for the upcoming EMA protocol. The EMA protocol involved the participants taking short smartphone-based surveys 5 times per day. At given times during the day, the smartphone produced an audible alert (“beep”) signaling the participants to complete a smartphone-based survey about their recent thoughts, affect, and the occurrence of uplifting events with a total of 57 questions. The participants took an average of 2 minutes and 58 seconds to complete all 57 smartphone-based questions. We considered only those five questions that are relevant to our research questions for analysis in the current study. The average length of time between any two given smartphone-based surveys was approximately 2.5 hours. After the training, the participants returned home and completed a 2-day EMA data collection in which they became familiar with the protocol. Those participants who completed 80% or more of the smartphone surveys were invited to participate in the 14-consecutive-day study, resulting in about 86% continued participation (about 38 participants dropped out during the two-day familiarization period). Those participants who were involved in the 14-consecutive-day study were generally highly adherent to the study protocol, responding to the surveys with completion rates of 99.29% and 97.39% on the measures of PA and uplifting events, respectively. At the end of the 14 days, the participants returned the smartphones to the laboratory and received up to $160 if they had completed the entire protocol (see Scott et al., 2015, for a detailed description of the protocol upon which this study is based).

Measures

Baseline participation in enjoyable activities.

Participation in enjoyable activities was assessed using the PEAT (Pressman et al., 2009). Given a list of ten enjoyable activities, participants were asked to rate how often they had spent time doing each of the included enjoyable activities in the previous month: Spending quiet time alone; spending time unwinding at the end of the day; visiting friends and/or relatives; going out for meals with friends and/or relatives; doing fun things with others; participating in clubs, fellowships, and religious groups; going away on holiday/vacation; being in outdoor settings such as gardens, parks, and the countryside; actively engaging in physical activity (e.g. walking, sports, hiking); and engaging in hobbies. One item of the PEAT was modified: the original version’s phrasing of “sports” was replaced with “actively engaging in physical activity (e.g. walking, sports, hiking).” The response scale ranged from 1 (Never) to 5 (Everyday). Scale scores were calculated as the sum of responses (range = 10 to 50) and centered at the sample mean (24.93).

Momentary positive affect.

Momentary positive affect was calculated as the average of each participant’s emotional experiences, as captured in the participant’s responses to the question, “How____ do you feel right now?” PA was measured using four items: happy, enjoyable, joyful, pleased (Diener & Emmons, 1984). The affect items were assessed using a slider ranging from 0 (Not at all) to 100 (Extremely), with higher scores indicating greater positive affect.

Momentary uplifting events.

Momentary uplifting events were assessed by checking 1 (Yes) or 0 (No) in responding to the question, “Did anything uplifting occur since the last assessment? An uplifting event is any event, even a minor one, which affected you in a positive way” (Charles et al., 2010).

Covariates.

Covariates have previously been identified as potential confounding factors with regard to affective reactivity to daily events (Charles et al., 2016). These include the sociodemographic characteristics of age (centered at the sample mean), gender (reference: male), and education (years; centered at the sample mean), all of which were adjusted in the analyses.

Data Analysis

Multilevel models (Snijders & Bosker, 1999) were used in SAS PROC MIXED to examine the associations between participation in enjoyable activities and PA reactivity to uplifting events, with missing data treated as missing at random. A raw score was assigned to each momentary uplifting event to make the values more interpretable (e.g., 0 = no event). We also included each person’s average percentage of uplifting events for each of the study days in all analyses. Shown below is the multilevel model that specifies two levels of analysis.

$$\mathrm{Level}1:{\mathrm{PA}}_{it}={\beta }_{oi}+{\beta }_{1i}{\mathrm{Uplifting}\mathrm{events}}_{it}+e_{it}$$

$$\begin{gathered} \mathrm{Level}2:{\beta }_{oi}={\gamma }_{00}+{\gamma }_{01}{\mathrm{Enjoyable}\mathrm{activities}}_i+{\gamma }_{02}{\mathrm{Uplifting}\mathrm{events\_pmn}}_i+ \\ {\gamma }_{03}{{\mathrm{Enjoyable}\mathrm{activities}}_i\times \mathrm{Age}}_i+{\gamma }_{04}{{\mathrm{Age}}_{\mathrm{i}}+{\gamma }_{05}{\mathrm{Gender}}_{\mathrm{i}}+{{\gamma }_{06}\mathrm{Education}}_{\mathrm{i}}+u}_{0i} \\ {\beta }_{1i}={\gamma }_{10}+{\gamma }_{11}{\mathrm{L}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{i}\mathrm{s}\mathrm{u}\mathrm{r}\mathrm{e}}_i+{\gamma }_{12}{\mathrm{A}\mathrm{g}\mathrm{e}}_i+{\gamma }_{13}{{\mathrm{L}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{i}\mathrm{s}\mathrm{u}\mathrm{r}\mathrm{e}}_i\times \mathrm{A}\mathrm{g}\mathrm{e}}_i+u_{1i} \end{gathered}$$

At Level 1, PA for person i at time t is a function of an intercept parameter for person i (across the t times), β_oi; a slope parameter that captures the momentary fluctuation in uplifting events for person i, β_1i; and a within-individual random error, e_it. At Level 2, γ₀₀ indicates the intercept of PA for a person with an average number of momentary uplifting events in the study; γ₀₁ refers to the effect of participation in enjoyable activities on the initial level of PA for person i; γ₀₂ refers to the effect of an average momentary uplifting event on the initial level of PA; γ₀₃ reflects the interaction between participation in enjoyable activities and age differences on the initial level of PA; γ₀₄ to γ₀₆ reflects the effects of control variables (age, gender, and education); u_0i indicates the error of β_oi; γ₁₀ indicates the slope of PA on momentary uplifting events; γ₁₁—the parameter related to the first research question in this paper—refers to the slope of PA on momentary uplifting events with an interactive effect of leisure participation; γ₁₂ refers to the slope of PA on momentary uplifting events with an interactive effect of age differences; γ₁₃—the parameter related to the second question in this paper—refers to the slope of PA on momentary uplifting events with the interactive effects of participation in enjoyable activities and age differences; and u_1i indicates the error of β_1i.

Results

Descriptive Statistics

Participants, on average, reported having at least one uplifting event on 52% of the days included in the study and 28% of the times that they received a beep signaling the presence of a smartphone survey. Of all the uplifting event days, 39% were reported as having one uplifting event, 21% were reported as having two uplifting events, 14% were reported as having three uplifting events, 10% were reported as having four uplifting events, and 11% were reported as having five uplifting events. Fourteen participants never reported an uplifting event, and 25 participants reported having uplifting events every day for all 14 days.

Momentary measures (i.e., PA and uplifting events) were averaged across all measurements to compute the between-person correlations, as shown in Table 1. Age was correlated positively with participation in enjoyable activities (r = 0.21, p < 0.01), average momentary PA (r = 0.24, p < 0.01), and average momentary uplifting events (r = 0.16, p < 0.05). After adjusting for covariates, average momentary PA was correlated positively with participation in enjoyable activities (r = 0.36, p < 0.001) and the number of uplifting events experienced (r = 0.38, p < 0.001). The number of uplifting events experienced and participation in enjoyable activities were associated positively (r = 0.22, p < 0.01), adjusting for covariates.

Table 1.

Descriptive statistics and correlations

	1	2	3	4
1. Age	—	0.21**	0.24**	0.16*
2. Participation in enjoyable activities	—	—	0.37***	0.25***
3. Mean PA a	—	0.36***	—	0.38***
4. Mean uplifting events a	—	0.22**	0.38***	—
M	47.83	24.93	58.71	0.28
SD	11.21	7.05	18.68	0.29

Notes. Below the diagonal are correlation coefficients adjusted for covariates (age, gender, and education). Above the diagonal are correlation coefficients that did not control for covariates. M = mean; SD = standard deviation; PA = positive affect

^aMean value reflects average taken across days and beeps for each individual.

^*p < 0.05

^**p < 0.01

^***p < 0.001.

Individuals Who Frequently Participated in Enjoyable Activities Had Smaller Increases in PA in Response to Uplifting Events in Their Daily Lives

Preliminary analyses indicated that increased momentary PA was associated with the occurrence of a momentary uplifting event (estimate = 10.85, SE = 0.86, p < 0.001) and more frequent participation in enjoyable activities (estimate = 0.85, SE = 0.25, p < 0.001), after adjusting for covariates (Table 2, Model 3). That is, individuals who encountered uplifting events or reported more frequent participation in enjoyable activities tended to have higher average levels of PA in everyday life. We then explored the first question regarding the role of participation in enjoyable activities on the association between PA and uplifting events. The multilevel models showed that participation in enjoyable activities was a significant moderator between momentary uplifting events and momentary PA (estimate = −0.39, SE = 0.14, p < 0.01). More frequent participation in enjoyable activities was related to smaller increases in PA in response to uplifting event exposure; less frequent participation in enjoyable activities was associated with larger increases in PA in response to uplifting event exposure (Figure 1).

Table 2.

Multilevel Model Predicting Momentary Positive Affect (Estimate SE)

N = 176	Momentary positive affect
	Model 1	Model 2	Model 3
Within-person level
Intercept	61.28***(1.97)	49.38***(2.63)	50.92*** (2.67)
Momentary uplifting events		11.10***(0.86)	10.85*** (0.86)
Interactions
Momentary uplifting events × Age		−0.12 (0.07)	−0.12 (0.07)
Average momentary uplifting events × Age		−0.49 (0.38)	−0.46 (0.41)
Participation in enjoyable activities × Age	−0.02 (0.02)		−0.01 (0.02)
Momentary uplifting events × Participation in enjoyable activities			−0.39** (0.14)
Momentary uplifting events × Participation in enjoyable activities × Age			0.02 (0.01)
Between-person level
Age	0.26**(0.10)	0.47**(0.16)	0.43**(0.17)
Gender	−0.08 (2.60)	−1.13 (2.57)	−0.57 (2.55)
Education	−4.39* (2.04)	−4.62*(2.02)	−4.81*(2.00)
Participation in enjoyable activities	0.76***(0.18)		0.85*** (0.25)
Random Effects
Variance intercept	343.57***(50.63)	315.08***(35.84)	272.70*** (32.10)
Variance uplifting events	209.34***(29.57)	81.55***(14.17)	71.39*** (13.06)
Covariance intercept and uplifting events	−158.99***(36.49)	−87.93***(18.55)	−64.03*** (16.32)
Residual variance	265.28***(3.63)	263.41***(3.53)	265.29*** (3.63)
Model fit statistics
−2LL	93244.0	97161.7	93118.7
AIC	93252.0	97179.7	93126.7

SE = standard errors; LL = log-likelihood; AIC = Akaike information criterion.

^*p < 0.05

^**p < 0.01

^***p < 0.001.

Figure 1.

Participation in enjoyable activities in positive affect reactivity to uplifting events, adjusted for age, gender, and education.

We used the Johnson-Neyman technique to provide information on the magnitude and range of the moderating effects of participation in enjoyable activities on the association between momentary uplifting events and momentary PA (Johnson & Neyman, 1936; Preacher, Curran, & Bauer, 2006). The results showed that the association between momentary uplifting events and momentary PA were significant (p < 0.05) when participants scored below 9.61 on leisure participation. Because the frequencies of participation in enjoyable activities were centered at the sample mean (24.93), we can assume that the association between momentary uplifting events and momentary PA was significant for participants who had a raw participation score below 34.54 (i.e., 7.05 SD above the mean; range from 10 to 50; 89.8% of the sample).

Younger and Older Adults Who Participate More Frequently in Enjoyable Activities Had Similar Increases in PA in Response to Daily Uplifting Events

We next examined the second question by incorporating the participation in enjoyable activities × the occurrence of uplifting events × age three-way interaction term into the model. As shown in Table 2 (Model 3), the interaction between participation in enjoyable activities, uplifting events, and age was not significant (estimate = 0.02, SE = 0.01, p = 0.21) in predicting PA, indicating that the moderation effects of participation in enjoyable activities on PA reactivity to uplifting events were invariant across age. Neither participation in enjoyable activities (estimate = −0.02, SE = 0.02, p = 0.33 for Model 1; estimate = −0.02, SE = 0.02, p = 0.62, for Model 3) nor the occurrence of uplifting events (estimate = −0.12, SE = 0.07, p = 0.10, for Model 2; estimate = −0.12, SE = 0.07, p = 0.07 for Model 3) indicated an interaction between age and PA.

Discussion

We found that individuals who more frequently participated in enjoyable activities showed smaller increases in momentary PA due to uplifting events compared to those who less frequently participated in enjoyable activities. Furthermore, individuals who less frequently or never participated in enjoyable activities seemed to depend on the “boosting” effect of recent uplifting events to experience higher levels of PA. The effects of momentary uplifting event exposure, frequency of participation in enjoyable activities, and the interaction between uplifting events and participation in enjoyable activities on momentary PA, however, did not differ across age. We discuss each of these results in more detail below.

Impact of Frequency of Enjoyable Activities on Affective Reactions to Uplifting Events

Challenging the broaden-and-build theory (Fredrickson, 2001), our findings show no association between enhanced affective reactivity and uplifting events in individuals who report participating more frequently in enjoyable activities. However, our findings are consistent with the phenomenon of hedonic adaptation (Lyubomirsky, 2010). Indeed, the findings of the current study suggest that individuals who participate more frequently in enjoyable activities may adjust to the emotional benefits of leisure over time, in which case they likely pay less attention to positive stimuli. Researchers have indicated that adaptation processes may be essential to psychological well-being because they allow individuals to redirect attention to high-priority needs and reduce the impact of external stimuli on psychological states (Fredrickson & Loewenstein, 1999). Relevant to the present illustration is an example of the phenomenon of hedonic adaptation provided by Lyubomirsky (2010). Lyubomirsky showed that if an individual experiences considerable psychological outcomes from participating in enjoyable activities, the individual’s emotional reactions to those psychological outcomes (e.g., experiencing higher mean levels of PA) will cease to be novel with time and will draw the individual’s attention to higher-priority needs (i.e., a sense of belonging) rather than psychological needs. A previous study confirmed that engaging in enjoyable activities is an important resource for individuals, providing them with a sense of control and social support to regulate their affective responses and trigger adaptation processes (Coleman & Iso-Ahola, 1993). Additionally, our finding supports Grosse et al.’s (2018) results showing that lower affective reactivity to positive events in daily life is related to higher levels of well-being and emotional stability. Given that participating in enjoyable activities is one of the key predictors of subjective well-being (Kuykendall et al., 2015), it is possible that individuals who participate more frequently in enjoyable activities have more capacity for emotion regulation, thereby reducing the extent of their affective fluctuation and promoting mood stability. The results also support previous research indicating that individuals who participate more frequently in enjoyable activities may be better able to regulate their emotion (Freire & Teixeira, 2018) than those who participate less frequently in enjoyable activities. However, researchers are unsure whether the prevention of hedonic adaptation may boost associated positive life changes. Indeed, hedonic adaptation challenges the belief that individuals can increase their level of happiness by adjusting their life events (Lyubomirsky, Sheldon, & Schkade, 2005). For example, studies have shown that greater variety and dynamism in uplifting events can maximize individuals’ attention and prevent adaptation processes (Sheldon & Lyubomirsky, 2012). It would therefore be valuable to investigate affective reactivity to different types of uplifting events using the EMA method.

The findings might also be a consequence of the higher levels of momentary positive affect seen in the absence of uplifting events among participants who more frequently participate in enjoyable activities, which may delimit the extent of further increases among these participants after experiencing uplifting events. Conversely, individuals who less frequently participate in enjoyable activities may experience mood brightening in relation to pleasant events. According to Peeters, Nicolson, Berkhof, Delespaul, and deVries (2003), mood response to positive events is more likely to be initiated by depressed individuals. Given that less frequent participation in enjoyable activities is linked with several domains of depression symptomatology (Pressman et al., 2009), it is possible that individuals who less frequently participate in enjoyable activities tend to appraise life contexts more negatively. This idea potentially applies to the mood-brightening effect, in that individuals who less frequently participate in enjoyable activities may become habituated to lower mean levels of positive emotions, allowing for pronounced mood brightening following uplifting events. In addition, habitual engagement in enjoyable activities is associated with enduring states of PA that are more robust. Figure 1 shows that individuals with both more and less frequent participation in enjoyable activities had elevated PA levels when something uplifting occurred. In the absence of uplifting events, however, the individuals who participated less frequently in enjoyable activities showed more decline in PA, whereas those who more frequently participated in enjoyable activities showed less of a decrease. The findings highlight the implications for interventions promoting participation in enjoyable activities. Individuals who participated less frequently in enjoyable activities showed high levels of PA usually following the experience of a random pleasant event. Thus, therapeutic recreation (TR) specialists might design educational programs (i.e., leisure education programs) to promote adults’ participation in enjoyable activities rather than interventions designed to introduce episodic positive experiences. A practical implication that can be drawn from these findings is that in order to enhance positive feelings, it may be more important to promote uplifting events for individuals who have difficulty experiencing enjoyable activities through therapeutic interventions.

Age Differences in Participation in Enjoyable Activities, Uplifting Events, and Affective Experiences

Our findings demonstrated that older individuals may participate more frequently in enjoyable activities than younger individuals because of fewer obligations related to family (e.g., childcare) and work, as Marcum (2013) found. In addition, our results showed that participation in enjoyable activities has benefits for emotional well-being across the lifespan, corroborating findings from previous research (Paggi, Jopp, & Hertzog, 2016). Although the correlation results in this study reveal that age was positively related to more frequent participation in enjoyable activities and higher mean levels of PA, the effects of participation in enjoyable activities on PA did not differ by age. Given the lack of age-related effects on the interaction between participation in enjoyable activities and PA, increasing the number of enjoyable activities in which an individual participates may not amplify the benefits of emotional well-being, in that the quality of leisure (e.g., the most enjoyable activities) actually serves to optimize emotional experiences with increasing chronological age (Kleiber, McGuire, Aybar-Damali, & Norman, 2008). According to Baltes and Baltes (1990), reducing the number of different activities to include only the most enjoyable activities is a selection strategy in the pursuit of a successful life as individuals age. Due to their physical limitations, aging adults may benefit more from selecting high-quality leisure experiences rather than increasing the frequency or number of times that they participate in leisure (Nimrod & Shrira, 2014). Switching the focus from the frequency of participation in enjoyable activities to the affective quality of leisure may play a role in age differences in emotional experiences. This preliminary interpretation needs to be tested in future studies.

The effects of momentary uplifting events on PA also did not differ with age, even though age was positively associated with mean exposure to uplifting events. Regarding the correlation between age and exposure to uplifting events, our finding is in agreement with Whitehead and Bergeman’s (2013) finding that older adults experienced more positive life events with age. It may be that older adults have greater motivation and emotional resources to seek out more positive life events than younger adults. However, the increased occurrence of uplifting events may not change the emotional benefits for older adults. These findings are in line with those of previous studies showing the benefits of exposure to uplifting events on PA regardless of age (Charles et al., 2010). A possible explanation for this is that event intensity (reflecting positive appraisal) rather than exposure (count) is a more important predictor of levels of PA with increasing chronological age. Indeed, aging is related to stronger positive appraisals—elevated subjective perceptions of uplifting events—to emotional well-being, as posited by SST (Charles & Carstensen, 2010). Future studies of emotion and aging may benefit from considering the factor of positive appraisals of uplifting events.

Finally, age differences did not appear to matter for the associations between participation in enjoyable activities and PA reactivity to uplifting events. That is, the influences of participation in enjoyable activities on PA reactivity to uplifting events were seen regardless of individuals’ age. Adults who more frequently participated in enjoyable activities reported a relative pattern of decreased PA response to uplifting events similar to that of younger adults. Perhaps hedonic adaptation occurs in similar ways across adulthood. In fact, hedonic adaptation is built on automatic habituation and other inevitable processes in which individuals’ psychological systems become accustomed to stimuli and return to their set point (Diener, Lucas, & Scollon, 2006). Adults who less frequently participated in enjoyable activities reported a relative pattern of increased PA response to uplifting events similar to that of younger adults.

Limitations

The study has several limitations that should be considered in future research. First, our sample is not inclusive of the entire age range in adulthood; we limited our sample to individuals from 25 to 66 years old. The narrower age range of the present sample may have prevented us from observing age-related benefits in the effects of uplifting events and participation in enjoyable activities on older adults’ emotional experiences. Findings from longitudinal studies suggest that uplift intensity increases until age 67 and decreases thereafter (Aldwin et al., 2014). Thus, the participants in our sample might not have been old enough to allow us to detect age differences in enjoyable activities, uplift, or their interaction in response to PA. Future studies including samples with wider age ranges are necessary to observe age differences within these contexts. Second, retrospective biases were a problem in the baseline survey regarding participation in enjoyable activities. With regard to the measures of participation in enjoyable activities, individuals may have miscalculated the frequency with which they engaged in different types of enjoyable activities in the previous month due to the possible limitation of memory loss. Future studies might capture participation in enjoyable activities during the day with repeated momentary self-reported assessments. Third, causality cannot be determined; the data from these findings are correlational. To strengthen causal inferences and better inform interventions regarding enjoyable activities and uplifting events, experimental designs are necessary for future studies.

Despite these limitations, this study highlights that higher frequencies of participation in enjoyable activities were associated with reduced affective reactions to uplifting events, in line with recent research on emotional stability (Grosse et al., 2018). TR specialists might develop a leisure education program for those who less frequently participate in enjoyable activities to increase their leisure engagement (Dattilo et al., 2020). Such a leisure education program could aim to increase individuals’ frequencies of participation in activities, resulting in psychological and health benefits to the participants. In this way, the benefits of emotional stability might be gained from increasing the frequencies of participation in enjoyable activities across adulthood.