Table 1: Summary of Prospective Cohort, Cross-Sectional Observational and Case-Control Studies on the Role of Positive Emotion and Contributions of Positive Psychology in Depression Treatment

Authors Objective N Design Main Results
Lewinsohn,PM;Libet,J. Investigate the relationship between humor and pleasant activities. 30 Prospective cohort study Three groups of 10 subjects (depression, psychiatric and control) during 30 consecutive days engaged in enjoyable activities and measured their mood. The results showed a significant association between pleasant activities and mood state suggesting a clinical utility.
Lightsey,O.R. Evaluate if automatic positive thoughts could function as protective factors to stress and depression. 152 Prospective cohort study The results confirmed the hypothesis that automatic positive thoughts are predictors of happiness and higher frequency of them was associated with greater future happiness. This findings suggests that positive automatic thoughts had an impact on immediate and on future well-being alleviating depression.
Kuppens,P Nezlek,J.B, Examine how subjects regulated their emotions in daily life and how this affected their emotional experiences and their psychological adjustment. 153 Prospective cohort study Over the course of three weeks participants described as they had adjusted the emotion in terms of reassessment or inhibition of positive and negative emotions. The results showed that the reappraisal situations to increase positive emotions was positively related to self-esteem, psychological adjustment and positive affect, in contrast, supressing the expression of positive emotions was associated with decreased self-esteem, decreased psychological adjustment and increased negative emotions. These analyses suggested that positive and negative emotion played diferentes roles in mediating the psychologycal adjustment and self-esteem.
Sawyer,M.G;Pfeiffer,S; Spence,S.H. Investigate the impacts of positive and negative management strategies and optimistic thinking style in depressive symptoms. 5634 Prospective cohort study The results showed that teens who made greater use of negative coping strategies and less use of positive coping strategies and optimistic thinking were at increased risk for higher levels of depressive symptoms. This findings suggest that negative life events and negative coping strategies precede and likely contribute to the onset of depressive symptoms while positive coping strategies and optimistic thinking may have a protective effect against depression.
Wenze,S.J.; Gunthert,K,. & Forand,N.R. Analize the relationship between cognitive reactivity (relationship between thought and mood) and depression. 63 Prospective cohort study The results pointed out that cognitive reactivity remained predictive of follow-up depressive symtom scores (p<0.05) and accounted for 6.1% of the variance in follow-up depressive symptom. Dysfunctional atitudes were predictive of follow-up depressive symptom, controlling for initial depressive symptom (p= 0.06) and account for 5.5% of the variance in folow-up depressive symptoms. Cognitive reactivity was somewhat more predictive of follow-up depressive symptom scores in participants who had experienced high levels of life stress. This results indicate that cognitive reactivity serves as a risk fator for the development of depressive symtoms.
Mauss,I.B.; Shallcross,A.J;Troy,A.S.; John,O.P.; Ferrer,E.; Wilhelm,F.H. Gross,J.J. Examine whether dissociation between positive emotion experience and behaviors predicts two facets of psychological functioning- depressive symptoms and well-being- and if so, wether these effects are mediated by social connectedness. 135 Prospective cohort study The results showed that positive experience-behavior dissociation predicted social connectedness (p<0.05); social connectedness was negatively associated with depressive symptoms (p<0.05) and positively associated with well-being (p<0.05). This study showed that the more participants positive experience and behaviors were dissociated during a positive emotion induction, the greater levels of depressive symptoms and the lower levels of well-being participants experienced six months later.
Shankman,S.A.; Klein,D.N.; Torpey,D.C.; Olino,T.M.; Dyson,M.W; Kim,J; Durbin,E.; Nelson,B.D.& Tenke,C.E. Assess if high negative emotionality (sadness, fear, anger) and low positive emotionality (anhedonia, lack of enthusiasm, lack of energy) in children are risk factors for developing depression. 329 Prospective cohort study The results showed that both low positive emotionality and high negative emotionality are suficient for confering risk for depression. Using EEG asymmetry as a marker for depression, the direction of interaction suggests that children with low positive emotionality or high negative emotionality are at risk for depression and children with both temperamental traits are not a greater risk than those with only one.
Catalino,L.I & Fredrickson,B.L. Evaluate whether and how routine activity promote flourishing - a state of optimal mental health. 208 Prospective cohort study Comparing florishers to depressed and non florishers the authors discovered that flourishers respond more positively to pleasant activities, ranging from interacting to learning. The analysis pointed out important differences in florishers individuals in positive emotionality that modify significantly the capabilities of coping and feeling of well being and that the maintenance of this blossoming is the importance given to ordinary everyday experiences as, for example, chat with a colleague, helping, interacting, playing, learning, spiritual activity and exercising.
Gruber,J.; Kogan,A.; Quoidbach,J.; & Mauss,I.B. Examine the Psychological health correlates of positive emotion variability versus stability. N1244 N2 2391 Prospective cohort study In Study 1 participants who experienced greater positive emotion variability throughout the 14 day period reported worse Psychological health including decreased life satisfaction and increased depression and anxiety(ps< 0.05). In study 2 participants who reported greater positive emotion variability throughout the previous day reported worse Psychological health and decreased daily and life satisfaction and subjective happiness.(ps<0.01).
Bradley,B.P. & Mogg,K. Ascertain the relationship between personality, mood and memory. 62 Cross-sectional observational study The results showed a tendency to remember negative information in subjects with depressive mood and personality vulnerabilities.
Lawton,M,P,Winter,L, Kleban,M.H,Ruckdeschel,K Determine the contribution of objective and subjective quality of life as positive and negative indicators of mental health in a sample of people of the third age. 602 Cross-sectional observational study The senior-center subjects were more depressed, had less contact with relatives and had lower activity participantion than housing residentes, but other model elements were not diferent. The study demonstrated that participation in objective activities, the quality of friendships and family are associated with positive affection and that quality time is associated with both positive affect and depression.
Dowrick,C, Kokanovic,R,Hegarty,K, Griffiths,F, Gunn,J Verifie the importance of developing resilience to handle depression in 100 depressive subjects met in emergency services of hospitals in Australia. 100 Cross-sectional observational study One-third of the subjects developed sustained resilience by personal resources consisting of internal forces and another third of the sample sustained their resilience in the expansion of positive emotions. The personal resilience appears to be important in patients with experience of depressive symptoms in primary care.
Wood,A.M.;Maltby,J; Gillett,R; Linley,P.A.&Joseph,S Analyze the role of gratitude in the perception of social support, stress and depression. N1156 N2 87 N=243 Cross-sectional observational study The results confirmed that the gratitude leads to well-being and social support above the effects of Big Five. It suggests a role for gratitude in well-being and social life protecting people from stress and depression even under the effects of the dimensions given in the personality test.
Liu,Q; Shono,M; Kitamura,T. investigate the relationship between psychological well-being with depression and anxiety. 545 Cross-sectional observational study The analysis of the results pointed out that people with greater psychological well-being are more resilient and more resistant to adversity that people with low levels of psychological well-being. In this way, this study could provide an useful implication for clinical work in psychotherapy on well-being promotion to prevent and treat depression and anxiety.
Vranceanu,A-M; Gallo,L.C.& Bogart,L.M. Evaluate the association between personal experiences, the fleeting affections and depressive symptoms in women 108 Cross-sectional observational study Women with higher levels of depression reported greater negative affect, less positive affect and more interpersonally conflictive interactions across two days of diary monitoring. According to the authors, social interations are strong contributors to the relationship between depressive symptoms and affect suggesting that interpersonal functioning as a key fator in etiology and maintenance of depression.
Mak,W.W., Ng,I.S.W. & Wong,C.C.Y. Estabilish the role of positive cognitive triad in the development of resilience in life satisfaction and depression in a sample of 1419 university students in Hong Kong. 1419 Cross-sectional observational study The study revealed that positive cognitions are important factors that contribute to the effect of trait resilience on well-being. Educators and psychologists may consider cognitive mechanisms to promote resiliency and well-being.
Alloy,LB, Crocker,J, Kayne,NT Check whether there would be differences in perceptions of consensus for positive, negative and neutral events in depressive and non-depressive and the effects of these interpretations both on attributive style and on levels of depression. 52 Case-control study The depression is not affected by the perception of others but by the perceptions of the self that have a direct association with depression and an effect mediated through attributional style for negative events. The authors pointed out the importance for the development of prevention and treatment strategies to determinate the causes of a depressive attributional style.
Sheeber,L.B;Allen,N.B; Leve,C; Davis,B; Shortt,J,W; Katz,L,F. Delineate the dimensions of affective experience in depressive disorder in adolescents. The affect regulation involved in initiating, maintaining and moduling the occurence, intensity and duration of the experience. 152 Case-control study The depressed adolescents didnt maintain happy affective states for as long a time as the healthy ones (p<0.01) . The authors highlight the deficit of maintenance of positive affect and the longer duration of physiological responses associated with negative affect as a critical mechanism in depression.
Levens,S.M & Gotlib,I.H. Verify whether depressed participants were also impaired at selecting relevant positive content in the context of representations in working memory (WM) such an impairment would limit depressed persons ability to use positive material to ameliorate the cognitive effects of negative information. 42 Case-control study The results presented that for the nondepressed participants, interferences levels differed significantly across conditions (p<0.001) and this participants exhibited lower levels of interference in the emotion focus condition in the neutral and the emotion nonfocus conditions (p<0.001). For the depressed group levels did not differ across conditions (p>0.05) and this participants exhibited higher interference levels than did their nondepressed peers in the emotion focus condition (p<0.01). Nondepressed participants showed less interference for positive than for neutral information and depressed subjects showed equivalent levels of interference for positive and neutral stimuli.

Legend: ANEW: Battery of English Words of Affective Contents; BDI: Beck Depression Inventory; BDI - II: Beck Depression Inventory II; BAI: Beck Anxiety Inventory; CES-D: Center for Epidemiological Studies - Depression Measure; DAS: Dysfunctional Attitudes Scale; DRM: Day Reconstruction Method; EAT: The Computerized Edinburgh Associative Thesaurus; EES: Elevating Experience Scale; ERM: Ego-Resilience Measure; ESM: Computerized Experience-Sampling-Method; HS: Hope Scale; Life: Structure Card-Sorting Task; LOT: Life Orientation Test; MAS: Mindfulness and Awareness Scale; MS: Meaning Scale; PANAS: Positive Affect and Negative Affect; PWB: Psychological Well-Being Scale; SBI: Savoring Beliefs Inventory; SCID-I: Structured Clinical Interview for DSM IV-TR Axis I Disorders; SES: Self- Esteem Scale; SH I: Steen Happiness Index; STAI: Spielberger State-Trait Anxiety Inventory; SVS: Subjective Vitality Scale; SWLS: Satisfaction With Life Scale; VIA-IS: Values in Action Inventory of Strengths