Determinants of digital well-being

How can people lead fulfilling lives both thanks to and despite the constant use of digital media and artificial intelligence? While the prevailing narrative often portrays these technologies as generally harmful to well-being, the reality is of course more nuanced—some individuals benefit, while others do not. Existing research has predominantly focused on the general consequences of digital media on well-being, with less attention given to the individual-level antecedents of digital well-being. In the present study, we aimed to identify the traits and characteristics of individuals who use digital tools in ways that promote their well-being. Using a large representative sample from Sweden (N = 1999), we explore how digital self-control, digital literacy (objective and subjective), and digital information ignorance predict digital well-being, life satisfaction, and social anxiety. Digital self-control and subjective digital literacy positively predicted digital well-being. Digital self-control also predicted greater life satisfaction. Finally, digital information ignorance predicted increased life satisfaction and social anxiety. Overall, the current study contributes to a growing literature on digital well-being by exploring its antecedents.publishedVersio

The Arithmetic of Emotion: Integration of Incidental and Integral Affect in Judgments and Decisions

Research has demonstrated that two types of affect have an influence on judgment and decision making: incidental affect (affect unrelated to a judgment or decision such as a mood) and integral affect (affect that is part of the perceiver’s internal representation of the option or target under consideration). So far, these two lines of research have seldom crossed so that knowledge concerning their combined effects is largely missing. To fill this gap, the present review highlights differences and similarities between integral and incidental affect. Further, common and unique mechanisms that enable these two types of affect to influence judgment and choices are identified. Finally, some basic principles for affect integration when the two sources co-occur are outlined. These mechanisms are discussed in relation to existing work that has focused on incidental or integral affect but not both. Creative Commons Attribution License. This Document is Protected by copyright and was first published by Frontiers. All rights reserved. it is reproduced with permission.Daniel Vastfjall, Paul Slovic, William Burns, Arvid Erlandsson, Lina Koppel, Erkin Asutay, and Gustav Tinghog, (2016). "The Arithmetic of Emotion: Integration of Incidental and Integral Affect in Judgments and Decisions", Frontal Psychol. 71664-107

Perception of Loudness Is Influenced by Emotion

Loudness perception is thought to be a modular system that is unaffected by other brain systems. We tested the hypothesis that loudness perception can be influenced by negative affect using a conditioning paradigm, where some auditory stimuli were paired with aversive experiences while others were not. We found that the same auditory stimulus was reported as being louder, more negative and fear-inducing when it was conditioned with an aversive experience, compared to when it was used as a control stimulus. This result provides support for an important role of emotion in auditory perception

Emotional Influences on Auditory Perception and Attention [Elektronisk resurs]

The auditory perception is a fundamental part of our interactions with and experience of the external environment. We receive considerable amount of information from our surroundings through sounds. The auditory system takes care of this continuous flow of information in a seemingly effortless manner. It functions as an adaptive and cognitive alarm system that scans our surroundings, detects and analyzes the significant events, and signals for attention shifts to objects of interest. The research presented in this thesis focuses on the influence of emotions on the perception of sounds, and proposes that the affective experience is integral to the auditory perception. In particular, the current research explored how the affective qualities of auditory stimuli may modulate the way we attend to and perceive the sounds around us.In Paper I, employing an affective learning paradigm, the author investigated whether the learned emotional meaning of an otherwise meaningless sound could influence the perception of a basic auditory feature: loudness. The main focus of Papers II and III was on the emotional modulations of spatial auditory perception. Paper II presents a study that set out to investigate whether the affective quality of sounds can provide exogenous cues of the orientation of spatial attention. Paper III concerns the potential of the auditory spatial information to possess emotional value and modulate attention. Finally, in Paper IV, the authors investigated the importance of the emotional information for the auditory perception in the presence of a complex environment with a number of concurrent sounds.Overall, it was found that both the loudness perception and the spatial auditory perception can be modulated by emotional significance, and that auditory-induced emotion is constructed using the available information in the auditory stimuli involving the spatial dimension. Further, the current research provided evidence that the emotional salience provides cues for the allocation of attention in the auditory modality.Taken together, the current research set out to investigate the influence of the emotional salience on auditory perception. Perception is our everyday tool to navigate our surrounding world; and the finding that emotions can modulate the way we perceive our surroundings may help to improve the quality of everyday environments that we all occupy

Emotional Influences on Auditory Perception and Attention

The auditory perception is a fundamental part of our interactions with and experience of the external environment. We receive considerable amount of information from our surroundings through sounds. The auditory system takes care of this continuous flow of information in a seemingly effortless manner. It functions as an adaptive and cognitive alarm system that scans our surroundings, detects and analyzes the significant events, and signals for attention shifts to objects of interest. The research presented in this thesis focuses on the influence of emotions on the perception of sounds, and proposes that the affective experience is integral to the auditory perception. In particular, the current research explored how the affective qualities of auditory stimuli may modulate the way we attend to and perceive the sounds around us.In Paper I, employing an affective learning paradigm, the author investigated whether the learned emotional meaning of an otherwise meaningless sound could influence the perception of a basic auditory feature: loudness. The main focus of Papers II and III was on the emotional modulations of spatial auditory perception. Paper II presents a study that set out to investigate whether the affective quality of sounds can provide exogenous cues of the orientation of spatial attention. Paper III concerns the potential of the auditory spatial information to possess emotional value and modulate attention. Finally, in Paper IV, the authors investigated the importance of the emotional information for the auditory perception in the presence of a complex environment with a number of concurrent sounds.Overall, it was found that both the loudness perception and the spatial auditory perception can be modulated by emotional significance, and that auditory-induced emotion is constructed using the available information in the auditory stimuli involving the spatial dimension. Further, the current research provided evidence that the emotional salience provides cues for the allocation of attention in the auditory modality.Taken together, the current research set out to investigate the influence of the emotional salience on auditory perception. Perception is our everyday tool to navigate our surrounding world; and the finding that emotions can modulate the way we perceive our surroundings may help to improve the quality of everyday environments that we all occupy

The role of anticipated and experienced affect in pro-environmental behavior

Affect experienced as a feeling state emphasizes a positive or a negative quality of an event or a behavior, which influences judgments by forming easily accessible positive and negative mental tags (Slovic et al., 2007). Moreover, positive feelings resulting from acting ‘green’ is an important driver of climate action (Strömbäck et al., 2025; Asutay et al., 2023; Jia & van der Linden, 2020; Taufik et al., 2016; van der Linden, 2018). Combining these lines of research, we propose that the role of affect in guiding judgments and motivating action may be seen at individual behavior: Positive affect associated with a behavior like recycling may increase its perceived impact. It feels good to recycle and the person is satisfied for doing their part (Geiger et al., 2019), strengthening experienced positive affect forming a positive feedback loop. Hence, positive affect can be both an antecedent and a consequence of environmental action creating a reinforcement mechanism ensuring continued behavior (e.g., Brosch & Steg, 2021). We propose that positive affect, perceived impact, and difficulty determine whether a behavior is undertaken. Once this threshold has been passed, it starts forming feedback loops reducing perceived difficulty while enhancing positive affect and perceived impact. Currently, there is no definitive empirical proof for the causal role of affect heuristic in sustainable behavior. This project is aimed at investigating the relationships between engagement with mitigative behaviors, anticipated (positive and negative) affect in response to mitigative behaviors, experienced affect in response to own engagement with mitigative behaviors, and intention for future engagement with mitigative behaviors; as well as impact perceptions and difficulty judgments. We will use a longitudinal survey design (3 waves collected over 3 consecutive months) and a large Swedish representative sample to predict the affective causes of pro-environmental behavior