Torn between valences? Associations between mixed emotions and well-being in stressful and nonstressful situations in a large-scale ecological momentary assessment study.

Abstract

Using a large-scale public-sample ecological momentary assessment study (N = 710) collected across 7 days in 2020 and providing 29,820 observations, the present work examines associations between moment-to-moment and day-to-day experiences of mixed emotions with well-being among American adults and whether these relationships would be moderated by stressful situations or adverse life events. Multilevel lagged analyses adjusting for positive emotions, negative emotions, neuroticism, and demographic variability found that mixed emotions were not associated with next-moment physical well-being or next-day social well-being, but were associated with poorer next-day physical health. Reverse pathways in which physical well-being and social well-being on each day predicted reduced mixed emotions on subsequent days were also supported, though the comparable pathway at the moment level was not significant. Moderation analyses further found that whereas adverse life events reported in the previous month did not moderate the associations of mixed emotions with well-being, there were significant interaction terms between moment-level mixed emotions with stressful events reported at the moment predicting next-moment well-being, as well as between day-level mixed emotions with stressful events reported that day predicting next-day physical health. Simple slope analyses found that mixed emotions were associated with poorer next-moment physical well-being and next-day physical health only when stressful events were not reported. We discuss the implications of these findings for conceptualizations of mixed emotions and the potential role of stress as a contextual factor that may alter how mixed emotions are linked to downstream outcomes. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).