Abstract:

Affective adaptation is a psychological processes that causes a weak affective when exposures to a repetitive and successive stimulus. Empirical researches suggested that the adaptation to positive and negative emotions is asymmetric in speed and degree. We explain the mechanism of asymmetric affective adaptation from views of evolutionary psychology, cognitive psychology and positive psychology. There are many questions should be further explored: (1) The different adaptation between affective well-being and cognitive well-being; (2) The moderate effect of personality traits in affective adaptation process; (3) Investigate the interventions of affective adaptation; (4) Promote the precision of the temporal localization of the adaptation trajectory.

Key words: affective adaptation, asymmetry, evolved psychological mechanism, the AREA model, the HAPNE model