However, such should not be the case for obsessive passion as it mainly promotes negative affect and psychological ill-being
Furthermore, research on passion has systematically found that regularly engaging in a meaningful activity out of harmonious passion leads to the experience of positive affect and the protection against negative affect, while obsessive passion leads to negative affect and is either unrelated or weakly related to positive affect during task engagement (e.g., Philippe et al. 2010; Vallerand et al. 2003, Study 1; Vallerand et al. 2006, Studies 2 and 3). In addition, a 2 week-diary study (Mageau & Vallerand 2007) revealed that the positive affect that is experienced during task engagement energized by harmonious passion is still experienced at the end of the day. Conversely, when engagement in the passionate activity is fueled by obsessive passion, not being able to engage in the passionate activity on a given day leads to feeling less positive at the end of that day. Finally, Vallerand et al. (2003, Study 2) even found that football players with a harmonious passion experienced increases in general positive affect over the course of the season while those who had an obsessive passion experienced an increase in negative affect over time.
These results are illustrated in Figure 2
In sum, taking into consideration the fact that harmonious passion leads to regular engagement in the passionate activity that translates into positive affect during activity engagement (e.g., Mageau et al. 2005; Vallerand et al. 2003, Study 1; Vallerand et al. 2006, Studies 2 and 3), that such positive affect seems to endure for a substantial period of time (Mageau & Vallerand 2007; Vallerand et al. 2003, Study 2), and that positive affect positively predicts psychological well-being (Fredrickson 2001; Fredrickson et al. 2008), it would appear that having a harmonious passion can lead people to experience cumulative experiences of positive affect that should facilitate and sustain psychological well-being as well as protect against psychological ill-being. Thus, harmonious passion is expected to play a dual role of leading people to engage in the passionate activity on a regular basis and to do so in a way as to derive important emotional benefits from one’s engagement that foster psychological well-being.
Specifically, these authors tested the mediating role of positive and negative affect in the passion-psychological well-being relationship with senior individuals who had a passion for physical activity
Research by Rousseau and Vallerand (2008) has tested the above model within the confines of the same study. At Time 1, participants completed the Passion Scale with respect to physical activity, as well as a measure of psychological well-being (life satisfaction). Five weeks later, at Time 2, immediately following an exercise session, they completed situational measures of positive and negative affect experienced while exercising (e.g., feeling happy, joyful). Finally, three weeks later, at Time 3, participants completed measures of psychological well-being again. Results from a path analysis using structural equation modeling revealed that harmonious passion positively predicted positive affect that led to increases in psychological well-being from Time 1 to Time 3. On the other hand, obsessive passion was unrelated to positive affect but positively predicted negative affect. While obsessive passion directly and negatively predicted decreases in psychological well-being, negative affect was unrelated to psychological well-being. These basic findings have been replicated in the work domain (Houlfort et al. 2011, Study 3) where it was found that one’s harmonious passion for work led to positive affective experiences at work that in turn predicted increases in psychological well-being over a 6-month period. As in the Rousseau and Vallerand (2008) study, the negative relation between obsessive passion and well-being was direct and was not mediated by positive affect.
