Positive affect, well-being and the human conserved transcriptional response to adversity: a descriptive review

Psychology well-describes the theoretical and philosophical underpinnings of human well-being. Within the construct of well-being, psychologists distinguish eudemonic positive affect and hedonic positive affect, although they are not only nor mutually exclusive approaches. Empirical findings have documented a correlation between the general positive affect and favourable health outcomes. Recent discoveries also show a biological pattern, which underlines the correlation. Thanks to describing conserved transcriptional response to adversity (CTRA) mechanism, a new direction of research which explores a relationship between profile of gene expression in immune cells and positive affect, is emerging.