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A 2026 study asked people to design the most emotionally pleasant life possible, and most rejected a life without negative feelings; satisfaction peaked when their real emotions matched the mix they wanted, not when positivity was highest
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They preferred an emotional life that still contained some sadness, worry, anger and other unpleasant states, even when an almost entirely pleasant alternative was available.
The researchers asked them to choose between lives containing different proportions of positive and negative emotional moments.
One option held positive emotion at either 100 or 99 per cent, or negative emotion at zero or one per cent.
Researchers use “happiness” for immediate positive emotion, an overall judgement of life satisfaction, or some combination of pleasure, meaning and functioning.
In one American experiment, most people preferred a mixed emotional life to a perfectly positive one.