Positive Affectivity and Accuracy in Social Network Perception

We investigated how positive affectivity influences people's perception of the patterns of social relationships around them. Positive affectivity was measured as trait positive affect. The outcome variable was accuracy in the perception of informal patterns of social interaction in a group (i.e., the group's network structure). Data on the perception of the relationships of friendship and work-related advice at an Italian university were collected from 24 members. Positive affectivity improved the accuracy of people's perception of the friendship network linking all respondents to each other (global accuracy), but hindered the accuracy of the perception of one's personal advice ties (local accuracy). These results suggest that, although happy people may feed unrealistic images of their personal social connections, their superior ability to develop an accurate picture of the broader dynamics of social interaction among people around them may give them an important advantage for social and professional accomplishment in a given social setting.