Handbook of adult resilience,edited by John W. Reich,Alex J. Zautra,and John Stuart Hall

This study investigated differences in adolescents’ life satisfaction (LS), apprehension of personal and non-personal events, and the influence of recalled life events on LS. The affective temperament (AFT) classification was the framework for the research. Seventy male and 65 female adolescents participated. AFTs were developed through self-reported affect, generating four temperaments: self-actualizing, high affective, low affective, and self-destructive. LS was also self-reported. Apprehension for events was assessed through two tasks: (1) life event recollection and (2) interpretation and recognition of words in a short story. High and low affectives interpreted and remembered events as both self-actualizers and self-destructives. All AFTs, with the exception of self-destructives, showed positive biases. Only individuals with high positive affect were positively primed for non-personal events. Life events predicted self-destructives’ and low affectives’ LS. Self-actualizers showed higher LS, measured for a second time in a sub-sample, than self-destructives. The importance of the AFTs is discussed.