ORIGINAL PAPER Rose-colored glasses gone too far? Mania symptoms predict biased emotion experience and perception in couples Sunny J. Dutra • Tessa V. West • Emily A. Impett • Christopher Oveis • Aleksandr Kogan • Dacher Keltner • June Gruber Published online: 27 April 2013 Ó Springer Science+Business Media New York 2013 Abstract The present study investigated how symptoms of mania—associated with heightened and persistent positive emotion—influence emotion experience and per- ception during distressing social interactions, whereby the experience of heightened positive emotion may not be socially adaptive. Specifically, mania symptoms were assessed via a validated self-report measure, and used to predict emotion experience and perception during a natu- ralistic conversation between romantic couples about a time of distress and suffering (N = 68 dyads). Results indicated that mania symptoms were associated with increased positive and decreased negative emotion expe- rience and perception between couples, as well as decreased empathic accuracy for partners’ negative but not positive emotions. These findings suggest that mania symptoms may be associated with ‘‘rose-colored’’ glasses characterized by a positively biased emotional experience and outward perception even during perhaps the most intimate and distressing social situations. Keywords Mania Á Emotion Á Perception Á Empathy Á Relationships Introduction Recent work suggests that positive emotion may not always be adaptive for social exchanges and, in fact, there may be possible boundary conditions whereby heightened positive emotion could portend social difficulties (e.g., Gruber et al. 2011). However, no work to our knowledge has examined how heightened positive emotion directly impacts the experience and perception of emotions of others during in vivo social exchanges. This is particularly relevant in distressing social contexts where the expression of positive emotions can be much less appropriate than the expression of negative emotions, such as when one’s partner is discussing a time of personal tragedy, suffering, or loss. In such distressing social interactions, experiencing heightened positive emotion may be particularly prob- lematic for understanding and connecting to another’s distress. The present study aims thus to examine how a measure of heightened positive emotionality actually shapes the experience and perception of emotion during a conversation on a distressing topic between couples. Mania and heightened positive emotionality Although positive emotion is associated with numerous social benefits, it seems that in some contexts, too much positive emotion may actually be associated with social impairments (e.g., Gruber et al. 2011). Yet, there is a dearth S. J. Dutra Á J. Gruber (&) Department of Psychology, Yale University, P.O. Box 208205, New Haven, CT 06520, USA e-mail: june.gruber@yale.edu T. V. West New York University, New York, NY, USA E. A. Impett University of Toronto, Mississauga, Canada C. Oveis University of California, San Diego, San Diego, CA, USA A. Kogan University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK D. Keltner University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA 123 Motiv Emot (2014) 38:157–165 DOI 10.1007/s11031-013-9363-4