Laugh It Up
Dacher Keltner, Ph.D., associate professor of psychology at the University of California at Berkeley, studied people who had little reason to laugh: people whose spouses had died six months before. Most psychologists consider a period of sadness or anger after such a traumatic event to be normal and healthy, and positive emotions after the death of a spouse to be pathological. But Keltner—who was struck by how little academic literature focuses on the quirks and patterns of positive human emotion—wasn't so sure.
He interviewed mourners and noted their tendency to laugh or smile through their sadness just weeks after a loved one's death. He then discovered that those who had displayed more positive emotions showed less depression and anxiety two to four years later.
Keltner now speculates that humor can transform the sadness of a tragedy. "Laughter is a healthy mechanism; it allows you to disassociate yourself from the event so you can engage in more healthful and social emotions." But, he adds, the power of laughter needs to be more fully examined by positive psychology researchers.
Give the Gift That Gives Back
The virtues of "giving" are as underinvestigated as those of laughter. But when you do a good deed, you are helping more than just the recipient. "You are helping everybody," says Jonathan Haidt, Ph.D., assistant professor of psychology at the University of Virginia.
Of course it feels good to be on the giving end, but Haidt suggests that people witnessing others performing good deeds also benefit; they experience an emotion called "elevation." "If you see someone help others, show gratitude, behave honorably or act heroically, this triggers elevation," he explains. "Elevation makes people more open and loving toward others; it makes them feel better about humanity."
Haidt, who was studying human morality when he first heard of positive psychology a few years ago, believes that human nature's virtuous motives have not been sufficiently appreciated. "Getting deeper into the study of morality showed me that human nature is very much two-sided; for every bad side to our nature, there's a good one."
Seize the Power
One winter, when he was 12, Paul Stoltz, Ph.D., asked his father a difficult question. Their flight had been delayed, and they were mesmerized by the numbers of "business drones" marching past them through the airport. "Dad, why are these people so dead?" Stoltz asked.
"I guess it's because life is hard," his father answered.
"So am I going to end up like that, too?" Stoltz asked poignantly. Troubled by that possibility, Stoltz's father thought for a moment and said, "Some people seem to be able to escape."
Stoltz says this exchange planted the seeds of his research on strategies for dealing with adversity. His method, spelled out in his book Adversity Quotient: Turning Obstacles Into Opportunities (Wiley, 1997), uses the acronym CORE to preserve psychological health in negative situations. He explains:
"C" is for Control—recognize your own power in a situation.
"O" is for Ownership—what part of the problem do you take responsibility for solving?
"R" is for Reach—don't catastrophize, and don't let the problem leak into other parts of your life.
"E" is for Endurance—don't let adversity get you down for long.
Stoltz believes that, on our own, we can get to the "core" of our potential for happiness.
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