Positivity

Darwin's Regret

Barbara L. Fredrickson, Ph.D. — Fri, 15 May 2009 15:30:24 +0000

My mind has changed during the last twenty or thirty years... Now for many years I cannot endure to read a line of poetry… I have also almost lost any taste for pictures or music… My mind seems to have become a kind of machine for grinding general laws out of large collections of facts...

If I had to live my life again I would have made a rule to read some poetry and listen to some music at least once every week… The loss of these tastes is a loss of happiness, and may possibly be injurious to the intellect, and more probably to the moral character, by enfeebling the emotional part of our nature.

The Autobiography of Charles Darwin, 1809-1882 (pp. 138-139)

I’ve long been a huge Charles Darwin fan. Indeed, my broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions draws on his famous theory of natural selection to explain how joy, love, interest and other fleeting pleasant states evolved as part of universal human nature: These states, however subtle, expanded our ancestor’s awareness and actions in ways that little by little reshaped their character and built their survival skills.

So when twice within the span of a few weeks this particular Darwin quote surfaced for me, I paid attention. The first time was when Robert Klitgaard, then-President of Claremont Graduate University opened this year’s Stauffer Symposium with it (Applying the Science of Positive Psychology to Improve Society), and then it later struck as a “Sunbeam” in The Sun, my favorite literary magazine. Both times I was moved by Darwin’s humility and sensed the need to connect with his regret at a personal level. And just as I was mulling over Darwin’s lament, gestating this blog entry, by chance, I found myself standing over his gravestone in Westminster Abbey on a family trip to London.

Darwin was a grand intellectual. Although I’m no Darwin, as a university professor, I too live the “life of the mind.” It’s no secret that I love this life. It overflows with captivating opportunities – to explore, synthesize, postulate, predict, test, publish, and, yes, pontificate. Yet, like all else, the life of the mind also comes with costs. Perhaps the biggest cost is, as Darwin puts it, the enfeebling of emotions. It’s humbling to learn that even one of the world’s foremost emotion scholars worried about his own emotional development.

Yet producing general laws about emotions is not the same as living by them. Like many academics, I’ve been sucked down into my own “workaholic” jags from time to time, spending too much time in my head. When I do, I even monopolize family dinner conversations with my latest hypotheses or empirical results. My husband, feeling lonely after a string of such benders tells me that his head is full, but his heart is empty. That’s when I feel the sting of Darwin’s regret all too well.

Just as we should enjoy all things in moderation, any strength becomes a weakness if not balanced by complementary pursuits. Indeed, I’ve found that the best “treatment” for my own addiction to work is to escape the life of the mind – by meditating, running in the woods, dancing, cooking, playing with or like a kid – or otherwise enlivening my physical senses.

Darwin’s belated self-prescription was to have read more poetry or listened to more music. Ironically, even before I’d encountered this particular Darwin quote, I’d come up with a similar way to stoke the fading embers of positivity: To build portfolios of objects and activities that elicit specific positive emotions in us and to visit these portfolios regularly, even daily, as described in Positivity. Over time, just as we are what we eat, we are what we feel. If our entrenched habits of work – however enjoyable in their own right – bypass vast territories of positivity, our minds and character atrophy in predictable ways. I’d learned from Darwin’s sharpest theory. Now I hope I can learn from his sharpest regret – to step outside my own mind and celebrate beauty in all its human, earthly, and spiritual forms each day.

Barbara Fredrickson is the author of Positivity and Kenan Distinguished Professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

The Draw of Susan Boyle

Barbara L. Fredrickson, Ph.D. — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 15:22:30 +0000

Who is Susan Boyle? Simply the latest household name of the YouTube era. With one stunning performance last week in a talent show on the other side of the Atlantic, Susan Boyle’s video has become the most-watched in the history of the Internet. When last I checked, just one version had been viewed over 39 million times. In one week. Who are these people??

Me, apparently. I just can’t get enough.

I have watched the video each day since I received the link. Sometimes twice. I don’t otherwise watch talent shows, and my music preferences don’t tend toward songs from musicals. Yet like millions of others, I’m drawn to watch this video over and again. Why? Because Susan Boyle is an ordinary woman who did an extraordinary thing. And the crowd went wild!

The Susan Boyle phenomenon exemplifies the power of what I call “other-praising emotions.” Research suggests that these particular flavors of positivity help us become better versions of ourselves, by drawing our attention to (and keeping us riveted to) talented, virtuous, and kind exemplars in our social world.

When Ms. Boyle opens her mouth to sing, within seconds, her talent becomes apparent. Perhaps you knew it from the chills you experienced or the fact that your jaw dropped. Chances are, you were feeling admiration. Admiration is the positive emotional response to witnessing remarkable skill, talent, or courage. I think of it as a shortcut to our own success. Why? One reason is because admired individuals are inspiring or motivating. My own research documents this. Yet there’s something more to it. A thoughtful analysis of prestige, by Joseph Henrich and Francisco Gil-White, suggests that the emotion of admiration helps us find people who already have the answers. Then, we carefully study these people, with hopes of picking up clues to life success. Susan Boyle is a prototypical example, which is why so many people are watching: what’s her secret?! Yet in our everyday lives, too, repeated interactions with people we admire allow us to watch and learn, and thereby expand our own capacities.

Admiration for Ms. Boyle’s talent is just the beginning of why so many people want to catch another glimpse of the video: It’s also phenomenally moving to witness the admiration on the faces of so many people in the crowd. Other-praising emotions serve dual purposes. At the same time that they shine light on the path to success, our expressions of praise – both verbal and nonverbal - provide the firepower behind rapid transmission of a good reputation throughout a community. In this case, the “community” is all together in one place at one time: it’s the crowd. The video allows us to see both the path to and the social consequences of success, all unfolding before our eyes in rapid time. And this exponentially increases the high we get from watching it.

Our reaction comes first, but then Simon Cowell’s raised eyebrows and open mouth validate the hunch that we’re onto something. The crowd leaps to its feet. The looks of awe and reverence, and the rush of praise, respect, and goodwill that comes from the judges and the joyful crowd, feels like a warm blanket. Judge Amanda Holden’s deferential remark, “I just want to say that it was a complete privilege to hear that,” feels good to witness, even the tenth time! Susan Boyle deserves it. For every ordinary person who has dreamt of what they might become if just given the chance, the video of Susan Boyle’s experience puts all the positive consequences on center stage, and amplifies the effect. The video is both inspiring and addictive.

I will probably never meet Susan Boyle. But that’s just fine, because opportunities to experience admiration abound in my everyday life. If I pay attention, I have countless chances to see the best in the people I interact with, right in my own community, from one day to the next. They are friends, colleagues, and even the busy stranger at the grocery store who stops to help a mother with her groceries as she chases her runaway child. I am moved by their virtues and talents. And in these moments of positive emotions, I can see the path to becoming a better version of myself. It is well-lit, and inviting.

That’s why I can’t get enough of Susan Boyle. And it’s why I’m not alone. Thank you, Ms. Boyle, for being who you are.

AUTHOR NOTE: This blog entry was written by guest author Dr. Sara Algoe, an expert on other-praising emotions and senior member of Dr. Barbara Fredrickson’s Positive Emotions and Psychophysiology Laboratory (a.k.a., PEP Lab) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. From time to time members of PEP Lab, past and present, join Barb here to highlight the virtues of positivity.

Barbara Fredrickson is the author of Positivity and Kenan Distinguished Professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Why Choose Hope?

Barbara L. Fredrickson, Ph.D. — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 18:52:56 +0000

President Obama continues to urge Americans to choose hope over fear. The choice is vital. Hope and fear are not mere words or facial gestures. They’re deeply felt neurochemical stances toward our current circumstances – stances that alter our outlooks, our actions, as well as the life paths that unfold before us.

Fear closes us down. Our actions become rigid and predictable. Pessimism pervades our self-talk and drives our decisions. Our bleak outlooks bleed into our exchanges with family, friends, and colleagues, eroding any collective sense of safety or security. Fear’s negativity also seeps into our bodies and affects our health. We can feel it eating away at our stomachs, raising our stress hormones, and turning our shoulder and neck muscles into stone.

But what about hope? Do we truly know all that it offers? Can hope lead us out of these dark times?

Hope is not your typical form of positivity. Most positive emotions arise when we feel safe and satiated. Hope is the exception. It comes into play when our circumstances are dire – things are not going well or at least there’s considerable uncertainty about how things will turn out. Hope arises precisely within those moments when fear, hopelessness or despair seem just as likely. Perhaps you’ve just lost your job, your dreams for starting a new business or retiring. Hope, in times like these, is what psychologist Richard Lazarus describes as “fearing the worst but yearning for better.”

Hope literally opens us up. It removes the blinders of fear and despair and allows us to see the big picture. We become creative, unleashing our dreams for the future. This is because deep within the core of hope is the belief that things can change. No matter how awful or uncertain they are at the moment, things can turn out for the better. Possibilities exist. Belief in this better future sustains us. It keeps us from collapsing in despair. It infuses our bodies with the healing rhythms of positivity. It motivates us to tap into our signature capabilities and inventiveness to turn things around. It inspires us to build a better future.

Anthropologist Lionel Tiger casts hope as the evolved antidote to our big human forebrains. Unlike any other earthly creature, we humans can envision our own futures and, in so doing, all possible calamities. Without hope, our dire forecasts might constrain us to motionless despair. Yet with hope, we become energized to do as much as we can to solve our current dilemmas, to make a good life for ourselves and for others.

We face serious challenges in this country, economic and personal, large-scale and intimate. The choice of hope over fear is pivotal for all of us. The more hope we cultivate today, the better equipped we’ll be to survive and thrive in the months and years ahead. We’re going to need the openness of hope to face our challenges with clear eyes and to find the creative solutions that allow us to come through these dark times stronger than ever. So let us be human – let us choose hope and build our better future.

Barbara Fredrickson is the author of Positivity and Kenan Distinguished Professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

What Good Is Positivity?

Barbara L. Fredrickson, Ph.D. — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 15:15:24 +0000

For years I've investigated the value of positive emotions - those pleasing yet fleeting moments of joy, serenity, gratitude, amusement, and the like. In controlled laboratory experiments, I've measured the effects of these states on people's thinking styles. In field studies, I've cataloged their effects on people's skills, traits, and well-being. What I've learned is that positive emotions carry far more benefits than most of us suspected.

I've encapsulate two classes of these benefits into my broaden-and-build theory. First, when we experience a positive emotion, our vision literally expands, allowing us to make creative connections, see our oneness with others, and face our problems with clear eyes (a.k.a. the broaden effect). Second, as we make a habit of seeking out these pleasing states, we change and grow, becoming better versions of ourselves, developing the tools we need to make the most out of life (the build effect). And strikingly, these twin benefits of positive emotions obey a tipping point: When positive emotions outnumber negative emotions by at least 3 to 1, these benefits accrue, yet below this same ratio, they don't.

Initially, I was drawn to study positive emotions simply because they were mysterious, largely uncharted scientific terrain. Yet when the 3-to-1 positivity ratio surfaced, my motives shifted. I realized that my life's work held precious life lessons. I began experimenting with ways to inject more positivity into my own day, and into my own family life. The results were eye-opening. I began to recognize hidden opportunities for serenity and playfulness each day. What I once deemed frivolous now nourished me. I felt buoyant and alive. And this new and positive energy infused my relationships at home, at work and beyond. I wrote Positivity to share what I've learned, both scientifically and personally, about the value of positive emotions.

A few weeks after the book release, I was invited to speak at The Regulator Bookshop in nearby Durham, North Carolina. After I made opening remarks and read a passage from my book, a gentleman raised his hand to say that six days after he starting reading Positivity, his friends and family started calling him "the new Jim." He acknowledged that he'd been rather curmudgeonly most of his life, and that learning about the science of positive emotions opened up new possibilities for him, possibilities that rippled through his web of family and friends. No, I hadn't paid him to say this - I'd never met Jim before, old or new. Yet his words touched my heart and reminded me why I wrote the book. I wrote it for the new Jim.

Did I mention that Jim is 88?