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September 11, 2001 to November 23, 1963 – A Character Strengths Reflection

by John Yeager
written by John Yeager

It’s September 11, 2007, and for many it can feel just like that tragic day in 2001. Many of us will reflect through different lenses and filters the events that happened six years ago in New York City, Washington, DC and in Pennsylvania. Just ask a person where they were at the moment they heard or saw the news, and they will, most likely, evoke some level of emotion.

Ground Zero

The first images on the television screen were so graphic I was in a state of denial: “This is just another advertisement for a Tom Cruise or Kurt Russell “Save the World” from destruction movie.” Going through the stages of loss was quite a challenge for many of us. Fortunately, loss can eventually lead to a type of rebirth or reconnection with self and others – a type of shared identity.

Chris Peterson and Marty Seligman asked an important question in their 2003 research article in Psychological Science, entitled, Character Strengths Before and After September 11. “Did Americans change following the September 11 terrorists attacks?” Based on a cross-sectional sample of 4,817 on-line respondents of the Values in Action Inventory, they claimed that there were increases in seven specific character strengths: gratitude, hope, kindness, leadership, love, spirituality, and teamwork. Almost one year after the attacks there were still increases in the aforementioned strengths, but their magnitude had decreased. Peterson and Seligman admit that they didn’t intend to, but found some interesting data surrounding the event after 10 months. They also admitted that a more a detailed longitudinal investigation was warranted.

What was most interesting to Peterson and Seligman were the increases in the “theological virtues” of faith (spirituality), hope, and charity (gratitude, kindness, leadership, love, teamwork) during this 10-month time period. These strengths are now categorized in the Humanity and Transcendence categories in the VIA. When I was in New York City for conference in 2002, I could sense a difference in people from previous visits before 911. Maybe, it was my own display of the “theological virtues” that provided this different perspective.

John and Jackie Kennedy

911 has vividly brought me back to November 23, 1963. As a ten-year old, I was sitting in Ms. McDonald’s fifth grade classroom in Framingham, Massachusetts, when the principal came on the loud speaker and announced that a terrible thing had happened in Dallas, Texas. He said that the details were confusing, but when I arrived home and walked in my back door and saw my mother sobbing, one level of confusion went away and one remained. I knew what happened to President Kennedy, but I didn’t know why somebody would do that to him.

My visual perspective of the assassination was and still is in black and white tones – the only colors of our 60’s television set. Were the “theological virtues” more “black and white” back then? My first visual perspective of 911 was the gray smoke that enveloped Ground Zero and metaphorically, our nation. It was like watching my old TV again, albeit a bit grayer, and much more confusing. On this anniversary, let’s continue to sift through the gray and aspire to make the strengths of gratitude, hope, kindness, leadership, love, spirituality and teamwork come even more alive in ourselves and others.

___________________________­­­­­­____________

Peterson, C. & Seligman, M. E. P. (2003). Character strengths before and after September 11. Psychological Science 14 (4), 381–384.

Image
Ground Zero courtesy of renny67
President and Mrs Kennedy deplane from Air Force One courtesy of Marion Doss

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What Gets Measured Gets Managed

by Rosie Milner
written by Rosie Milner

Richard Layard

Richard Layard

Governments have tried to increase their citizens’ well-being since time immemorial. But when it comes to assessing how they’re doing, they have generally stuck to objective measures such as GDP, as famously criticized by Lord Layard. This changed earlier this summer, when the British Government became the first in the West to track its citizens’ subjective well-being.

The UK Government has published data on well-being in Britain, which will now be measured annually, along with economic, environmental and social indices. This commitment to monitor well-being fulfills a recommendation from a large number of prominent positive psychologists [i].

chartThe research confirms earlier findings [ii] that British people are fairly happy: average life satisfaction was 7.3 out of 10. But happiness was not equally distributed. Those in lower socio-economic groups were less satisfied with almost every aspect of their lives. As the chart of the left shows, they also experienced less general well-being and more depression and loneliness than other groups. The results give even greater urgency to the UK Government’s efforts to reduce inequality.

The landmark decision to track well-being follows political pressure from the leader of the main opposition party on the importance of well-being and public concern following a UNICEF report which placed the UK at the bottom of a league for child well-being.

The British Government is increasingly interested in evidence on the causes of well-being and successful positive interventions, and is supporting a UK community intervention based on the Penn Resiliency Program. Well-being findings are not yet integrated into policy-making in the UK, but the commitment to measure well-being is a very necessary and welcome first step towards this end.
 

 

References:

Diener, E. (2006). Guidelines for national indicators of subjective well-being and ill-being. Journal of Happiness Studies, 7, 397-404.

Diener, E. & Suh, E.M. (2003). National differences in subjective well-being. In D. Kahneman, E. Diener, & N. Schwarz (Eds.), Well-Being: The Foundations of Hedonic Psychology (pp. 435-450). New York: Russell Sage Foundation.

Layard, R. (2005). Happiness: Lessons from a New Science. New York: Penguin.

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Now We Need it More Than Ever

by Iris Marie Bloom
written by Iris Marie Bloom

Conversation on an Airplane

“I’m planning on being a fireman.  But if my brother gets killed in Iraq, I’m going to enlist and go take vengeance over there.”  Thus spoke the young man in the seat next to me on a late night flight last month.  This recent high school graduate had already been wonderfully open towards me in a long conversation about everything.  Earlier, when I found out he never listened to any kind of music other than hard-core, I asked him what he was pissed off about, and he told me.  I felt a flow of trust from him as I listened with interest and respect while he described the experiences that alienated him at home and in high school.  Much later, when he stated his intention to live out the eye for an eye ethic in Iraq, I felt my earlier curiosity and empathy paid off, for when I responded, he listened with care. 

“Wow, you have to think about that,” is where I began.  I don’t remember everything I said, but my main point was that it was sheer happenstance that he was born American and not Iraqi.  Mostly I told him a true story about a 15 year old Iraqi shepherd who was killed by a U.S. cluster bomb.  (The Nation, 6/11/07, p. 16).  This teenager was out herding sheep one minute, and dead the next.  “That could be your brother just as easily,” I said.  He leaned in to catch everything I was saying.  “I never looked at it like that,” he commented, and it seemed to me the wheels were turning in a different direction in his mind. 

Essentially I was asking him to think, think, think about the causes and consequences of war.  I found out he enjoyed playing sniper video games and thought being a sniper would be fun.  So I also talked about the specific types of injuries soldiers are coming home with, described some of the lies military recruiters tell, and mentioned just how hard it is to get out of the military if you change your mind once you are in.  Coming from a place of care both for him and for those who could potentially be hurt needlessly by him, I tried to arm him with information.  Now, when I think of him, remembering his mix of bitterness and naiivete, vulnerability and courage, I envision him becoming a fireman, saving lives, feeling healthy pride. 

Recovery from War

Many Iraq veterans find themselves coming home with their worlds turned upside down, injured and forever changed.   As Jordan Silberman points out in his July 27th column, “Let’s Put Our Heads Together,” the positive psychology community is in a position to respond to the needs of injured U.S. veterans, and I agree.  I believe we can do this best if we also keep in mind both grieving families in the U.S. and the families of those in Afghanistan and Iraq who have lost loved ones to this war on terror.  A huge number of Iraqis have lost loved ones to the U.S. air war, which had cost an estimated 78,000 civilian lives in Iraq alone as of June 2006 (The Lancet, October 2006).  Keeping this bigger picture in mind, how might we respond to Jordan question of how to help U.S. veterans living with extreme levels of physical debilitation and emotional pain?

Several practices which come to my mind are:  mindfulness meditation, savoring, competence/self-efficacy, forgiveness, engagement/flow, and the search for meaning. 

Meditation

Blooming Lotus Meditation

Blooming Lotus Meditation

Meditation could be useful for four reasons.  Jon Kabat-Zinn has shown meditation to empower those who suffer chronic pain to feel more in control of their own pain management.  Metta (lovingkindness) meditation has been shown to increase overall well-being (Fredrickson, 2007; Shapiro, Schwartz & Santerre, 2005).  Thich Nhat Hanh has used meditation for decades specifically in work with war veterans, both U.S. and Vietnamese, who meet face to face with each other in processes of healing, forgiveness, and reconciliation.  Finally, meditation may be able to create the kind of consciousness capable of coming up with new pathways to build peace and to prevent future wars.  Finding ways to help prevent others from suffering the way they are suffering is a meaningful process for some veterans.  Clearly, given the growing membership of Iraq Veterans Against the War, many veterans are already choosing this route to meaning.  

Savoring

Savoring, while it sounds odd at first, could be a crucial practice for injured veterans.  While savoring pleasure is important, savoring relatedness and meaning might be even more important.  Quadriplegics such as Dan Gottlieb, a psychologist and radio talk show host in Philadelphia, often report that after a long, excruciating period of adjustment, they find their lives so much more deeply connected and meaningful after the injury than they did before, that if someone came up with a miracle cure they are not sure they would accept it.  I believe this is largely due to the deepened ability to savor their connectedness with life.  Surely positive psychologists can concentrate on facilitating this skill, even for people living with traumatic memories and terrible debilitation. 

Self-efficacy

Competence and self-efficacy, research has shown, give rise to self-esteem, and not so much the other way around, according to Reivich and Shatte.  Norman Doidge describes current experiments enabling primates to move joy-sticks with their thoughts alone, generating images in computers 600 miles away simply by thinking and visualizing their responses to a computer screen.  It may not be too far-fetched to imagine even the most debilitated veterans enjoying a new sense of competence and self-efficacy by using their minds in this way to communicate, to learn, to create art, to work.  In the meantime, treating veterans effectively must include a hard and imaginative search to find anything they can do which makes them feel of use.

More on forgiveness, engagement and flow, perhaps, in a future column. 

Search for Meaning

What about the search for meaning?  Jordan suggested, “Politics aside, we might help soldiers find meaning in their tragedy by considering how their sacrifice prevented some of the tortures that were routinely carried out by Hussein’s regime. “ I can well imagine that this route to meaning might be highly appropriate for some veterans, some of the time; it is a good example of finding meaning in tragedy.  However, I believe it’s important to allow “no easy answers” to be the default position when it comes to finding meaning in the experience of war, trauma, injury, and debilitation. The meaning assigned to these experiences varies tremendously from veteran to veteran and from war to war. 

Soldiers I have spoken with as they ship out from Atlanta to Afghanistan and Iraq this year have expressed, more often than not, intense frustration with the perceived meaninglessness of what they are doing, as well as a suspicion that what they are doing is creating more suffering in those countries and only making the global situation worse for the United States.  Rather than attempt to paper over such deep reservations with a comforting response, it would seem vital to encourage veterans to actively seek their own more complicated answers, to bravely embrace complexity and ambiguity in the meaning of their suffering, and to see their own truth-seeking as an act of courage in itself.  This fits with Jordan’s excellent idea of encouraging veterans to identify, embrace, and further develop their signature strengths.   

An example of battlefield courage summoned for humanitarian purposes is close at hand for me, in the life of my former father-in-law.  Leonard Doyon was a purple heart World War II veteran who, proud of his service, nonetheless advised his son to skip to Canada rather than serve in Vietnam in a war he despised.  As an engineer, he found himself in an uncomfortable contradiction: harboring a deep personal commitment to peace, yet working for corporations which manufactured weapons.  Later in life, while still trying to figure out a way to extract himself from his career with Boeing, he joined Veterans for Peace, informing himself accurately about the global arms trade, U.S. policy in Latin America, the use of torture by those trained at the School of the Americas, and other issues.  He became a steady public voice for integrity, solidarity, and peace, and he died at ease with himself because his convictions and actions had become more and more deeply aligned over the course of his lifetime.

The meanings veterans give to their experiences will unfold slowly, over a lifetime, as they did for my former father-in-law, so we have to keep that whole lifetime in mind.  The question of political engagement cannot be set aside for long, because the very existence of a war which disfigures any veteran is inherently political, especially in a democracy such as ours.  Thus the empathic listener may need to tolerate their own discomfort in listening to a veteran express bitterness or anger at the senselessness of a war, at one stage of healing, in order to enable that veteran to speak their personal and political truth without constraint.  Many times, a meaning found is a step on the way to another meaning, as many stones make a pathway. 

I look forward to hearing more comments from the positive psychology community.  May we all be part of solutions to problems of suffering such as the one Jordan posed. 
 

 

References

Doidge, N. (2007). The Brain That Changes Itself. New York: Penguin Books.

Hahn, T. N. (1993). Laity, A. (transl.).  Blooming of a Lotus Guided Meditation Ex. Boston: Beacon Press.

Kabat-Zinn, J. (1982).  An out-patient program in behavioral medicine for chronic pain patients based on the practice of mindfulness meditation: Theoretical considerations and preliminary results.  General Hospital Psychiatry, 4, 33-47.

Kabat-Zinn, J., Lipworth, L., & Burney, R. (1985). The clinical use of mindfulness meditation for the self-regulation of chronic pain. Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 8, 163-190.

Kabat-Zinn, J. (1990). Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness. Delta.

Kabat-Zinn, J. (2003).  Mindfulness-based interventions in context:  Past, present, and future.  Clinical Psychology:  Science and Practice, 10(2), 144-156.

The Lancet, October 2006, reported in The Nation, June 11, 2007:  “…about 78,000 Iraqis had been killed by bomb, missile, rocket or cannon up to last June” (p. 16).

Reivich, K, & Shattẻ, A. (2002). The Resilience Factor: 7 Keys to Finding Your Inner Strength and Overcoming Life’s Hurdles. New York: Broadway Books.

Turse, N. (2007).  The secret air war in Iraq: The devastation from U.S. bombing is underreported—and may be increasing.  The Nation June 11, 2007, 14-18.

Image
lotus-blooming courtesy joka2000

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For Better or for Worse? The Marriage of Technology and Positive Psychology

by Bridget Grenville-Cleave
written by Bridget Grenville-Cleave

As someone who is passionately interested in how technology changes lives, I was intrigued by Gerald P. Koocher’s article “Twenty-First Century Challenges for Psychology.”

Koocher, former President of the American Psychological Association, argues that foreseeable technological changes will have such an impact on how psychology services are delivered that we need to rethink our professional ethics. Part of his paper focuses on the four categories of contracting, confidentiality, control, and competence.

    Wall with Eyes

The first three of these seem pretty obvious to any professional who uses electronic means to communicate with clients; at its most basic there are whole rafts of legislation to do with the security of personal data, for example. And all psychology practitioners, regardless of specialty, need to agree to a legally binding contract of some sort with a client, for their own as well as for the client’s sake; this needs to include reference to use of electronically-mediated services where applicable.

Are New Standards of Care Necessary?

What I found particularly interesting about Koocher’s argument was his claim that the increase in the use of new technologies, and offering remote services in particular, will necessitate ‘new standards of care and professional competencies.’ Surely qualified and experienced psychologists the world over know the limits of their own professional field, and, if bound by a professional code of ethics would not consider infringing it by using new technology inappropriately? That said, from a risk management perspective, there’s no harm in ensuring that the professional code of ethics specifically addresses psychological services which are electronically delivered.

So that leaves those people (clients as well as practitioners) who are deliberately seeking to misrepresent themselves online. Koocher has a very valid point here; not only would we be taking on trust that the person on the other end of the line is who s/he claims to be, but do we have sufficient scientific evidence about the success rates of remote vs. traditional face-to-face interventions? Even assuming that the client and practitioner are who they say they are, inevitably there will be both risks and rewards in treating psychological illnesses remotely. So we need more research to assess what these are, and how they compare to current best (face-to-face) psychology practice before we embrace electronically-mediated interventions whole-heartedly.

What about Remote Positive Psychology Interventions?

But when it comes to Positive Psychology interventions, do we have the same risk/reward equation? If the aim of Positive Psychology is to help people who are already psychologically well flourish, do we really need to be overly concerned about how they interpret their scores on the on-line VIA Inventory or the Grit Survey, for example?

I understand fully Koocher’s point about do-it-yourself tests online, some of which are undoubtedly unreliable. But how could one legislate against these, even if one could identify them all? As with many things in the online world these days, there are and will always be the unscrupulous, so it’s a case of caveat emptor.

As for those people who are especially vulnerable and perhaps unable to distinguish the valid from the invalid,how can they be protected? Koocher obviously isn’t a passionate supporter of Positive Psychology, but perhaps the “well-known individuals” (he avoids naming them, but it may be possible to guess who he is referring to) in the PP field should in fact continue to market their own tests and research online as fully and frequently as possible. At least this way, those people who are seeking out online interventions to improve their well-being have a hope of finding the works of people like Seligman, Peterson, Fordyce, and Lyubomirsky, before they stumble across those which Koocher would prefer to outlaw. Many of these are available in the Authentic Happiness Test Center.
 

 

References:

Koocher, Gerald P. (2007),  Twenty-First Century Ethical Challenges for Psychology,  American Psychologist, Vol 62(5), 375-384.

Values in Action Survey.

Authentic Happiness Test Center.

Image
Walls with eyes courtesy of uBookworm

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Positive Work Environments: How One Company is Putting Theory into Practice

by Margaret Greenberg
written by Margaret Greenberg

How do you create a positive organization?  What’s the formula?  In previous articles I have focused on the leader’s role in creating a positive work environment.  In this article I will focus on a few other factors – Physical Location, High Quality Relationships, and Meaningful Work – using specific examples from a company I recently visited in northern Italy.

This past spring my daughter Maegan took a semester off from college and moved to Italy after accepting a position at H-Farm.*  During phone conversations she gushed not only about the fabulous Italian food, wine and friends she has made, but the company she works for.  “Mom, H-Farm is such a unique and positive place to work.  It embodies what you teach your clients about positive work places.”  I got curious.  What exactly is this company doing?  We decided that when I came to visit in May, she would arrange a tour of H-Farm and interviews with some of its employees. 

*A special thank you goes out to fellow University of Pennsylvania alumni David J. Pollay who introduced Maegan to the organization that brought her to H-Farm – AIESEC.
 

The Company

H-Farm is an Italian hi-tech think-tank.  It funds new initiatives by supplying skills, services and capital for start-ups.  It has incubated six businesses since its formation in 2005.  According to their website (www.h-farm.it) the “H” in H-Farm stands for human, “meaning that man is at the center of every project and technology is only a tool serving us.”  H-Farm is built around the concept of an agricultural model where the daily work of more people working together yields a greater contribution.    

It was a warm, glorious day when my daughter and I hopped the bus from a suburb of Venice (Treviso) to the rural countryside of Tenuta Ca’ Tron where H-Farm is located on 1,100 hectares.  “A reverse commute,” I thought.  The bus deposited us in what seemed like the middle of nowhere.  As we walked down the one-lane road Maegan pointed to the yellow “rustica” surrounded by fields. 

The Rustica “That’s where I work,” she said proudly, “in that old converted farmhouse.”  “A high tech firm in a low tech building,” I thought, “now that’s different.” 

Before entering the building I passed under a large portico.  There two men sat sipping caffé obviously engaged in a business meeting.  “How nice,” I thought, “to have a meeting outside versus in a typical conference room.”  A foosball table was set up behind them.  “This is where we have our lunch-time tournaments,” Maegan informed me, “after we have our catered lunch.”

As I entered the building I was expecting it to be stifling as Maegan told me the building rarely uses the air-conditioning.  Instead, I was struck by how cool it was – the first floor was cement and the lights were turned off.

The Physical Location

My first interview was with the Human Resource Manager, Francesca Voltarel.  I began by asking her what made H-Farm so special.  Although she said Italy has a lot of technology incubator companies, what makes H-Farm unique is “we have created an environment that is very human and informal.  Our CEO, Riccardo Donadon, chose this place in the middle of the countryside because he wanted to link high tech thinking with the slow life of the country.  In the city it is rush, rush, rush.  Everything is grey and you lose contact with the human aspect.  [Here] we don’t have the stress and we believe there is a link to innovation.  To be creative you need time to relax and work around beauty and nature.” (See Emma Judge’s May article on how “providing distractions at work in terms of the physical environment” can actually facilitate better decision making, too.)

Innovation can happen everywhere“You work as you want.  There is an ease to it,” says Thomas Barazza, H-Farm’s New Venture Director.  “I believe a nice, relaxed place can improve productivity.  People work better in a nice environment.  Somebody should conduct a study and see if that is in fact true,” says Barazza.  (Hey, Positive Psychology students – sounds like a great MAPP Capstone). 

As I made my way inside H-Farm, I noticed a small alcove with cushy couches, a stereo system, and racks of magazines and coffee table-like books.  When I peeked my head into one of the rooms, I noticed four people seated around a large table typing away on their lap tops.  Later on I learned from one of the teammates that the open spaces facilitate more interaction and collaboration. 

Open WorkspacesHigh Quality Relationships

The people H-Farm has recruited have come from other Italian cities, as well as from Spain, Portugal and the United States.  Moving to a new place requires making new friends.  The connections made at H-Farm have formed many new friendships. Working with people from other countries and cities also provides a rich learning experience that may be difficult to find in other companies.

“Although we’re from different geographical areas,” says Andrea Negrini, a Project Manager who moved from Rome in January to accept this position, “we share similar interests like music.  We probably would have met on-line through a music group or something.”

Several people I interviewed joined H-Farm on the recommendation of a friend or former colleague who now works for the company.  This is in keeping with Gallup’s research that having a best friend at work is a predictor of employee engagement. “This place has a magical power.  It attracts people of the same type who have a high probability to be close friends,” says Alvise Spanò, a Developer.  

From Positive Psychology and specifically the work of Dr. Jane Dutton at the University of Michigan who authored Energize Your Workplace, we know that high quality connections are central to engagement and creating positive energy. 

Developer - Nacho DelgadoWhen I asked Nacho Delgado, another Developer who left his native Barcelona to accept this job, what makes H-Farm special, a broad grin came across his face.  “The people.  They’re young (the median age is 25) and everyone has so much energy.  When we finish work we often socialize together.  If I have a problem with my work or something personal, I can talk to someone.” 

Meaningful Work 

From Positive Psychology theory and research, we know that “meaningfulness arises through an integration of identity with roles (e.g. – work and tasks) and/or membership.”[ii]  And for many, meaningful work is more important than a paycheck.  A nice work environment, with nice people isn’t enough.  The work itself must be interesting, challenging and meaningful. 

“The work is exciting,” says Barazza, the New Venture Director.  “There’s this feeling that we’re doing and building something.  I’m doing what I want to do, in a place I want, with the people I want.”

“Nothing is perfecto,” says Spanò the Developer, “but it’s the work and the people I create with that keep me here.”

Delgado, the other Developer had this to say:  “They took a chance on me.  They gave me so much responsibility and I’m working on something I like and I studied.  I have friends who studied computer science who now work for a bank, and it’s not as exciting as the new technology [I’m working on here].”  As a technology incubator, H-Farms “grows” companies, yet according to Delgado, “They grow us, too.”   

Negrini, the Project Manager, summed up the positive attributes that make H-Farm so special:  “The kind of work or technology applications I get to do, in a beautiful surrounding, with nice people.” 

The Bottom Line

As an American, I was curious if all Italian companies operated in this fashion.  From the people I interviewed, the answer was clearly no. “In Italy, this kind of company is a novelty,” says Negrini.  Not many [businesses] pay attention to Human Resources and wouldn’t take the same approach [as we have].” 

H-Farm is growing.  In two years it has expanded to 110 employees.  The people I interviewed see a challenge ahead as the company moves into a larger, newly constructed rustica down the street to house the growing employee base.  “We want to retain that feeling that we’re like a family,” says Voltarel, the HR Manager. Francesca Votarel & Erica Sartori - HR professionals

So, how can H-Farm retain what has made it special?  I believe the answers lie within H-Farm’s young, bright employees.  I’m confident if their opinions are sought they’ll have a whole host of ideas.  Creating and sustaining a positive work environment is no small task, but the rewards in terms of higher employee engagement, lower employee turnover, and higher customer satisfaction, are well worth the effort.    

Postscript by Maegan Greenberg:

 The integration of H-Farm’s philosophy with the natural surroundings really exudes what it means to work in a positive work environment. As my mom mentioned, I could not help but compare where I am working in Italy to the PR and marketing jobs I have held back in the States. It’s the details that really make the difference.

Maegan with Elisa Perillo working on the Zooppa accountIn my old office in Washington, DC, lunch was a 20 minute affair in front of my computer and if I was lucky, in the stifling break room. Here, lunch is catered and we all dine together, at the large outdoor picnic table. It also lasts over an hour. The fact that I work in an open room, with windows and at a large table with 3 other colleagues and not a cubicle, is another huge difference. It is not uncommon for the lights to be off all day and the windows open! There are days when I also carpool with other colleagues who have become my friends. These are the people who have taken me, the new American girl, under their wings as more than a co-worker, but a real friend, dining at local restaurants, going out on a Saturday night or just sending me a text message to see how I am doing. These are relationships I already know will continue much longer than my six month stay in Italy.  I have never formally studied Positive Psychology but, it is not difficult to see how H-Farm truly is a special place and plays to the strengths of the PP premise.  After being so spoiled here, I can’t imagine NOT working in a positive environment… the trouble is going to be finding a positive work environment when I return to America…any suggestions?  Why haven’t more American companies caught on to how much of a difference a positive work environment makes?
 

           
              
References

Cameron, K., Dutton, J. & Quinn, R. (Eds.) Positive organizational scholarship: Foundations of a new discipline, pp. 296-308. San Francisco: Berrett-Kohler.

Dutton, J. (2003). Energize Your Workplace: How to Create and Sustain High-Quality Connections at Work. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

                      

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Remembering the Extraordinary Life of an Ordinary Person

by Kathryn Britton
written by Kathryn Britton
Lou Sugg, Pilot

Lou Sugg, Pilot

Today is Memorial Day in the United States. Memorial Day officially commemorates people who died in military service to their country. In many families, it is a day for remembering anyone who has died. Families go to graveyards to tend graves and leave flowers. People mentally run through rolls of friends and family who are no longer here, people they remember in gratitude. My father has no grave — the plane he was flying was lost in the Mediterranean. I also have few memories to be grateful for — he died when I was only two. But he did leave behind an example of realistic optimism, persistence, and humanity that I think had an ongoing effect on me. Let me tell you some of his story. Then I invite you to add stories of your own in the comments.

 

Merton College OxfordLouis Sugg was an officer on the Bream, a submarine in the Pacific, during WWII. After the war, he became a Navy pilot, telling his sister that he felt in the arms of God when he flew. In 1946, he applied to be a Rhodes Scholar from the state of Montana. He was not selected. Then he tried again in 1948, this time earning the three year scholarship to Merton College, Oxford. I was born in Oxford during his studies.

Here’s the opening to the essay he wrote for the second application:

“To add political proficiency to military experience; to become familiar with other peoples, their problems and philosophies; to understand the ideals and practical bases for international organization by study and observation, to combine past achievement with future effort in preparing for an active role with the police force of the United Nations” – this is my aim.

Here are some paragraphs from the middle where he expands his thinking:

Despite the necessity of spending much of my time in professional study, I have succeeded in developing a consciousness of liberal thought. I have learned a little about the political and philosophical developments of past centuries leading to man’s present social instincts and shortcomings. My interest in the relations and problems of peoples and states has grown, and the development of international intercourse, including the organization and functioning of the United Nations, continues to absorb me. I have endeavored to keep abreast of current events by way of news sources. From all this has developed the embryo of a political thought and the realization of the necessity of continuing to develop that thought at Oxford if I am successful in this quest, by other means if necessary.

At Oxford I should like to enter the Honor School of Philosophy, Politics, and Economics. … I consider the following fields worthy of consideration: contemporary world history; diplomacy and international law; the philosophies under which men live in the present age; geopolitics and economics. In particular I want to stress the study of the United Nations. I want to develop concrete and practical political theories. To do so I must understand humanity insofar as possible. I know of no preparation so ideally suited to my purpose as those opportunities available to me at Oxford.

Here is the close, where he defines his guiding ideal.

The Charter of the United Nations provides for the establishment of a military force whose components shall be contributed by the members. It is my belief that ultimately there will exist a “United Nations Police Force” organized by the UN and responsible only to that organization. Such a force can be a mechanical instrument of enforcement or it may be a vital guiding influence on the relations of peoples. This latter is my ideal, and a constructive role with this force is my ultimate aim. This is my justification for seeking a Rhodes scholarship.

I asked Chris Peterson, co-creator of the Values-in-Action character strengths, to look at the entire essay and tell me what it said to him. Chris had been doing content analysis of Medal of Honor materials, so I knew he was interested in such writings. He wrote back:

What shows through here very clearly is perseverance and a host of humanity strengths not exactly named in the VIA but captured by generativity and breadth of moral circle.

Unfortunately, he couldn’t resist an assignment after Oxford as a test pilot flying off the Coral Sea aircraft carrier. He and his plane were lost at the end of a very successful flight, right after he’d beaten the rest of the formation to a certain height. His last words were, “Bet you wish you had my plane, skipper!” I grieve his loss for myself, but I also grieve for the world’s loss of someone with that vision and that humility – someone who realized that we Americans don’t have the one right answer for the world and that we need to listen, observe, and learn.

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Do Not Take the Contemplative Panic!

by Angus Skinner
written by Angus Skinner
Skiing

Skiing

Skiing for the first time in my life earlier this year, I was offered by my wonderful Italian ski instructor a new positive psychology construct I want to share with you.

Carlos was nearly as old as me but he had been skiing since he was six, and so had over 50 years’ additional expertise. There are reasons why I had never been skiing before and not the least of these is the fact that I am scared of heights: I don’t like escalators, I sweat and shake in elevators that have glass surrounds, I am pretty much terrified flying (which I deal with by reading incessantly and talking to no-one before, during, or on the plane), and the prospect of going up a ski-lift or gondola made me stop breathing (until I remembered that I should – breathe, that is). But my partner Shelagh and her two adolescent kids are keen skiers, and Shelagh would indeed be a very good skier had motherhood and life not intervened. So we went.

“No Scare” on the Slopes

VertigoThe deal was never that I would actually ski, only that I would fly with them (silently) and also be there. However once there, you can’t not do it, can you? The weather was fantastic, Cervino – the Matterhorn – which we were at the foot of looked fabulous, if scary. I had borrowed all the right gear, the confidence and exuberance of the adolescents (including nephews) was infectious, and anyway I had to make sure Shelagh didn’t just run off with her ski instructor. So we rented the boots and skis and I closed my eyes as the gondola rattled up to 2,500 feet.

As the rest of the party sped of in search of blue and preferably red runs, I found myself in a nursery class of mixed ages, trying desperately to stop these skis at the end of my legs from even attempting what they were beautifully designed to do – slide frictionlessly over the snow. To an extent in social conversation, I could justify my caution as being because I was self-employed and couldn’t afford to be injured, but we all knew the reality.

Carlos, my instructor, was magnificent and apart from keeping me safe achieved enough that by the end of the week I could descend in control, turning and pacing enough to get my certificate and badge. Carlos had sussed me on day one, and would often at crucial moments say, in his Italian English, “No Scare! No Scare!” which was an instruction really. No-one shouted “No Scare” to the super-confident 6-year-olds. With only skis, no poles, they would start in groups of 12 or so standing rock-solid at the top, skis in their snow plough positions whilst they did the splits from their knees down, and then they would be led off as a group in those enchanting S-curves down the hill – the Pennsylvania Ballet could not perform Swan Lake as well.

New Positive Psychology Construst

In the meantime, Carlos had invented a new positive psychology construct. He would stop what everyone was doing, and looking me in the eyes say, “An-goose! ” (which is Italian apparently for Angus) “Oh, An-goose, An-goose – Do not take the contemplative panic!” Shelagh knew exactly what he meant, “Of course you think too much – Doh!” By day three I would be heading for catastrophe, always on a right turn, and the whole hill would hear Carlos should out from the bottom “An-goose! An-goose! Do not take the contemplative panic!”

I have no ambition to be a great or even particularly competent skier. It is enough to be able to go with those I love and also enjoy it myself. I made only small progress, but each day I was achieving things I had feared to attempt the day before. And what was the source of the fear? My “contemplative panic.”

God, do I know more about thinking than those 6-year-olds! ? Panic must be a useful emotion (evolutionary theory would argue), or at least not a damning one. Desert shrews, who lie somewhere in our evolutionary tale, succeed in finding food as they pop out of holes for brief safe periods not by a rational process but by scurrying about randomly (mathematics demonstrates their greater chance of finding food thereby) and maybe that is a form of useful panic. Indeed some might well argue that there is a world shortage of panic, not just in the corporate/academic/institutional world but environmentally and socially.

And Carlos – 50+ years in the mountains – would recognize the value certainly of alarm at events outside one’s thinking, even indeed of panic in some avalanche situations. He was trying to get me not to panic at the version of the world that I had in my brain – Do not take the contemplative panic! For it was not only needless but disabling as a skier. He wanted me to engage with the real world – and so to flow down the hill, swishing confident in all my turns. And sometimes I glimpsed, my whole body glimpsed, what he meant.

AmygdalaThe danger of an avalanche that week on the nursery hill even under the Matterhorn is incalculably small; the most dangerous aspects of trips to the University of Pennsylvania were realistically crossing the roads. The short-circuit between dangers in the real world and action is the amygdala, evolved to by-pass cognitive delay we assume but maybe there is something too about avoiding panic over non-real dangers. Maybe we, I at least, need to learn to love my amygdala better.


Applying Positive Psychology has to be holistic – body, soul, and rhythm. And I guess we are still on the nursery hill, the first engineers. In the rock-solid snow ploughs of the 6-year-olds, there is “first do no harm:” stick with the science. Perhaps it is not science, but I find Carlos’s injunction to not take the contemplative panic useful in many situations, and I can assure you that the sight of me skiing downhill provides a different vision of random controlled trial.

Images: Skiing, Vertigo, Amygdala.

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Is Mandating Positive News Good for Us?

by Senia Maymin
written by Senia Maymin
Pravda

Pravda

What do you do if you’re running a news radio station, and suddenly your new management which has heavy ties to the government comes in to tell you that you now must report at least 50 percent positive news? 

The New York Times reported last week that this happened to the employees at Russia’s largest independent radio network.  Listeners are asking, “How independent is it, any longer?”  If you were that employee, you may start to realize that something is very, very wrong, and that you are being puppeteered. 

The public radio program Fair Game wanted to know what positive psychology thought of this story.  Having found Positive Psychology News Daily, they wanted an opinion on whether mandating positive news is good.  They interviewed me, and the program appeared in 25 markets in the U.S. (you can listen to the 6-minute interview here or read more detail here).

Is It Appropriate to Mandate Positive News?

You might think that as Editor of Positive Psychology News Daily, I would wholeheartedly support more positive news in the world (“What is Positive Psychology?“).  The interviewer for the radio program thought so too.  But it really doesn’t matter what a Positive Psychology-trained coach would think about the benefits of “positive” news – some Positive Psychologists may be for more positive news and some may be against.   What matters is what it is moral to do.  The news is the news is the news.  If you are the government and you censor the news, then you are taking away the people’s right to hear. 

The specific mandate, as reported by the New York Times, was that news about Russia must be “at least 50 percent positive,” and that “opposition leaders could not be mentioned on the air and the United States was to be portrayed as an enemy.”  Not only is this not positive news, but this is clear censorship. 

On the other hand, if you are the owner of a radio station, and you decide to run a “positive news only” radio station, then you are on solid moral ground. It’s when the government steps in to voice its position and forcibly requires new rules that change the content that it’s a violation of principle – the news staff was forced into this new arrangement.  On this site, we cover positive stories (such as great schools, praise and performance, and savoring) as well as non-positive stories (such as the Virginia shooting, cancer, and the Holocaust)  I happen to be a big fan of the Good News Network and of HappyNews – those sites are positive by editorial choice, which is entirely different from this news story about the new Russian mandate.

And it doesn’t even matter what the Russian government’s motivations may be.  Suppose that all psychologists everywhere found out decisively that we need more positive news.  It would be wrong to base news policy on a finding like this.  Let’s take the more extreme example I described on air – suppose that all psychologists found out that getting rid of all journalists makes the world a happier society – even if that were the case, it would not be moral to do.  Nobody can treat people as slaves and decide for them what is best for them – what they can and cannot hear, who can and cannot live.

Why Do We as Americans React So Strongly? 

There was a bittersweet tone to our joking during the interview.  The host and I both reacted strongly to this news as a frightening direction for Russia.  But why psychologically-speaking did we react so strongly?  Maybe because we see the same direction of censorship gathering momentum in the U.S. as well.

As an example, the Fairness Doctrine that is being brought into the Senate by Bernie Sanders would limit the media’s editorial choice of what to include and what not to include in a news story.  As another example, the Patriot Act has allowed the government to impinge civil liberties and search library records through “sneak and peek” searches.  While we’re laughing at the crazy Russian mandate, in a sense we may be laughing at some of what we see around us.

Image: Pravda.

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Owning the Dark Stuff

by Angus Skinner
written by Angus Skinner

I write these thoughts in the news of the shooting rampage at Virginia Tech. 

Jeffrey Sachs

Jeffrey Sachs
The science of positive psychology is-value free and as Shane Lopez writes, we still don’t know if it will work. Does it furnish our mentalities enough to save the world?  I have been listening to the Reith lectures by Jeffrey Sachs, an economist (UN and Columbia) who sets out clear pathways to eradicate extreme poverty within a decade – for example providing mosquito nets for all children in Africa over the next ten years would cost less than the Pentagon spends each day – and I have been struck by the skepticism that infuses all the questions, the doubts, the bias to the negative, the lack of hope, the sabotage of agency. Log on to www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/reith2007/ to check out this extraordinary battle between possibilities and doubt.

Does Positive Psychology Matter?

Does it matter?  Would it be possible for positive psychology to be true, authentic and effective for individuals isolated from others experience, life circumstances?  Surely not.  The science is value-free, like nuclear energy, but its application is inevitably and always value-driven.  Pawelski, Peterson, Prilleltensky, Cooperrider, Dutton, Fredrickson, Schwartz, Vaillant and others of our Professors always set out their stall as available and benefiting all.  This is not easy.  As Caroline articulates so well achieving goals is hard work, takes grit and stamina; we make many mistakes on the way, always. Learning is the only way forward.  It matters.

It matters in Virginia. It matters in Iraq.  In Africa and Asia.  Can positive psychology furnish the mentalities that will save the planet?  In the millennium launch of Positive Psychology, this extraordinary paradigm shift not only for social science but for society, Marty Seligman and Mihály Csíkszentmihályi wrote:

“Entering a new millennium, we face an historical choice. Left alone on the pinnacle of economic and political leadership, the United States can continue to increase its material wealth while ignoring the human needs of its people and that of the rest of the planet. Such a course is likely to lead to increasing selfishness, alienation between the more and the less fortunate, and eventually to chaos and despair.

At this juncture the social and behavioral sciences can play an enormously important role.”

This is the mission to which we are engineers.

I have no insights to Virginia.  My taxi driver says “At least they shot the bastard.”  There are important issues of command and control and no doubt the inquiry will focus on these (because they seek a risk-free solution).  Yet my intuition is that those in control were perhaps disengaged, their intuition was not engaged, and crisis led to massacre.

I recall the Dunblane shootings in Scotland (16 primary children and one teacher shot dead).  Dunblane is one of the nicest villages in Scotland, a place where urban squalor is unimaginable.   I am very conscious also of Elliot Currie’s excellent book, The Road to Whatever: Middle-Class Culture and the Crisis of Adolescence:

“The new Darwinism is not only tough but also distinctly uncaring and irresponsible; under its sway, we have become a society that is often self-righteously hard on children but simultaneously unwilling to accept the responsibility of actually bringing them up.”

“Bound By Sympathy”

I am shocked and appalled by the massacre at Virginia.  We cannot eliminate risk nor eradicate crime and attempts at utopia generally cause more problems than they solve. Crises and tragedies rightly cause us to examine, internally as well as externally.  We are bound by sympathy as Adam Smith recognized so well, and as the low birth weights of European babies immediately after 9/11 testified.  

A British journalist challenged Sachs plan for mosquito nets on the basis that the main problem was over population, which would presumably be made worse by protecting children.  The only route to smaller families, said Sachs with controlled anger, is for parents to have greater confidence that their children will live.  This is true for us all. 

I have been reading Miracle in the Andes: 72 Days on the Mountain and My Long Trek Home with its fabulous conclusion that the opposite of death is not life. The opposite of death is love.

As engineers we have a heck of a lot of bridges to build.  We are building them.  Our science develops.  Our values, creating a better world, remain. 
 

 
References

Currie, E. (2005). The Road to Whatever: Middle-Class Culture and the Crisis of Adolescence. Picador.

Hauser, C. & O’Connor, A. (2007). Virginia Tech Shooting Leaves 33 Dead. New York Times.

Krabbendam, L., de Bie, R., Essed, G., & van Os, J. (2006). Lower birth weight of Dutch neonates who were in utero at the time of the 9/11 attacks. Journal of Psychsomatic Research, 61, 715-717. 

Parrado, N. & Rause, V. (2007). Miracle in the Andes: 72 Days on the Mountain and My Long Trek Home. Broadway Books.

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What Good is Business? Positive Psychology & Social Entrepreneurship

by Giselle Nicholson
written by Giselle Nicholson

The Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship was perhaps the most thrilling conference I’ve ever attended. This global conference brings passionate people together from all corners of the globe, such as Mohammad Yunus, Al Gore, and Robert Redford, for the sole purpose of discussing business’s responsibility regarding positive social change. I’d like to introduce this forum to this blog in hopes that it will entice us to all keep thinking about how unique, socially conscious business strategies can improve the well-being of all global citizens.

The forum stands on the platform that the 21st century has the prospect of coupling wealth with well-being, and bringing to the fore the people and processes by which we can sustain social resilience. A social entrepreneur is defined by the Skoll Foundation as “society’s change agent: pioneer of innovations that benefit humanity.” The theories and empirical research of positive psychology are ideal tools for the social entrepreneurs that aim to measure their mark on humanity. There are three issues that came up at the forum, which I think are particularly relevant to positive psychology: public policy/government, sustainability, and the triple bottom line.

Many of the topics at the forum center around what roles government and public policy play in the well-being of citizens. For instance, many see social justice as disembedded from economics and believe our methods of leveling the playing field aren’t working as they should (e.g. Katrina). The inequality of opportunity and of outcomes calls for businesses to address those who aren’t gaining from globalization and aren’t being recognized in a meaningful way. Big businesses are realizing that there’s business to be found in eliminating poverty and recognizing environmental issues, rather than treating the earth like it’s a business in liquidation. Barry Schwartz recently wrote an exceptional reaction article on why societies should take seriously the pursuit of happiness. More about this issue can be learned at www.socialedge.org, the Stanford Social Innovation Review, Business for Social Responsibility, and the Business as an Agent of World Benefit Forum.

Triple Bottom Line

The triple bottom line is a term coined by John Elkington, a man I had the pleasure of speaking with at the forum, to describe how organizations can and should focus on not only the financial bottom line, but also on the social and environmental value added. Broadly speaking, positive psychology can be used to direct and measure those positive practices that are geared towards well-being within organizations. While its application is still in its infancy, it’s inevitable that positive psychology will have a lot to say about how organizations can best approach matters concerning well-being. Sustainable organizational practices are another focus of the forum and the Center for Positive Organizational Scholarship at the University of Michigan is a good resource for these business applications of positive psychology.

At every conference we hope to learn something new and to meet interesting people. At the Skoll Forum you know you’re a part of something big and you can’t help but be inspired by the passion that surrounds you. If you’re interested in watching the 2007 forum you can do so at www.skollfoundation.org.

Here are some of the featured speakers from the 2006 Skoll World Forum:

– Melissa Berman, President & CEO, Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors
– Matthew Bishop, American Editor, The Economist
– David Blood, Managing Partner, Generation Investment Management LLP
– Gordon Bloom, Director, Social Entrepreneurship Collaboratory, Harvard University
– Louis Boorstin, Gates Foundation
– Sir Ronald Cohen, Chair, UK Social Investment Taskforce, Chair, Commission on Unclaimed Assets, Chairman, Bridges Community Ventures
– Bill Drayton, CEO & Chair, Ashoka
– Jack Eberts, Chairman of National Geographic Feature Films
– John Elkington, Founder & Chief Entrepreneur, SustainAbility
– Moritz Flockenhaus, Head of Research, UnLtd
– William Fulbright Foote, Founding President & Executive Director, Ecologic Finance
– Michele Giddens, Bridges Community Ventures
– Celso Grecco, President, Atitude
– Ian Goldin, VP, World Bank and author of Globalization for Development
– Al Gore, Chairman, Generation Investment Management LLP
– Rob Grzywinski, Co-founder, ShoreBank Corporation
– Victoria Hale, CEO, Institute for OneWorld Health
– Mo Ibrahim, Chair of CelTel International
– Sir Ben Kingsley
– John Kingston, Venturesome
– Maximilian Martin, Head of Philanthropy Services, UBS
– Geoff Mulgan, Director, The Young Foundation
– Jacqueline Novogratz, CEO, Acumen Fund
– Sheela Patel, Director, SPARC
– Iqbal Paroo, President & COO, Omidyar Network
– Jan Piercy, former VP at the World Bank and advisor to Shorebank and ShoreCap International
– Joshua Ramo, Managing Director, Kissinger Associates
– Robert Redford
– Bunker Roy, Founder & Director, Barefoot College
– Jeff Skoll, Founder & Chairman, Skoll Foundation, and Founder & CEO, Participant Productions
– Karen Tse, President & CEO, International Bridges to Justice
– James Vaccaro, Commerical Manager, Triodos Bank
– Peter Wheeler, Chair, Futurebuilders
– Glenn Yago, Director, Capital Studies, Milken Institute
– Mohammad Yunus, Founder, Nobel Peace Prize winner 2006

Image: Elkington.

Giselle Nicholson Giselle Nicholson, MAPP ’06, writes on the 13th of each month, and her past articles are here.
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Positive Psychology in Space

by Martin Seligman
written by Martin Seligman

Space Shuttle Discovery Positive Psychology is the study of positive emotion, of engagement, and of meaning. Each of these turns out to be measurable with adequate precision and buildable. The central thesis of this article is that there is ample reason to select crews for long exploration for these three states and to monitor and support these three states during the mission.

What is happiness? What does it do? And how is it relevant to the ability of a crew to handle an arduous space mission?

POSITIVE EMOTION

The first measurable aspect to happiness (an unwieldy scientific notion) is hedonic, positive emotion. When people refer in casual conversation to being happy, they are often referring to this. Within limits, we can select for and increase our positive emotion about the past (e.g., by cultivating gratitude and forgiveness), our positive emotion about the present (e.g., by savoring and mindfulness), and our positive emotion about the future (e.g., by building hope and optimism). 

ENGAGEMENT

The second measurable aspect of happiness is “gratification” or “flow.”  The key characteristic of a gratification is that it engages us fully.  It absorbs us.  Individuals may find gratification in participating in a great conversation, fixing a bike, reading a good book, teaching a child, playing the guitar, or accomplishing a difficult task at work.  We can take shortcuts to pleasures (e.g., eating ice cream, masturbating, having a massage, or using drugs), but no shortcuts exist to gratification.  The pursuit of gratifications requires us to draw on our highest character strengths such as creativity, social intelligence, sense of humor, perseverance, and an appreciation of beauty and excellence.  Each of these character strengths is measurable and buildable.

Although gratifications are activities that may be enjoyable, they are not necessarily accompanied by positive emotion. We may say afterwards that the concert was “fun,” but what we mean is that during it, we were one with music, undistracted by thought or emotion.  Indeed, the pursuit of a gratification may be, at times, unpleasant.  Consider, for example, the gratification that comes from training for an endurance event such as a marathon.  At any given point during the grueling event, a runner may be discouraged or exhausted or even in physical pain, yet she may describe the overall experience as intensely gratifying. 

MEANING 

Finding flow in gratifications need not involve anything larger than the self, but the third aspect of happiness comes from using these strengths to belong to and in the service of something larger than ourselves—something such as knowledge, goodness, family, community, politics, justice, or a higher spiritual power—or a successful mission.  The third route gives work meaning.  

Testing

Testing EVA Suit

SPACE CREW MEMBERS 

There is ample reason to believe that individuals (and likely) teams that score well on positive emotion, on engagement, and on meaning function much better than those who score poorly: they fight depression better, they accomplish more at work and on the playing field, they are physically healthier and longer lived, and they are better liked.

Crew members can easily be selected for each of these three forms of happiness. Each of these states can be monitored during a space mission, either unobtrusively by content analysis, or directly by validated on line questionnaires. Most importantly, each of these states is buildable and there are validated, brief exercises to increase them  both momentarily and in the long run.

In summary, I suggest that we complement (not replace) our usual tool kit of measuring and undoing negative states and traits, with a new toolkit: the measurement and building the positive states and traits in our space crews. It seems likely that selecting and monitoring crew for these will produce more harmonious work and will buffer against the emergencies certain to occur in ambitious space exploration.
 

 

Images:
Space shuttle (NASA), Extravehicular activity space suit being tested (NASA). Note: Dr. Seligman prepared this paper for ESTEC.  Workshop: Tools for Psychological Support during Exploration Missions to Mars and Moon, March 10, 2007.

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Measuring the Value of a Dollar

by Giselle Nicholson
written by Giselle Nicholson
Muhammad Yunus

Muhammad Yunus

To expand on my first entry’s musings about income and happiness, I’d like to introduce how the simple principles developed by Mohammad Yunus, last year’s Nobel Peace Prize winner, warrant the interest of positive psychology. If you’ve ever met Professor Yunus, you can immediately see how his kind spirit and strong convictions have helped Grameen Bank not only save millions of lives through microfinance, but empower so many more.

Microfinance is respectably credited as one of the most sustainable and effective routes toward poverty reduction. More than 3,000 microfinance institutions (MFI) throughout the world are serving over 70 million low-income clients by providing access to basic financial services (loans, savings accounts, etc.). This seems an impressive number, however, it’s only a sliver of the over 4 billion potential microfinance customers at the bottom of the pyramid. Microfinance needs to expand and deepen its impact, so great impact assessments are crucial its growth.

Supported by Microfinance

Supported by Microfinance

Worldwide, microfinance is applauded for not only its economic impact, but for its social impact. Most borrowers are women and when these women are able to become micro-entrepreneurs it has an amazing positive impact on their lives – a ripple effect ranging from feelings of empowerment, to more education for their children, to greater social connectedness.

Most MFIs attentively monitor their financial information to measure both institutional success and individual client economic progress. While dedicated to improving the social conditions of borrowers, most MFIs lack a viable systematic approach to fully understand and measure the impacts of their practices. MFIs neglect to incorporate tools into their impact assessments that can quantitatively measure the significant social and psychological benefits that financial access brings. Econometrics cannot explain why people of the same age with similar backgrounds, resources, and abilities experience different entrepreneurial success or express dissimilar proclivities to better their lives.

Currently, most psychological benefits, for example, an increase in borrower’s self-confidence, are limited to anecdotal vignettes. Although increases in borrower autonomy and empowerment may be visible and reliable results from a loan program, MFIs need quantitative data to systematically measure progress, delineate influential variables of success, improve outreach, and attract greater funding.

And this is where positive psychology so aptly steps in! Positive psychology has tools to evaluate the practices of sustainable and socially responsible businesses. The veritable measures of positive psychology can identify the various aspects of well-being that improve with an increase in income, and what impact the ‘loan intervention’ has on borrowers’ reported strengths and enterprise success. As the scale and scope of microfinance lending increases, I believe that MFIs aimed at poverty reduction must have a clearer picture of their impact and potential in order to maintain their social effectiveness.

I am working with one of the largest Arab MFIs to do an empirical evaluation that measures the longitudinal impact of microfinance services on borrowers in order to fully understand the influence and growth potential of microfinance through quantitative measures of well-being.

These are a few of the questions I will be addressing:

  1. In what ways and to what degree do micro loans increase borrower well-being?
  2. Do certain attributes or abilities, such as entrepreneurial qualities or self- discipline, promote timely loan repayment or enterprise success?
  3. Do those with higher subjective well-being (SWB) experience greater economic success?
  4. Do borrowers with lower SWB report greater psychological benefits from the loan intervention than those with higher SWB?

This research is just a fraction of the tip of the iceberg in terms of how positive psychology applies to microfinance, but I’m thrilled to be a part of it. All MFI actors – borrowers, program developers and administrators, investors/donors, consultants, and entrepreneurs – are concerned about the constant improvement and expansion of microfinance services. This research will show where microfinance is making its impact and what helps people benefit most from micro-loans. Better understanding the behavioral traits of borrowers and psychological impacts of loans has tremendous potential for the improving the development, delivery, and growth of microfinance.

I start this research in Jordan in the next few months, so if you’re interested in any more details of the research or have some ideas to share, I’d love to hear from you!

 

 

Images
Mohammad Yunus from Wikipedia
New Destiny Tailoring Project courtesy of configmanager

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For Our Non-Readers…

by Giselle Nicholson
written by Giselle Nicholson

I’m ecstatic! I look around and feel like positive psychology is everywhere! I’m thrilled that The Economist is exploring what role the market has for our personal happiness and how the New York Times explains the practical application of positive psychology. But then something causes me to wonder, what’s missing?

Essentially, it is the more than four billion people at the bottom of the pyramid (those who earn less than $2 USD per day) that aren’t being directly exposed to positive psychology like most of us are. We are so fortunate to have access to so much information that can make our lives happier, more meaningful, and more fulfilling. However, when we explain how to improve goal-setting, increase employee engagement, or practice gratitude, are we really expecting those who live their lives surviving day-to-day to care about these positive interventions? Why not? Wouldn’t they benefit from positive psychology?

There’s no doubt that positive interventions can remarkably change people’s lives, so what happens when those who are less fortunate than us are able to have the same opportunity to change their lives? It’s more challenging to study and measure, but I think that our next big step is to explore the profound potential that positive psychology has for the lives of those who probably aren’t frequenting websites like this one.

Much of the current surge of media interest in positive psychology stems from the marriage of economics and psychology. Researchers are captaining the effort to examine how subjective well-being fits into our political estimations and policy evaluations of how to assess the well-being of a society. Happiness is a construct that is difficult to measure, but measures of subjective well-being are valid and reliable.

The Gallup Organization has taken the helm and is measuring the well-being and overall status of a representative sample of 95% of the world’s adult citizens over the next 100 years. The European Social Survey has also started incorporating measures of well-being and other positive psychology-like measures into its biennial survey that covers over twenty nations. The New Economics Foundation has even made something called the Happy Planet Index, which is an index of human well-being and environmental impact.

Positive psychology research has primarily focused on the West and thus lacks studies in countries where subjective well-being is low and tends to ignore low-income economies. Ed Diener and his son Robert Biswas-Diener have been pioneers in the study of well-being across cultures. More research will not only benefit those in developing countries, but exploring subjective well-being around the world will likely add much value to our understanding of the various factors that influence the happiness of those in the West. As the ken of positive psychology widens its scope and becomes more commercialized, we must be cognizant of where it can do the most good for the most people.

A Financial Drain
Courtesy of las - initially

One example of how positive psychology could greatly widen its scope is to reexamine some empirical findings. Researchers have empirically verified that income makes little to no difference to subjective well-being once a person makes $50,000 USD. We can take that empirical statement and ask ourselves, “What kind of difference does an increase in income make to those who earn under $50,000 per year?” Not only could this question tease apart the significant relationship between income and well-being for those at the bottom of the pyramid, but it would also help those of us at the top to better understand where and how happiness is found. The relationship between money and happiness has to be thought about at all levels of income.
 

Furthermore, positive psychology has made leaps and bounds in understanding how education is tied to well-being. It’s phenomenal that the Geelong Grammar School in Australia is incorporating positive psychology into its curriculum. This will undoubtedly have a significant impact on how these students will develop and impact the world. But how about Oprah’s new Leadership Academy for Girls in South Africa? Imagine if positive psychology principles were incorporated into this school from its inception. Moreover, what are these emerging female leaders in developing countries going to teach us about leadership?

These are some of the questions I’ve been thinking about lately and enjoy researching. As positive psychology globalizes we must be conscious that it doesn’t obfuscate and exclude certain people. I look forward to exploring just how much influence the vox populi has on the application of positive psychology around the world and how new endeavors will concern the voices that aren’t being heard.

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