In honor of Thanksgiving, Positive Psychology Daily lists these articles about practicing Gratitude 365 days a year.

Gratitude thoughts:

 

• Thanksgiving as Gratitude Day.

• On the benefits of family and holiday rituals.

• Huddling together during Thanksgiving.

• Gratitude for what you do have.

• Gratitude for the bad things that are avoided.

• Benefits of love, gratitude, and kindness may become even stronger in the limbic system during difficult times.

• “If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands.”  If you’re proud of someone and you know it, praise their effort.

• Gratitude and its energy and spiritual energy.

• Gratitude helps you live longer - one of the four ingredients of the aging Happy-Well.

• A 7-year-old talks about the power of “Three Good Things” every night.

Image. This article first appeared on Positive Psychology News Daily. To see the original article, click here. To comment on this article, click here.

Some of us may be quite aware of the pie chart on the front of Sonja Lyubomirsky's book, the How of Happiness, which shows that genetics control most of our happiness.  However, genetics are not destiny and this article, by Emiliya Zhivotovskaya,  is a nice concise explanation of how our genetics and our experiences interact to produce our "happiness".

How does happiness work in the body? Here is where the mystery starts: if DNA is the powerhouse of the cell, then is it true that your happiness is set at birth?  Not exactly. Yes, the genes in your DNA have a role. For example, there are genetic differences among people that affect the production and transportation of serotonin, a neurotransmitter that modulates anger, aggression, and mood. Thus you may be more genetically prone to depression and experiencing less happiness than some other people because of the genes that control your serotonin system. But believing this is the whole story is a recipe for learned helplessness. Truly believing you are doomed by genetics may prevent you from ever taking steps to make positive changes in your life. Happiness and life-satisfaction levels are only partially pre-programmed. Making yourself happier is not as futile as trying to make yourself taller.

Gregor and Masa Zvelc from the Institute for Integrative Psychotherapy and Counseling presented on the power of Mindful Processing at the 4th European Conference of Positive Psychology.  Their presentation was entitled: “The Power of the present moment – Mindful Processing in psychotherapy and counseling.”  As defined by Jon Kabat-Zinn, mindfulness is “paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment and nonjudgmentally.”  Zvelc commented that the cornerstone of mindfulness is a non-judgmental and accepting awareness of the present.  During the presentation, the Zvelc couple cited Segal, Williams, and Teasdale’s paper from 2002, which compared “doing” mode and “being” mode.  Doing mode stresses solving problems.  In contrast, being mode focuses on accepting and allowing without pressure to change the present.

During the workshop the Zvelcs taught a method of counseling called “Mindful Processing.”  Mindful Processing “invites the client to become aware of the moment” and to experience the present with acceptance.  The counselor is also in a state of mindfulness with the client.  With both therapist and client tuned into the present moment, the therapist asks the client to describe his/her present bodily sensations, feelings, and emotions.  The client is not to judge the sensations, only to describe and experience them fully.  The result is “deep experiencing.” 

The Zvelcs showed a video of Mindful Processing between a client and therapist.  In the video, the client first explained the situation that was causing him trouble.  He next expressed his bodily sensations becoming very aware of them.  With an awareness of the body, came an awareness of his emotions.  He deeply experienced the emotions that this situation had brought out.  The therapist helped to guide the client and to extract the meaning from the emotional experience.  With a better understanding of the emotions in this mindful state, a transformation of the emotions became possible.  New awareness arose along with insight into the initial situation.

The Zvelcs summed the protocol one should follow for Mindful Processing into a seven step process:

Step 1: Description of Mindful Processing to the client

Step 2: Description of the original situation – What issue would you like to discover more about?

Step 3: Finding body sensation connected to the whole problem – How do you feel it in your body?  Where?

Step 4: Focusing on body sensation related to the whole problem – Close eyes and focus.  Just observe what is happening within your body.

Step 5: Description of the Inner Experience – Slowly open your eyes and tell me what occurred.

Step 6: Intrapsychic Contact and Mindfulness – Stay with that feeling, emotion, sensation, thought.  Focus on it.  Just be aware.  Just observe.

            (Repeats steps 5 and 6 as many times as desired.)

Step 7: End of Processing – When considering the original issue, what comes?

Mindful Processing can be a very powerful way to gain new insight in an objective manner on any issue or problem.  It is without a doubt a slow and meditative process; however, with time and patience it can be quite effective.

At the 4^th European Conference for Positive Psychology, Kim Rose-Inza from the Korea Counseling Center and the Deh-In Positive Psychology Educational Foundation in Seoul, Korea presented on Reality Therapy. Reality Therapy is a method of counseling, which focuses on the client’s current behavior and whether or not it will help the client attain what he or she wants. Reality Therapy centers on helping the individual to re-connect with others in his/her life. Dr. William Glasser first developed Reality Therapy in 1965 incorporating Choice Theory, which suggests that living creatures behave and all behaviors attempt to satisfy one of the five basic needs.

Total behavior has four aspects: Thinking, Acting, Feeling, and Physiology. Dealing with feelings as in Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy takes too long Rose-Inza suggests. She believes that the action aspect of behavior should be central. If one concentrates on the action, the feelings and physiology will follow. Reality Therapy stresses the importance of one’s present actions in order to alter the future. Glasser recommends leaving the past behind and concentrating on the present.

Rose-Inza offered a concrete example from her own practice: A couple she was counseling wanted to divorce after 20 years of marriage. The main, specific grievance cited was a dirty bath brush. The husband never hung it on a hook after showering making it become old and moldy quickly. The wife was terribly upset over the $5 bath brush. Rose-Inza had them both list their wants: hers – to have a clean bath brush; his – to not have to hang it up after showering. She recommended simply replacing the bath brush regularly. For a small price the conflict was solved by altering the actions just slightly and the marriage was saved. The plan of action for any couple must be simple, attainable, measurable, immediate, consistent, and client-centered. This method is known as Samic Planning. In addition, she recommends detailed, careful, and active listening as well as using I-messages in all relationship disputes.

Many people at the conference questioned that the problems between the couple may run much deeper than the simple conflict over the brush. However, Rose-Inza suggested to take one conflict at a time. Reality Therapy systematically questions if the wants of the client are being met by his or her actions. If not, the actions are changed through the Samic Plan.

In the Thriving Through Inner Conflict Workshop at the 4^th European Conference on Positive Psychology, Dina Nir and Avraham N. Kluger from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Isreal presented on Negotiational Self Theory.

Dina Nir said that whenever we need to make a decision about an Inner Conflict, we negotiate inside ourselves. These negotiations often lead to either a distributive or integrated outcome.

In 1990 Herman published his Dialogic-Self Theory. He writes that many I-positions talk to each other within us, which is good and healthy. The I-positions of our multifaceted and dynamic selves ask questions, criticize, ridicule, and disagree with each other. Many different voices are ok; inconsistency is normal. However, a pathological situation develops when one I-position takes over the entire identity. Alternative versions of reality are no longer able to have a voice.

Negotiational Self Theory believes that most often, in an inner conflict, one I-position dominates the weaker I-positions. Therefore, one side of us wins, while the other side completely looses. There is no compromise. The more submissive voice is completely unfulfilled and unsatisfied. The goal of using the Negotiational Self Theory and Method is to create win-win solutions where all inner voices are heard and no part of the self is marginalized. Negotiotional Self Method transforms the internal negotiation into all win-win outcomes.

Nir presented a four-stage method as outlined below:

Stage 1: Framing the Inner Conflict

• Recall an unresolved inner conflict that you are experiencing.
• Freely describe the nature and background of the conflict.
• Identity the two most polarizing sides in terms of “for” and “against.”

Stage 2: Eliciting and mapping different self-aspects

• Completely elicit and list all the “for” voices within yourself.
• Then, completely elicit and list all the “against” voices within yourself.
• Reconsider if anything has been left out. Add those voices under the appropriate category.

Stage 3: Revealing underlying interests and needs

• Uncover the deep and underlying interests and needs of each voice. Ask such questions as Why this? or What will that achieve?

Stage 4:

• Construct a win-win solution.

On her handout, Nir writes: “Construct a solution that simultaneously satisfies all the different voices, aspects and interests at both ends of the conflict. The criterion for evaluating the integrative level of the decision is objective as opposed to normative or subjective. That is, each voice that has been mapped should be acknowledged, attend to and satisfied in the constructed decision.”

Nir believes that using this method will make inner conflict a positive rather than a negative experience. Moreover, each conflict is an opportunity for change and it works in both serious as well as trivial matters. During the workshop many people raised the question of whether or not it was possible in all situations. Nir truly believes that it is. Others questioned what happened if the person was not healthy as in the case of addictions. She suggested that in the case of pathology, the inner dialogue is not rich and involves only a few voices. An addiction situation involves only false voices. She also encouraged those attending the workshop to try the method with a partner, as that may make the process easier.

Psychology Today has a brief article on one of the most obvious yet least acted upon methods to improve our happiness.  Getting more sunlight.

Patients in recovery rooms full of natural light take less pain medication, and, days after surgery, they report lower stress levels. Their hastened healing may be due to sunlight's ability to stimulate serotonin production, which helps regulate mood, sleep, and sex drive.

The author does a nice job reconciling seemingly diverse findings about happiness trends and identifying the underlying reasons for differing conclusions.

Over the past decade or so there have been many Positive Psychology articles exploring the relationship between money and happiness. Myers (2000), Diener and Oishi (2000), Blanchflower and Oswald (2004), and Layard (2005) amongst others have presented research which suggests that increasing wealth does not buy happiness (this graph illustrates this point for the USA).Happiness is on the up… The good news is that according to a new study by Inglehart, Foa, Peterson and Welzel (2008), happiness is actually increasing: in this longitudinal study between 1981 and 2007, happiness levels went up in 45 out of 52 countries. And contrary to what you might conclude from Myers’ graph (mentioned above) the US is one of those countries which shows an upward trend in happiness (p276). So how do we explain the apparent inconsistency between Myers and Inglehart et al?

In normal circumstances, especially when we are depressed, it is easier for us to see the negative things that happen around us, thus making us feel more down. We forget to see the brighter side of things. When this happens, we are practically allowing ourselves to be robbed off of the chance to be happy.The good news is, there is actually a way around it. And it comes in the form of Positive Psychology. It is a relatively new branch of psychology that focuses on cultivating positive emotion, character traits and institutions. It was founded by Dr. Martin E. P. Seligman on the belief that people want more than just a cure to depression, but how to avoid it as well. Positive Psychology aims to help us in cultivating these emotions, character traits, and institutions so that we would know what to do

According to Professor Seligman’s research, it is possible to be happier and more positive regardless of one’s circumstances. He has also demonstrated that through Positive Psychology interventions, the symptoms of depression can be lastingly decreased.

Also known as PosPsych, Positive Psychology is founded on the belief that people want more than an end to suffering. Seligman said that people want to lead meaningful and fulfilling lives, to cultivate what is best within themselves, to enhance their experiences of love, work, and play. He also believes that we have the opportunity to create a science and a profession that not only heals a psychological damage but also builds strengths to enable people to achieve the best things in life.

On the other hand, PosPsych does not deny that life has its distressing and negative aspects, rather, it focuses on the study on the positive side. It concentrates on things such as the ways that people feel joy, show altruism, and create families and institutions, and how can these things address depression.

History

According to Seligman, prior to World War II, psychology has three distinct missions: curing mental illness, making the lives of all people more productive and fulfilling, an identifying and nurturing high talent. But after the war, the latter two missions fell away, and curing mental illness became the primary and almost enitre mission of practicing and academic psychologists. In 1946, two strong economic reasons shifted the focus of psychology into curing mental illnesses. It was when the Veterans Administration was founded and psychologists started to practice by counseling post-war veterans. On the other hand, the National Institute of Mental Health was founded on 1947 and academic psychologists learned that grants were more forthcoming to studies of pathology and mental illness.

When Martin Seligman became the president if the American Psychological Association (APA) in 1998, he launched the idea of studying the positive functioning of people as the central theme of his term. According to Seligman and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, there have been many predecessors to the idea of studying positive psychology. They believe that Aristotle and other Greek philosophers have laid out the foundation of thoughts of what Positive Psychology is. Moreover, former APA presidents Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow had focused on what makes people be at their best.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Ph.D. is a professor at Claremont Graduate University and is the Seligman’s partner in the Positive Psychology Movement. He explains that therapy rarely helps human functioning since it only brings us back to our normal state, whereas Positive Psychology develops us to be optimistic-even happier.

Who is Martin Seligman?

At present, Martin E. P. Seligman, Ph.D., is a Fox Leadership Professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Psychology Department. He is also the network director of the Positive Psychology Network and Scientific Director of the Classification of Strengths and Virtues Project of the Mayerson Foundation.

He is known for studying Positive Psychology, learned helplessness, depression, and on optimism and pessimism. Aside from that, he is also a best-selling author and that his research and writing has been broadly supported by a number of institutions including the National Institute of Aging, the National Science Foundation, and the MacArthur Foundation. His research on preventing depression received the MERIT Award of the National Institute of Mental Health in 1991.

In 2000, his main mission has been the promotion of the field of Positive Psychology. This field tackles on the study of emotion, positive character traits, and positive institutions. Since then, he has committed himself in training Positive Psychologists to help other people make the world a happier place.

The PosPsych Movement

Positive Psychology’s general goal is to enhance our experiences of love, work, and play. Seligman says that it is a psychologist’s “birthright” to explore optimism, love, perseverance, originality, responsibility, good parenting, altruism, civility, moderation, and tolerance. This small corner of the mental health field is considered a revelation since it opens another opportunity for healing and coping strategies.

Seligman said that our conception of depression is all wrong. He says that depression is much less complex than being rejected or the childhood traumas we had that make us feel bad or say negative things, and that “negative thinking” itself is the disease.

According to Seligman, Positive Psychology is to enhance our experiences of love, work, and play. Though PosPsych is believed to be still in its infancy, Seligman projects that the movement’s research will help the people make the ‘good in life’ even better. It could mean exercise being less tedious, work more rewarding, and relationships more enjoyable.

Sometimes, for us to see what is right, we have to see first what is wrong. Professor Seligman, who is working on a supplement to the Diagnostic Statistical Manual, says that the DSM is the “knowology” of what’s wrong with you. The DSM, being the leading authority in mental disorders would feature Seligman’s book “Knowology of Virtues,” a Positive Psychology literature that teaches “learned optimism” and maximizing joy and good, therefore preventing depression.

Goals of the movement include:

• Developing two complementary branches of science and practice: one that alleviates and prevents negative traits and feelings, and another that promotes well-being.
• Changing the nature of psychotherapy by developing ways to identify and nurture patients’ strengths.
• Developing a curriculum for teaching positive psychology, both at universities and in high-school psychology classes.
• Launching a fund-raising campaign to support expanded scientific research.

So why consider a Positive Psychology movement? Over the years, the science of psychology has taken great steps toward classifying and addressing what is wrong with people, families, and institutions. Today, Positive Psychology offers to identify what is right and how we can make it work to better our lives. It encourages us to use our strengths and virtues to minimize the depression we may encounter. Not only it is healthy for our minds, it is also beneficial to our well-being.

Sure, we cannot avoid problems from actually happening. Not even the depression that comes to us once we acknowledge these problems. Positive Psychology is a strategy that helps us lessen the depression and encourage us to be optimistic and think of the positive things instead of the negative. It only proves that prevention is still better than cure. Instead of waiting for depression to occur before thinking of a solution, PosPsych grants us the option to be positive and develop this into a habit of being optimistic.

Sources: www.pos-psych.com, University of Virginia, www.psychologytoday.com, www.ggs.vic.edu.au, www.ppc.sas.upenn.edu

Negative Affect is Stronger than Positive Affect

The following is 6 studies that test whether Negative Affect (NA) is stronger than Positive Affect (PA). These studies examine how we react to negative and positive events in our lives with regards to the intensity of our reactions (study 1), the duration of the reaction (study 2), and our cognitive involvement (experiments 1-4).

Randy Larsen presented these studies in his talk on the Hedonic Treadmill at the 4th European Conference on Positive Psychology.

Study 1 – Reactivity

62 subjects for 56 days were required to keep daily records and ratings of their best and worst events of each day. Therefore, in total 5,971 events were self-rated.

Larsen questioned how good or bad each event was for the average person. He selected the events that were rated as greater than 1 (>1) for standard deviation for his analysis; they were either exceptionally good or bad days.

The following chart shows the results of his analysis:

* These figures are not Larsen’s actual measurements but approximations from a projected powerpoint presentation.

The results of this reactivity study show that there was a significantly stronger reaction for the negative affect self-rating than the positive one.

Study 2 – Duration

In this second study the participants were again required to record how affected they felt by events in their lives. This study lasted 28 days, and required the participants to record 3 times a day their reactions – at noon, 6 pm, and bedtime.

Larsen again selected only the events where the either the PA or the NA had a standard deviation of greater than 1. These events were either particularly negative or positive. Instead of questioning how strongly do people react, he questioned how long does that reaction last?

* These figures are not Larsen’s actual measurements but approximations from a projected powerpoint presentation.

These results show that adaptation rates are far slower for negative than positive events. This idea is what Larsen calls the Hedonic Treadmill.

In his presentation, Larsen next said that we needed more information to understand the positive and negative affects concerning cognitive involvement. He cites 4 experiments performed by Peter Lang’s Lab in Florida.

Experiment 1 – Emotional priming with sound

Lang used the international affective sound set. (He also has an international affective vision set.) The sound set is comprised of several positive sounds, such as clapping, laughing, and the buzz of a lively room from a cocktail party, and several negative sounds, such as a domestic fight, a car crash, and a baby crying.

In the study, the participants would hear a sound for 10 to 17 seconds and then see a word on a screen, which they would have to characterize as positive or negative within a half-second. Lang analyzed all the errors that the participants made. Here is a graph of the results:

* These figures are not Lang’s actual measurements but approximations from a projected powerpoint presentation.

The results show that the errors, which people made after hearing a positive sound are fairly balanced between the two types of words. However, after hearing a negative sound people made many more errors concerning positive words, i.e. they identified the positive words as negative, and many less errors concerning the negative words, i.e. the correctly identified the negative words as negative.

Therefore, he concluded that the positive system in us seems ready to accept negative sounds.

Experiment 2 – Affective Simon Task

In this experiment participants viewed a variety of negative and positive words, such as murder and happy. They were instructed to ignore the meaning of the word and just to notice whether the word was in upper or lower case. If the word was in upper case, they were to identify the word as “negative,” whereas if it was in lower case, they were to identify the word as “positive.”

	Correct response		Correct response
MURDER	Negative	HAPPY	Negative
murder	Positive	happy	Positive

He suggested that we cannot help but read and process the meaning of the words. He analyzed the reaction time of the participants. Here is the graph of the results.

* These figures are not Lang’s actual measurements but approximations from a projected powerpoint presentation.

In this graph, the vertical y-axis is the reaction time of the responses. For negative words when they were to respond in “positive,” people’s reaction time was significantly slower. The reaction time was balanced if the words were positive, showing an asymmetry between the positive and negative affects.

We have a senor is our cognitive system moderating the sensory stream, which always asks: “Is this bad for me?” and does not ask: “Is this good for me?” We have more stimuli for processing negative than positive input.

Experiment 3 – Visual Search Task

In the experiment Lang again studied the reaction time of the participants. He set up the faces you see below in a 3×3 grid. They were all the same, or just one face was different. The subjects needed to decide if there was one unique face or not. Half were all the same (same expression, same length of each line, same size of circles) and half were unique in some varying way.

Angry

Scheming

Happy

Sad

Neutral

Here are the results:

* These figures are not Lang’s actual measurements but approximations from a projected powerpoint presentation.

The results again show that the reaction time concerning negative stimuli is significantly quicker than the reaction time for positive stimuli.

Experiment 4 – Digital Flanker Task

The participants of this experiment saw many common words with a number at the beginning and end of them. The participants were asked to identify if the number was the same or different. Lang analyzed their reaction time. His hypothesis was that the negative words should decrease their reaction time.

Here are some examples of the words and numbers:

63rotten63
16mama61
32kitten23
83scum88
45lice47
98spa98
91cozy91
63pus63

The summary of the results is below. The y-axis represents reaction time.

* These figures are not Lang’s actual measurements but approximations from a projected powerpoint presentation.

The results show that his hypothesis was correct – reaction time is slower for negative words.

On the morning of the second day of the conference Randy Larsen gave a talk entitled “Overcoming the Hedonic Treadmill: Self Regulation of Emotional Well-Being.” He stated that our overall satisfaction with life is correlated to the effects that our experiences have on us.  In general, he presented the idea that our Subjective Well-Being (SWB) is a ratio of how effected we are by the positive events in our lives to the negative events.

He offered this equation:

SWB = S (PA) / S (NA)

In this equation Positive Affect (PA) and Negative Affect (NA) contribute equally to one’s SWB.

However, negative affect is actually stronger than positive affect; therefore, the equation is incorrect, Larsen revealed. He said that R. Baumeister et al. commented in their 2001 study: “Bad [affect] is stronger than good [affect].” Positive affect is frail, not strong, whereas negative affect is strong to begin with.

To show that negative affect is stronger than positive, Larsen asked the audience to consider the following examples:

• Loosing $50 is much more painful than winning $50 is positive.
• A positive first impression can easily be reversed if one learns something negative about the person. However, a negative first impression is rarely if ever reversed.

There is a negative bias, which is stronger and lasts longer.

In Ed Diener’s study (1991), he questioned why positive affect is stronger than negative affect. (To evaluate your SWB, take Diener’s Satisfaction with Life Scale in the Quizzes section of MyHappy: http://www.myhappy.com/quizes/.) Larsen conducted research in order to study why negative affect is stronger with regard to three aspects: reactivity, duration, and cognitive involvement.

He performed two studies: one on people’s reactions to negative and positive events and one on the duration of their reactions. To test cognitive involvement, he used four experiments conducted by Peter Lang. (Explanations of the 6 studies and their results are available here.) His results were conclusive. Negative affect creates stronger responses and lasts longer than positive affect.

With this new information Larsen wanted to know exactly how much stronger is negative affect to positive affect. He questioned how his initial equation needed to be modified.

He cited four studies that had found varying answers to this question:

Larsen 2002 - For people with average levels of SWB, they usually have three good days to every one bad day. PA to NA is about a 3 to 1 ratio.

Schwartz et al. 2002- For recovered depressed people (those who were once depressed but are now no longer depressed), the ratio was 2.3-4.3 to 1.

Fredrickson and Losada (2005) - For flourishing workgroupsâ, the ratio is 2.9 to 1. Flourishing individuals were 3.2 to 1 in one study and 3.4 to 1 in another study.

Gottman (1994) - In highly satisfied married couples the ratio was a bit larger: 4.7 to 1, which indicates that for every bad event, it takes nearly 5 good events to reverse the effects!

Therefore, Larsen said that his conclusion was only an estimate. It seems that the ratio of PA to NA is about pi or 3.1415. His equation is then changed to SWB = S (PA) / S (NA/ pi).

As a final word, Larsen commented that PA and NA are the emotional core of SWB. Moreover, they help determine the global SWB. The negative bias in us creates an asymmetry. Diener believes that we need to figure out how to encourage positive affect and cope with negative affect. Larsen suggests that efforts to speed adaptation to negative events may be more important to SWB than increasing the duration of positive events is to SWB.

Larsen’s talk ended with that final point. I had a few questions: How could we speed adaptation of negative affect? How could we lessen our intense reactions? What interventions might be possible?