Psychology 09 positive traits

Biological Foundation of HappinessPaul Meehl… “some people just born three drinks ahead” -Emotional life, attitude towards self & life - childhood to adulthood Lab effect.. Individual di

Positive Traits and Well-Being

Trait = enduring, stable, internal characteristic of person that

influence how act, perceive, and feel about world

Like colored lens in camera….everything we see

Individual differences in traits account for as much as 50% of

differences in levels of happiness & well-being

One reason circumstances, money, life events don’t matter much

(Ch 5-6)

How we interpret life - subjective side - more important

What Makes a Trait Positive in Positive Psychology?

Biological Foundation of Happiness

Paul Meehl… “some people just born three drinks ahead”

-Emotional life, attitude towards self & life - childhood to adulthood (Lab effect)

What We Inherit - overlapping concepts

1 Positive and negative affectivity - characteristic experience of

positive and negative emotions

Strong genetic component - positive & negative independent.

Individual differences in characteristic emotional experience:

Many positive & negative - many negative & few positive

Many positive & few negative - little of each

Measures of + & - highly predictive of long-term happiness

2 Temperament - Kagan - 20% infants reactive or non-reactive

Reactive - shy introverts

Non-reactive - party animals

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3 Big Five Personality Traits

4 Basic Biological Tendencies Towards Approach & Avoidance

May underlie biology of happiness (animal models).

Behavioral Activation System (BAS) - reward - incentives + emotions Behavioral Inhibition System (BIS) - threat/punishment - emotions.

Approach Orientation = positive attitude towards self & world and more positive emotional experiences.

Opposite for avoidance orientation.

Two built-in systems control approach and avoidance behaviors.

People may vary in the relative strength or ease of activation of two systems….may be basis for affectivity, temperament & personality.

Measures of approach-avoidance orientation predictive of outcomes in lots of life domains.

Genetics and Change

“Trying to be happier is like trying to be taller.”

Arguments Against Inability to Change Genetic Set-point:

happy

offer compensation … relationships, work, family

Can move in different directions…good day at work, bad at home…

Widowers who don’t recover

Happy marriage - long-term increase

7-year longitudinal study - 17% long-term increase in set point

Choosing right life activities, goals, etc - overcome genetics

Family Origins of Positive Attitude Toward Self & World

If you wanted to raise child to have low opinion of themselves and

a negative-suspicious view of other people and world we live in, what would you do?

Family Origins of Self-Esteem - Coopersmith

Acceptance - attentive, positive, warmth, concern, love.

Respect - for children’s abilities, opinions, individuality.

Limits - structure child’s world with rules and expectations of

appropriate behavior Clear basis for evaluating child’s actions Freedom - permit freedom with structure - individuality & choice.

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Higgins - Family Dynamics and Parenting

Relative strength of ideal and ought self that guide/regulate behavior and used as standards for self-

evaluation

Strong Ideal Self - positive attitude & many approach goals.Strong Ought Self - negative attitude & many avoidance goals

Happiness Built on Positive Attitude Towards Self, Life, and Future

Self-esteem, self-efficacy, optimism are more specific components

of positive attitude

Positive attitude - related to:

- more frequent positive emotional experiences

- more effective functioning

- perseverance in the face of challenge

- better health

- better relationships

Important point - most people have generally positive attitude most

of the time

- Troubles with self-esteem rare

- Majority at least mildly optimistic

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Differences between Extremes

Lyubormirsky - Happy and unhappy people live in separate worlds

Differences between upper 25% and lower 25% on Subjective

Happiness Scale

Overall Difference:

Happy people happy with what they get and have in life

Unhappy - focus on what they don’t have, didn’t get, and envy people who have more

1 Social Comparisons & Happiness

•Happy – less sensitive to social comparisons with others More selective and use others mostly to protect self-esteem and well-being

•Unhappy – always comparing to others - happiness is “out there.”

•Feel good or bad depending on how others do

•Happy – less affected if peers do better or worse

•Unhappy – deflated rather than delighted in success of peers and relieved (feel good) when peers fail

Happy vs Unhappy

2 Post-decision Rationalization

• Make choices of desirable things…college applied to.

• Sometimes got or did not get first choice.

• Happy – satisfied with all options if didn’t get first choice & devalued colleges that rejected them.

• Unhappy – what got was mediocre, but other options even worse.

3 Event Construal

• Happy people: interpret and remember experiences and positive and negative daily events as more positive than do unhappy.

• Find humor in negative & selectively remember positive.

• Unhappy - interpret, remember, etc., in way that reinforces

unhappiness - finding what’s wrong.

Vast majority of people have “healthy illusions.”

Longstanding social psychology findings:

People generally:

1.Tendency towards self-enhancement/self-esteem

2 Positive view of future - optimism

3 Self-serving bias in attributions - optimistic explanatory style

4 Belief in self-control

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Self-esteem is evaluative component of self

How self judges self - sense of personal worth, value in own eyes

Related but not identical to how viewed by others

Simple measure - feel worthy, positive attitude versus not proud of myself, wish had more self-respect, etc - overly sensitive to external feedback

Both trait & state - baseline & circumstantial fluctuations

Stable level - ages 6 to 83

Self-esteem and Well-Being

cultures.

face of challenge, & resisting influence from others.

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Two major theories:

1 Self-affirmation - money in bank

Coping resource when life ge’s rough - criticism, failure, etc.Absorbing blows to self-esteem with less emotional damage

2 Sociometer Theory - SE and social relationships

Helps fulfill biological need for connections to others

Evolution - need others - SE internal index for monitoring our

Sociometer Theory

monitor relationships important to survival - like hunger, fear

& exclusion from most important relationships

Research support:

SE highly sensitive to acceptance, approval, & rejection

Social anxiety high negative correlation with SE

Traits associated with high SE are same that make us

likeable to others - attractive, competent, morality, outgoing, etc

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Self-Esteem - Issues, Controversies, and Forms

Brief History

1 1970-80s - early enthusiasm - low self-esteem as

psychological equivalent to toxic virus or

environmental carcinogen

Raise self esteem & cure social & individual

problems

2 1990s - critique - research reviews (Baumiester, et al.)

Self-esteem overrated Not so predictive:

- high self-esteem teens - risky behaviors

- defensive high self-esteem more violent

**Biggest: got cause & effect backwards

e.g., academic performance = cause

3 2000 - contingent self-esteem (Crocker)

Basis not level of SE most important

Where - on what - do you hang your sense of self-worth?

4 2007- recent review - global SE does matter in ways would expect

Contingent Self-Esteem - Recent Theory/Research

Crocker - Contingencies of Self-Worth - more complex view of SE

domains or contingencies of self-worth

2 Whether we are motivated, take pride in an activity, try to

enhance, protect, or maintain SE (i.e., whether SE matters) depends on its source

3 Crocker -7 examples - Contingencies of Self-worth (many others)

Approval of Others - respect of others central to SE

Appearance - feeling attractive

Competition - need to win, being better than others

Academic Competence - grades get basis of self-respect

Family Support - quality of relationships with family

Virtue - following morals

God’s Love - close relation to God

4 Research supports - feel good/bad depends on source of SE

involved…High SE predicts performance if involves contingency of worth - e.g., academics getting into graduate school

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Contingencies and Failure

Disengagement rather than low level of SE

Steele & minority academic performance:

African American students - more dropouts in high school

& college Lower performance

If believe:

Effort won’t be rewarded

Hostile & lack of support from environment

Peer pressure reinforcing

Then: may disengage sense of worth from this domain

Why put up with frustration and continual threats to sense of worth? Find something else to take pride in - feel good about.Choice: Be popular, solidarity with peers versus selling out and loose approval & support

Gifted African American students who excel have few black friends

Dark Side of Self-Esteem

Pursuit of self-esteem - feeling good about self:

Self-worth needs to be your “own” and based on actual

self-Like materialism - important needs that are the basis of

happiness - unfulfilled in pipe dream of belief in

money-happiness connection

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Most widely researched positive trait

-Do you see the glass as half full or half empty?

Two views of same reality

Two major theories and tests of optimism

Optimism as a personal trait

2 Optimism as explanatory style - Seligman & Peterson

How people explain negative events

Dispositional Optimism

Optimism as a general expectation about the future.

Optimists believe future holds lots of good things and few bad.

Confident about abilities and future.

Pessimists expect the worst - more bad than good Doubts about abilities and a positive future.

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Measure - Life Orientation Test (LOT)

1 In uncertain times, I usually expect the best.

2 If something can go wrong for me, it will.

3 I’m always optimistic about the future.

4 I hardly ever expect things to go my way.

5 I rarely count on good things happening to me.

6 Overall, I expect more good things to happen to me

Dispositional Optimism

Why is optimism beneficial? Enhances self-regulation

of actions towards personal goals.

When obstacles encountered

- optimists believe in themselves - overcome challenges.

- pessimists doubt themselves - become passive

LOT Optimism & Well-Being

Personal resource that fosters resilience in times

of distress.

First child birth and post partum depression.

Recovery from bypass surgery.

Early stage beast cancer - level of distress.

Coping with care-giver role for Alzheimers,

cancer.

Optimism as Explanatory Style

Originally focused on thinking of depressed people.

Why do bad things happen to me? (ASQ scenarios)

Optimists find “excuses” that deflect away from them

Three aspects of pessimistic explanatory style:

Stable causes - unlikely to change - I’m no good at math.Global causes - effect everything - I’m a bad test-taker.Internal causes - personal traits - It,s my fault

Optimists

Unstable - just had a bad day - no time to study

Specific - just couldn’t get this test or this teacher

External - I was late for class and rushed through exam

Optimism as Explanatory Style

Similar pattern of predictions to LOT - dispositional optimism:

E.g., Harvard grads from 1930s & 40s - optimism at 25

predicted physical health, longevity, & mental health 35 years later

How Optimism Works:

Protect against passivity & defeatist attitude

solving strategies Better at identifying controllable and

uncontrollable threats & problems…work on things can

change, give up on those that can’t

cannot change; courage to change the things I can; wisdom to know the difference.”

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How Optimism Works

3 Optimism may increase experience of positive affect/emotion

and follow Broaden-and-Build theory

More social support, resilience, creative problem solving-ability to fight

disease, etc.

Coping Tendencies

Information seeking Suppression of thought

Active coping & planning Giving up

Positive reframing Self-distraction

Varieties of Optimism

Hope Theory

Defensive Pessimism - Norem & Cantor

Positive power of negative thinking (at a price)

Defensive pessimists:

Expect the worst despite past success

Say -”know won’t do well” - but usually do

High anxiety about upcoming event/performance

BUT: thinking/anxiety about failure motivates attention to every detail to avoid failure - mental rehearsing of what will do, how to avoid problems….so usually do great

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Price:

Suffer more anxiety & worry - more neurotic.

Negative thinking seems to lower self-esteem Pain for others to be around - get tired of being supportive - constant reassurance will do well.

Unresolved Issues

- excuse making - really measuring presence or absence

of pessimism not presence of optimism

-Young optimism benefits older some cynicism & realism

College students versus “real people.”

Asians as defensive pessimists

Asians - pessimism better predictor of good coping

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“Healthy Illusions” (even if illusions)

Shelley Taylor & Jonathon Brown (1988) – Literature

Review

People biased towards the positive, who see themselves in

best possible light are happier and healthier than those who don’t

Sadder but wiser effect – depressive realism – Alloy &

Abramson

realism

well-being and serve as self-protection from ego-deflating

experiences

•1 Realistic assessment of control

•2 Realistic assessment of future

•3 Accept responsibility for outcomes

•4.Accurate perception of self

•Non-Depressed

•1 Exaggerated belief in control

•2 See only a rosy future

•3 Self-serving bias

•4 Inflated perception of self

Positive Distortion Buffers a Negative Reality

Compared to “truth” and “reality”:

– Happy people show a positive bias in their view of

themselves and life

– Less happy (mildly depressed) people view themselves and their life more realistically

– Living a life too close to reality is a bummer

– Happiness comes in part from the ability to distort reality in positive and self-serving ways: healthy illusions

– Mental health = mild positive distortions not “reality.”