Positive Psychology chapter 9

Table of Contents

Positive Psychology

Chapter 9 Becoming and Being Wise Developing Wisdom

Many theorists argue that wisdom develops from knowledge, cognitive skills and personality factors. Understanding culture and the environment also considered vital. Mentors are believed to be an important mechanism for developing wisdom “Two heads are better than one”

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Wise People and Their Characteristics

Longitudinal studies have determined that a person’s childhood does not determine the development of wisdom and that wise people achieve greater life satisfaction than the unwise. Orwell and Achenbaum suggest that women’s acts of wisdom typically occur in private whereas men’s acts of wisdom are more public Baltes and Staudinger report no age differences between 25 and 75 years but that the time between 15 and 25 is particularly important in developing wisdom. Some professions associated with higher levels of wisdom: clinical psychologists

a. Do you know a wise person? a) What kinds of characteristics make him/her a wise person?

b. Do you consider yourself a wise person b) How can we cultivate wisdom in everyday life?

Chapter 10 Forgiveness

· Defined by Thompson and colleagues, forgiveness is freeing from a negative attachment to the source of the transgression. This definition allows the target of forgiveness to be oneself, another person, or a situation.

· Defined by McCullough and colleagues, forgiveness is an increase in prosocial motivation, in that there is less of a desire to avoid or seek revenge against the transgressor and an increased desire to act positively towards the transgressing person. This definition is only applicable when another person is the target of the transgression.

· Defined by Enright and colleagues, forgiveness is the willingness to give up resentment, negative judgment, and indifference towards the transgressor and give undeserved compassion, generosity, and benevolence to the transgressing person. This definition is limited to people and does not include situations.

· Defined by Tangney and colleagues, giving up negative emotions is the core of forgiveness.

How does one learn forgiveness?

· According to the model developed by Gordon, Baucom, and Snyder, three steps are needed for achieving forgiveness toward another person. The initial impact stage includes negative emotions such as fear, anger and hurt. The search for meaning stage investigates why the incident happened. And the recovery stage is when the people move forward in their lives.

· The REACH model developed by Everett Worthington is a five-step process to forgiveness regarding infidelity. The acronym stands for Recall the hurt and the nature of the injury caused; Empathy promotion in both partners; Altruistic gift giving of forgiveness between partners; Committing verbally to forgive partner, and; Holding onto the forgiveness for each other.

· Self-forgiveness is aimed at lessening the feelings of shame or guilt. The individual is encouraged to take responsibility for the action and to let go and to move forward. The goal is to prevent the individual from letting the negative feelings interfere with positive living.

· Thought stopping and examination of thinking behind negative situations are needed to forgive situations and inanimate objects. The individual will learn that they should not blame happenings in their lives for their problems.

Why forgive?

· An evolutionary advantage to forgiveness is that it may break the violence cycle in human beings and the survival chances will be increased. With lower levels of hostility and aggression and higher levels of positive feelings, the social order may be stabilized.

· Forgiveness requires a sense of self, which is often damaged due to problems requiring the forgiveness. If one learns to forgive, one will build the sense of self up and it may become stronger.

· Forgiveness creates positive emotions.

Think about a situation in which you forgave someone. a) Explain how you felt before and after forgiving. b) Do you think that this forgiveness was true forgiveness and why? (Link your comments to one or more of the forgiveness theories presented in the chapter.)

Chapter Outline

Chapter 11

Empathy and Egotism:

Portals to Altruism, Gratitude, and Forgiveness

Altruism

· Altruistic behaviors are helping behaviors, which can be motivated by personal egotism or through empathic desires to benefit another person.

· Altruism can be measured through self-report instruments including: the Self-Report Altruism Scale, the Prosocial Behavior Questionnaire, the Ethical Behavior Rating Scale, and the Helping Attitude Scale.

Egotism

· Egotism is the underlying motive concerning personal gain.

· When discussed with altruism, egotistic motives for helping another may include public praise, material rewards, lessening personal torment, avoiding punishment, feeling good about oneself, or escaping a sense of guilt. It is one of the most influential human motives.

· To increase the likelihood of altruistic behaviors through the egotism motive, the altruistic person must accept that it is ok to feel good about helping. It is the helping behavior, and not the supporting motive that is important to the outcome. Most are happy to learn this and have also showed higher levels of self-esteem from altruistic actions. Voluntary jobs can assist people in achieving these positive feelings.

Empathy

· Empathy is matching another’s emotions, which may entail a sense of pity and tenderheartedness toward the other person. When discussed with altruism, empathic motives may lead to a greater chance of helping others.

· Studies on monozygotic twins and dizygotic twins have shown moderate heritability for empathy (Davis, Luce, & Kraus, 1994; Matthews, Batson, Horn & Rosenman, 1981; Rushton, Fulker, Neale, Nias, & Eysenck, 1986).

· The prefrontal and parietal cortexes have been shown to account for empathy. When damage has been done to inhibit judgment of other’s emotions, empathy is also negatively influenced.

· Empathy can be increased in individuals simply through increased interaction with others. Empathy can also be increased by pointing out similarities between the individual and others, which allow for the awareness of likeness of circumstances between the helper and those helped.

· In the “Dictator Game,” which involved distributing tokens, women gave altruistically more often than men, particularly in a room with other women. Both genders appear to value altruism in long-term relationships.

· In collectivist societies, helping others is rewarded and is associated with higher levels of social support and prosocial behavior resulting in an “altruism niche.”

· The link between religion, spirituality, and altruistic behaviors is complex, and fraught with methodological problems. Preliminary results suggest that religious people are particularly prone to all truism towards the in group and a desire to appear socially desirable for their actions.

· Empathy-based approaches to all truism include interacting more frequently with people who need help, increasing closeness, and developing a wide and diverse social circle. Uniqueness may be an impediment to deriving pleasure from interacting with other people.

Value – Based Approaches

· The valuing of prosocial acts tends to be internalized into people’s identity of themselves.

· Those who display altruism in the “line of duty” . May promote development of prosocial qualities, and these jobs may also draw altruistic individuals to them

· Helping may be habit-forming; having volunteered as a child resulted in later greater giving per year than did fundraising alone.

Gratitude

Gratitude is the feeling of appreciation, gratefulness, or graciousness that accompanies another person or situation helping you. It is likely that feelings of empathy are necessary to have gratitude toward another person.

When does one feel gratitude?

· Gratitude is achieved when others act in a way that was costly to them, valuable to the recipient, and intentionally rendered (Emmons, 2005).

· Gratitude can be felt for humans as well as nonhuman actions and events.

· Larger amounts of gratitude will often be associated with events of larger magnitude, when the giving person’s actions are judged as praiseworthy, and when they are positively different from what was expected (Trivers, 1971 & Ortony, Clore, and Collins, 1988).

· Gratitude may also be present when one finds positive aspects of a negative experience. This is called “benefit finding”.

Cultural Variations in Gratitude

The phrase “thank you” produces more positive reactions in the United States; Koreans preferred use of apology phrases, designed to help another “save face”

In the United States, white Americans benefited more from using gratitude as a vehicle for increasing happiness than did Asian-American participants.

Having a cultural identity as someone who is religious may affect one’s levels of gratitude.

Religiousness is positively related to gratitude, and specific gratitude towards God. The interaction of religious commitment and religious gratitude predict emotional well-being.

Older African-Americans and older Mexican-Americans reported feeling more grateful to God than white Americans; for weight Americans, gratitude was related more to the receipt of spiritual support.

Cultivating Gratitude?

· Gratitude meditation encourages people to ask themselves, what did I receive? What did I give? And, what troubles and difficulties did I cause to others? This brings our expectations and actuality more into awareness, which allows for further learning to appreciate blessings.

· The effectiveness of gratitude interventions in the form of letter writing resulted in the greatest change among youths who were low in positive affect, and people who were lower in regular positive emotional experience. Sustain letter writing produced increases in happiness and life satisfaction and decreases in depression and emotional exhaustion.

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· Times of strife may lead to an emphasis of different priorities, and produce a cohort effect of appreciating rescue workers.

· People incorrectly assume that gratefulness is synonymous with the lack of motivation and greater complacency in life.

Measuring gratitude

· Gratitude journals can redirect an individual’s focus on negative or neutral life events to positive aspects of one’s life. It has been shown that those who keep gratitude journals were elevated to those who did not in terms of amount of exercise, optimism about the upcoming week, and feeling better about their lives (Emmons & McCullough, 2003).

· The Multidimensional Prayer Inventory is an attempt to determine the rate of gratefulness in the context of the religious experience.

· The Gratitude Resentment And appreciation Test (GRAT) measures three factors: resentment, simple appreciation, and social appreciation.

· The Gratitude Adjective Checklist (GAC)uses self-report to measure the three adjectives of gratefulness appreciativene, and thankfulness.

· The Gratitude Questionnaire (GQ—6) is a trait self-report index measuring thankfulness and gratitude.

The Psychophysiological Underpinnings of Gratitude

· Direct measurements of gratitude are scarce, but findings from the research on appreciation are used

· Appreciation produces a calming pattern and increases the synchrony between heart rate, autonomic nervous system reactivity, and alpha brainwave activity – particularly in the left hemisphere.

Forgiveness

· Defined by Tangney and colleagues, giving up negative emotions is the core of forgiveness.

Individual and Cultural Variations in Forgiveness

People are more likely to forgive if the transgressor apologizes, makes an effort to “make things right,” or offers some form of compensation.

Older people may be more willing to forgive and may emphasize dispositional factors, whereas younger people may emphasize situational factors. The number and seriousness of transgressions also seems to decrease in older adult.

Forgiveness may be more common in Eastern cultures, in part because of cultural norms valuing harmony; promoting social harmony may dictate forgiveness. Collectivist societies are more likely to show forgiveness if the transgressor attempts at reconciliation or conciliation.

Some studies have found that women exerted more efforts towards being forgiven and responded to multiple types of forgiveness prompting; other studies have found that men have stronger responses to forgiveness prompting.

A propensity to forgiveness, and increase in health, may be stronger in African-Americans, particularly if they hold a strong Black Racial Identity.

Religion typically encourages a model of forgiveness with reconciliation; psychology does not always include a reconciliation, and in some cases may discourage it if it puts the individual in danger.

Cultivating Forgiveness?

· Self forgiveness may consist of releasing resentment towards oneself, taking responsibility for bad acts, and moving forward.

· Jacinto and Edwards (2011) outline the stages of self forgiveness: recognition, responsibility, expression, and recreating.

· Some negative effects of self forgiveness can include a likeliness to continue bad behavior, and a reduction in the perceived need to change

· In Western society shame is often viewed as negative and nonfunctional, while in Eastern cultures shame may be viewed as a functional reaction to a social situation. Context determines what constitutes an “appropriate”level of shame.

Measuring Forgiveness

· Forgiveness can be measured using self-report instruments such as the Heartland Forgiveness Scale, the Transgression – Related Interpersonal Motivations Inventory, the Enright Forgiveness Inventory, the Willingness to Forgive Scale and the Multidimensional Forgiveness Inventory.

Why forgive?

· Forgiveness requires a sense of self, which is often damaged due to problems requiring the forgiveness. If one learns to forgive, one will build the sense of self up and it may become stronger.

· Forgiveness creates positive emotions.

Personal Benefits of Altruism, Gratitude, and Forgiveness

Studies of altruism show a reciprocal benefit between positive mood and altruism. Helping others helps people self-regulate negative emotions, and is correlated with agreeableness, openness to experience, honesty, and humility

Higher scores on gratitude assessments are correlated with increased positive emotions, vitality, optimism, hope, and satisfaction with life as well as with empathy, sharing, forgiving, in giving to others. Grateful people are less concerned with material goods and more likely to engage in spiritual pursuits.

Forgiveness has been is correlated with well-being in physical health, longevity, and mental health, and was reduced narcissistic feelings of entitlement.

The Societal Implications of Altruism, Gratitude and Forgiveness

· Muting empathy occurs when one is continuously exposed to negative environments or situations of others. People may also mute empathy if they believe they cannot produce the positive changes in which they wish to.

· The innocent bystander effect often influences the likelihood of helping behaviors. The diffusion of responsibility can likely reduce the chances of helping significantly. People may believe that they have acted in a moral way even if they did not offer help.

· Egotism and Empathy play a part in forgiveness, gratitude and altruism. Learning to accept oneself and realistically evaluate life situations and relationships can allow for acceptance and awareness of oneself and others.

· Empathy is a precursor to forgiveness; reinterpreting “transgressions” as a caring gesture increases forgiveness.

· In collectivist cultures, forgiveness is a necessary part of achieving social harmony.

· One can positively influence others by expressing altruism, gratitude or forgiveness, creating a cycle. The outward expression of altruism, gratitude or forgiveness may also lead those influenced by it to act prosocially. Recipients of these displays are likely to reciprocate the action to the original giver, which will also lead to feelings of empathy and esteem toward the giver.

Chapter Outline

Chapter 9

Wisdom and Courage: Two Universal Virtues

Historical Link

· Wisdom and Courage have been linked throughout history

· Both are considered cardinal virtues by many philosophers, along with justice and temperance.

· Both are believed to improve personal functioning and community well being

· Distinguishing between courage and wisdom can be difficult

· Example: The cowardly lion in the Wizard of Oz

· Philosophers have disagreed about whether wisdom precedes courage or courage precedes wisdom

Theories of Wisdom

· Classic conceptualizations of Wisdom

· Sophia – seeking the contemplative life

· Phronesis – the practical nature of great statesmen

· Episteme – scientific understanding

· Theoretikes – theoretical thought and knowledge

· Implicit theories of wisdom

· Developed by evaluating words and behaviors commonly associated with wisdom

· Clayton identified three dimensions: affective, reflective and cognitive

· Sternberg identified six qualities of wisdom: reasoning ability, sagacity, learning from ideas and environment, judgment, expeditious use of information, perspicacity

· Holliday and Chandler identified five factors underlying wisdom: exceptional understanding, judgment and communication skills, general competence, interpersonal skills, and social unobtrusiveness

· Baltes analyzed historical writings to determine how wisdom is communicated in everyday language. Found that wisdom:

· Addresses important/difficult matters of life

· Involves special or superior knowledge, judgment and advice

· Reflects applicable knowledge with extraordinary depth, scope

· Is well intended and combines mind and virtue

· Is very difficult to achieve, but easy to recognize

· Implicit definitions of wisdom also differ by cultural context. Though some similarities exist across cultures, members of Western and Eastern ideology differ on their views of what makes someone wise, with Westerners valuing cognition and Easterners valuing affect Westerners may value intelligence, problem-solving and planning, and Easterners may value compassion, open-mindedness, and humbleness

· Explicit theories of wisdom

· Explicit theories focus more on behavioral manifestations

· Riagel built open Piaget’s stage theory of cognitive development, proposed an additional stage to represent wisdom: Dialectical Operations Stage

· Erikson and other lifespan theorists view wisdom as a part of optimal development

· Sternberg’s Balance Theory

· Wisdom involves making judgments when there is no clear solution

· Practical intelligence is used to balance self-and-other interests in order to achieve a common good

· The wise person also considers the environmental context

· Berlin Wisdom Paradigm – Baltes and colleagues

· Identified five criteria common to wisdom and wisdom-related performances

· Two basic criteria: Factual and Procedural knowledge – indicate that wise performance requires expertise, both ‘know what’ and ‘know how’

· Three meta-criteria specific to wisdom

· Life-span contextualism

· Relativism of values

· Managing uncertainty

· Baltes uses real-life scenarios to determine levels of wisdom

· Baltes and colleagues have added the concept of Sehnsucht (or life longings (recurrent strong feelings that life is incomplete or imperfect, coupled with a desire for ideal alternative states and experiences of life

Becoming and Being Wise

· Developing Wisdom

· Many theorists argue that wisdom develops from knowledge, cognitive skills and personality factors

· Understanding culture and the environment also considered vital

· Mentors are believed to be an important mechanism for developing wisdom

· “Two heads are better than one”

· Wise People and Their Characteristics

· The quality of the social environment in early adult hood has an impact on the development of wisdom

· Orwell and Achenbaum suggest that women’s acts of wisdom typically occur in private whereas men’s acts of wisdom are more public

· Baltes and Staudinger report no age differences between 25 and 75 years but that the time between 15 and 25 is particularly important in developing wisdom

· Some professions associated with higher levels of wisdom: clinical psychologists

· individuals in Japan show evidence of wise traits throughout their lifespan; those in the US exhibited increased wisdom with age.

· Measuring Wisdom

· Wisdom Development Scale includes dimensions for self-knowledge, altruism, inspirational engagement, judgment, life knowledge, life skills, and emotional management

· The Wise Thinking and Acting Questionnaire taps the cognitive facets of wisdom

· Important to distinguish between wisdom, intelligence and creativity

· Wisdom is timeless whereas intelligence may be time-bound

· Baltes developed measure by assessing solutions to difficult life problems

· Values in Action Classification of Strengths – brief self-report measure

Benefits of Wisdom

· Wisdom associated with a coherent sense of self, solid and consistent ego, less investment in hedonistic pursuits, more interest in reflection and personal growth, and positive links to happiness in life satisfaction

The Neurobiology of Wisdom

· Wisdom has not often been included in neuroscience

· Frontotemporal lobe deficits may be associated with deficits in social appropriateness, emotional processing, impulsivity control.

Theories of Courage

· Like Wisdom, courage is universally valued

· Historical definitions

· Hemingway: “Grace under pressure”

· Cicero: magnificence, confidence, patience and perseverance

· Philosophers have typically focused on physical and moral forms of courage

· Implicit Theories of Courage

· Values in Action Classification System

· Conceptualized courage as a core human virtue encompassing valor, authenticity, enthusiasm/zest, and industry/perseverance

· O’Byrne identified three types of courage

· Physical courage

· Physical behavior grounded in the pursuit of socially valued goals

· Evolved from ancient Greek concept of Andreia or military courage

· Moral Courage

· Behavior that preserves justice and the common good in the face of challenges

· Kennedy’s Profiles in Courage compiles notable examples of moral courage in action

· “Equal Opportunity” form of courage – requires no training

· Story of Malala Yousafzai’s defiance of the Taliban

· Vital Courage

· Persevering through a disease or disability despite an ambiguous outcome

· Not limited to patient, can be displayed by the caregivers and relatives of the patient

· Profile of amputee Melissa Stockwell

· Shelp found that vital courage, along with competence and compassion is highly desirable in health care providers.

· Shelp identified three components of courage: freedom of choice, fear of a situation, and willingness to take risks.

· Psychological courage

· A form of vital courage describe by Putnam, consists of strength in facing one’s destructive habits

· Little training available and few exemplars of psychological courage.

· Differs from altruism in degree of physical risk, anger, and civil obligation.

· Modern conceptualizations fits well with Cicero’s ancient definition

· Becoming and Being Courageous

· Finfgeld argues courageous behaviors take place when, after identifying a threat, perceptions shift from viewing the problem as insurmountable to a challenge

· Szagun found that children and adults view courage differently, the tendency to equate courage with experiencing fear increases with age

· Haase’s research indicates that courage stems from developed attitudes and coping methods more than innate abilities

· Miep Gies, who sheltered Anne Frank, viewed helping (civil courage) as a duty, not a choice.

· Measuring Courage

· Numerous self-report measures exist, but they are limited by the lack of a comprehensive theory of courage on which to base the measurement

· It is also unclear whether measures should focus on the tonic or phasic manifestations of courage or both

· Relationship Between Fear and Courage

· courage in fearfulness are not synonymous; perseverance despite fear is the purest form of courage.

· Rachman proposed that true courage is approaching a situation despite experiencing fear

· Limited findings suggest that courageous people might respond differently, both behaviorally and physiologically, to fear

Benefits of Courage

· Courage is positively correlated with agreeableness, openness, and extroversion, and negatively associated with anxiety.

Courage and Culture

· Acts deemed courageous might differ from culture to culture.

· Asian cultures may value the pursuit of harmony over personal opinion.

· Western cultures may view speaking up at all costs as courageous.

· Some cultural groups might find courage to be necessary more often than others. Courage may be a necessary component of life for women across the world.

Finding Wisdom and Courage in Daily Life

· courage is the ability to act in spite of fear and overwhelming opposition, and sometimes imminent physical danger

· profiles of Winston Churchill suggest that courage cannot be taught, but can be inspired

· Raqchman uses of military bomb disposal officers to illustrate the value of knowing that one is prepared.

The Value of Wisdom and Courage

· Despite the difficulties in conceptualizing and identifying both wisdom and courage, it is clear that both virtues have adaptive personal and evolutionary benefits and should be cultivated

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