No time for writing today. But I´d like to share a video with you that powerfully transports the upsides (and to a much lesser extent: the downsides…) of being a “Giver” in the spirit of Adam Grant.
It´s a commercial, alright. But it´s still beautiful…
Enjoy!
As I´ve told you before, part of the second MAPP semester is focused on exposing ourselves to different forms of the humanities and art. To this effect, we went on a field trip to the Barnes Foundation in Philly last Friday. It´s an educational institution that is centered around a collection of (mostly) modern art (displaying more that 2,500 objects, among them +800 paintings estimated at $25 billion; lots of paintings by Renoir, Cézanne, Matisse, Picasso, Monet, and many others).
The founder, Albert C. Barnes, had a very special take on art. Instead of displaying each work of art on its own (or in it´s own right), he commanded they be displayed in what he called ensembles, arrangements of several paintings, oftentimes covering the entire wall of a room. Additionally, he mixes paintings with pieces of African art, or masterfully crafted everyday objects, such as door handles, large keys, and candlesticks. What is more, there are pieces of classical furniture (mostly chairs) beneath a lot the paintings, giving the whole exhibition the intimate touch of being in someone´s living room(s).
Another important difference compared to traditional museums is a distinct “lack of explanation”. You´ll find the painter´s name on a little metal plate on each picture, but otherwise, there are no displays and no booklets helping the visitor to interpret or understand the paintings. Barnes wanted the visitor to find his/her own approach to the paintings.
I’m not a “museum guy” at all, having rarely visited one after those inevitable 8th grade field trips. As such, I wasn’t particularly looking forward to this part of the class. And at first, my precautions were confirmed: the Barnes collection can really be overpowering. There are so many pictures in so little space that it’s hard to focus. I also felt that all this outstanding works of art would somehow be “wasted on me” because of my lack of education in these matters.
Fortunately, our professor, James Pawelski, had us complete a special task: we were to pick one piece of art that we felt particularly drawn to – and stay with and behold that painting for at least half an hour.
So I ended up spending almost 90 minutes with the painting you’ll see below:
Its name is “Unpleasant Surprise” (Mauvaise surprise) and was painted in 1901 by Frenchman Henri Rousseau (whom, quite frankly speaking, I had never heard before…). Now, when you look up interpretations on that painting, most will tell you that the guy on the left is shooting the bear to rescue the naked woman on the right. Additionally, it is inferred that the woman does not really feel threatened by the bear; and that therefore, the man really is the “unpleasant surprise”, depicting man’s growing estrangement from nature as a downside of the increasing use of technology (as signified by the gun).
While I agree to some extent with that interpretation, here I´d like to share with you my own take on that painting – what came out of “wrestling” with it (that´s what it felt like…).
The first thing that struck me upon investigating the scene: to me, it does not really look like the man is shooting the bear at all. It may be hard to see from the picture on the screen – but when you´re standing right in front of the actual painting, it has a more three-dimensional quality. And that gave me the impression the man is really shooting past the bear, right into the ground in front of the women´s feet – as kind of warning shot to keep her from coming closer.
Looking at the overall composition, there´s a clear bisection between the earthly colored left/lower part of the painting including the man and the lower part of the bear, and the colorful right/upper part including the woman, the upper part of the bear, and the lake scenery in the background. The shape of the woman is larger than that of the bear and especially that of the man. While the bear displays long claws and jaws, he does not seem to be particularly dangerous. He rather appears to be an oversized teddy bear that is craving to petted. And even though the man carries a large rifle, he is almost dwarfed by the sheer size of the woman.
Looking specifically at the woman, she may activate a Venus or Eve archetype (the end of the right strand of hair even resembles a snake´s head), being naked and sporting the long hair. Obviously, she has just emerged from the paradisiac lake in the background. She´s staring heavenwards, raising her hands in a kind of “hand´s up” gesture. But it could very well also be alluding to the way priests hold up their hands when blessing the congregation. Putting all these clues together (size, pureness, connection to paradise and the heavenly sphere) I figured she symbolizes the divine and numinous part of human nature. What´s notable in addition: despite the beauty of her body, the distinctly female shape of her contour, her face clearly a masculine touch. Her facial expression could be anything from being sad, disappointed, or maybe unnerved – but she is definitely not scared.
Looking specifically at the man, the most striking feature is that he´s really eyeing the woman when firing the rifle, not the bear. To me, that´s another strong indication for the notion that he´s not shooting at the bear at all. Otherwise, he´s barely visible, blending in with the earthly background. He´s small, earth-bound, and appears to be somewhat frail, thereby signifying the fleshly part of human nature.
Now, the bear seems to be the connecting piece between those two realms. In his rising motion, he tries to escape from the earthly sphere, lifting his upper part into the heavenly domain, eying the woman with (what to me seems to be) an admiring gaze. In mythology, the bear is often depicted as a protector, teacher, and also as a powerful agent of healing. Additionally, he is metaphor for the reconnection with (one´s?) nature.
Overall, the painting is a composition of (more or less) obvious opposites. The “goddess” has a female body but a masculine face. The man is a weak figure but carries a tremendously dangerous rifle. The bear is supposed to be fierce but looks like a plaything at the end of the day. And finally, there´s the divide in the landscape.
But the bear holds the key to overcoming and reuniting was is separated…
————–
I´m going to stop at this point. I feel I´m 80% there. But then, it feels like something constantly escapes my attention and that prevents me from grasping the picture to the fullest. Very interesting. I´m going to come back here once in a while over the next days to look at the picture. Very likely it still has got something (more) to tell me – otherwise, it wouldn´t have picked me (that´s what it felt like…) to stay with it.
Now, has exposing myself to art enhanced my well-being? I´m not sure yet. And I fear I´m still not a museum guy. But for what it´s worth: it has been a powerful lesson on the effect of mindfulness. Without the explicit instruction to stay with one picture I clearly would have missed all the nuanced perceptions I tried to convey in this text.
I was there.
P.S.
I´d really like to hear your take on the painting…
One of the guest speakers at the recent MAPP onsite has been Isaac Prilleltensky, who is the Dean of Education at the University of Miami. His research focus is on community well-being and its antecedents. In his lecture, he elaborated on the notion of well-being as a consequence (or at least: side-effect) of perceived fairness and justice in our lives. There is now considerable scientific evidence that these issues can have a major influence on our satisfaction with life and other important measures of psychological functioning. E.g., there´s a substantial statistical connection between a nations´ overall well-being and those countries´ Gini coefficient which, roughly speaking, measures the level of inequality in the wealth distribution of a country. I do not want to take a deep-dive into this here. If you want to know more, I would like to direct you to one of Prilleltensky´s recent papers by the name of Wellness as Fairness.
What really caught my attention is just how deeply the notion of fairness is rooted in our mammalian, tribal nature. I´ve already written a post on Paul Bloom´s research on the intuitive moral judgments of babies. But that´s by far not the end of the (moral) story. In the following video clip, you´ll see a snippet from a TED talk given by Frans de Waal, a Dutch primatologist a Emory University. He shows footage of an experiment involving capuchin monkeys. Bascially, two of them are “paid” for repeatedly carrying out a certain task by receiving cucumbers. Everything is OK. But then, the researcher starts to give one of the animals grapes instead – which (very obviously…) is considered to be a higher paycheck in the capuchin society. Watch what happens…
Can you feel that little monkey´s rage? And just for a moment: Transfer this to the realm of human emotion, multiply it by 10,000,000 (or so) – and try to understand what´s going on in countries like Egypt, Syria, and the Ukraine over the last years?
P.S.
If you´d like to learn even more on Prilleltensky´s work on community well-being, you might want to watch his TED talk on that subject…
Mappalicious is online now for about half a year. I guess that´s a good time to pause for a moment again and have a look at what happened so far. So I copied all of the 123 posts (+55,000 words) into a software that creates nice word clouds – you can even give them a little tweak to make them look really nice. So here´s the current Mappalicious Wordle:
Now I really do like what I see. How about you?
I´m back a Philadelphia right now and it´s the 9. onsite of MAPP 2013/14 already. Yesterday I took a stroll around the Penn campus and took a photo of this famous sculpture:
Beautiful! Why don´t you let this be your mantra for the upcoming weekend?
I was raised in a Catholic household but resigned from church at the age of 25 – mostly because of an unwillingness to pay the mandatory(!) church tax in Germany. But the truth is: mentally and especially emotionally, I resigned at the age of about 9, shortly after my First Communion. How did that happen?
It was the very first service I attended after the official ceremony of First Communion. Contrary to Protestant services, with the Catholic church, the receiving of the altar bread happens every time shortly before the end of the service. So, all the people queue up in front of the altar until they are up front to receive the host from the hands of the Priest. You´re supposed to hold your hands in certain kind of way, putting them together to form a “throne” for (the symbol of) Christ – which basically means you´re supposed to put your right hand in the left (or the other way around…frankly, I do not remember). But obviously, on that day, I did it the wrong way.
It´s been almost 27 years ago, but I can still remember vividly how the Priest looked at me as if I had just deliberately peed in the altar wine. He violently pulled my hands apart and squeezed them back together in the “right” fashion. All that obviously happened in front of the whole congregation – which left me deeply ashamed.
I guess in that moment, I decided (at least preconsciously) that church is a dangerous, cruel, or at best – strange place. I opted out (against the will of my mother…) of all the other rites of passage (e.g. the “Confirmation”) and have not attended a service any more (except for friends´ weddings, and Christmas once in a while). Of course it may have been an overreaction to banish the church from my life altogether because of that single incident. But that is what little kids do – if it hurts bad enough.
Most fortunately, three weeks ago, I had a completely different experience. It was the Christening of my wife´s godchild at a Protestant church. It´s really hard right now to have our son Mika (16 months old) sit still for more than 10 seconds a time – so we were a little worried he would disturb the service. When we all sat down I placed him on my lap and hugged him tight. But of course, after a couple of seconds, he was wrestling to get free. So I let him stand up and within a few seconds, he had walked up to the Pastor.
I fully expected to be reprimanded or at least to get a shaking of the head or something like that. Instead, something totally different happened. The Pastor exclaimed:
“Let the children run free. That is God´s greatest joy.”
And for the remainder of the service, Mika walked around mostly quietly, smiling at people, examining the church. What a difference that made. I was so relieved. And so happy…
Still, I´m not ready to join a congregation again – but that man (at least partly…) restored my faith in “the Church” as an institution.
OK. So for whatever reason – maybe because of the sunshine, or that fact that March 20 is United Nations´ International Day of Happiness – I decided to inhale some helium (again…) – and read out IPPA´s definition of Positive Psychology – at least I tried…
Share if you like…
Tomorrow is the United Nations´ official International Day of Happiness.
Speaking at the High Level Meeting on “Happiness and Well-Being: Defining a New Economic Paradigm” convened during the sixty-sixth session of the General Assembly the Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said:
The world needs a new economic paradigm that recognizes the parity between the three pillars of sustainable development. Social, economic and environmental well-being are indivisible. Together they define gross global happiness.
To support the UN on this mission, 18 MAPP Alumni are hosting a free online conference to share their knowledge on Positive Psychology, Well-Being, and Happiness. It´s going to be a wide array of PP topics brought to you by a fascinating group of people.* Among them is Emilia Lahti which you might knwo from the very first Mappsterview.
If you´d like to have more information and join the conference, please klick here.
* Yes, I do sense a slight gender imbalance here. Being a male Mappster, I´m working on that…
Those of you that visit Mappalicious on a regular basis know that I´ve started tracking certain behaviors of mine a while ago (see: Are you short on Willpower and Self-Regulation? These Apps can help You). But until now, it was more or less about keeping a journal and a (sophisticated) to-do list.
Now, I´m taking things a step further: At the beginning of the year, I decided to lose some weight. I´ve already lost about 18 pounds – but if things go my way, I will get rid of an additional 15 to 20 or so. Part of that has to do with controlling my diet – but I´m not going to talk about that here.
The other part is about burning enough calories per day, and regularly getting a sufficient amount of sleep. Both tend to be problematic issues when you´ve got a management job, a family, and several part-time “jobs” (e.g., blogging). Doesn´t sound like Positive Psychology at first glance, but I think physiological well-being plays a big role in psychological well-being – so it definitly belongs on the menu.
To support me on my misson, I´ve bought the FitBit Flex a couple of days ago.* It´s a wristband that is – among other things – able to track your steps and your sleep pattern. It´s connects to a smartphone app via Bluetooth and is really easy to use. It comes in different colors, it´s waterproof and also pretty shock-resitant, so you can wear it pretty much all the time. One of my goals is to walk at least 10,000 steps each day. The Flex tracks your progress and (upon request…) gives feedback via five tiny LEDs – each LED amounts to roughly 20% goal fulfillment.
The first thing I found out: a regular day at the office (screenshot right; including walking to get on the bus and train etc., running around at the office) is far from enough to reach that goal. When I came home in the evening, there were still at least 4,000 steps missing. I compensated that by walking around in our living room reading on the Kindle but that drove my wife nuts – so I guess I have to find another way to get moving over the day. On the other hand, going for a one-hour walk almost nails it for the day (screenshot left).
You can also have a closer look at your progress over the day. Below, you´ll find the details from the regular office day. Basically, what you see is me getting to work in the morning, going to the canteen for lunch, getting a coffee at the cafeteria in the afternoon, and getting home in the evening. Finally, the outburst around 10 p.m. is the abovementioned reading vs. walking spree.
Now what about the sleeping part? Via klicking on that little display for about two seconds, the Flex can be switched to sleep tracking mode after going to bed. Once again, it bascially measures your movements, which does not 100% exactly mirror your sleeping pattern – but it´s a good estimate nevertheless. A graph will show you when you´ve been asleep, awake (e.g., running around) or restless (moving a lot while lying down). Below, you can see my sleep pattern from last night and the one before:
The first night, Little Guru slept – well… – like a baby (should). The second night, he deciced to be a fully-grown pain in the ass – resulting in having to get up a couple of times during the night. To give it a positive twist: Isn´t it nice to recognize those micro-moments of love in a simple diagram? 🙂
* Other options would have been the Nike Fuel or Jawbone Up, but after reading some reviews on Amazon and consulting with some friends, I went for the FitBit Flex…
The MAPP program is a fulltime program – but combines onsite classes with long-distance learning periods. Part of the distance learning comprises a lot of reading (Who would have thought of that…) and writing essays about a wide array of positive psychology topics. I´ve decided to post some of those essays here on Mappalicious. Surely, they´re not the be-all and end-all of academic writing. But then again, it would also be a pity to bury them in the depths of my laptop…
What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun. (Ecclesiastes 1:9)
The aforesaid quote from the Bible reminds us that we all are standing on the shoulders of giants in one way or another. While Positive Psychology as a science is a fairly new development within the greater framework of psychological science (Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000), its roots can be traced back at least 2,500 years in time. In this essay, I intend to express how the research and practice of positive psychology has been and still is continuously informed by philosophy. I will do so by way of three examples: first and most circumstantial, the notion that our thinking is a powerful intermediary between the “world out there” and our experience of that world; second, the idea that living a life according to certain virtues is accompanied by an elevated level of psychological well-being; and third, the framework of positivity ratios in human development.
We are most likely the only mammals alive that can develop symptoms such as a depressive disorder (Sapolsky, 1998). Our superior ability to remember the past (Baddeley, 1998) and unique capability to prospect into the future (Seligman, Railton, Baumeister, & Sripada, 2013) have made us a very successful species – but also prone to psychological malfunctioning in case these “tools” are used improperly. Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (Beck, 1995) posits that “the poison and the cure” for many of these malfunctions can be traced back to our thinking processes. In his seminal book “Learned optimism”, Seligman (1991) writes: “The way we think about this realm of life can actually diminish or enlarge the control we have over it. Our thoughts are not merely reactions to events; they change what ensues” (pp. 15-16).
This notion can be traced back (at least) all the way to Siddhartha Gautama, the first Buddha. In the Dhammapada (1. verse, 1. chapter, n.d.) he is cited with the words: “All mental phenomena are preceded by mind. Mind is their master, they are produced by mind.” Similar phrases that either point to the notion that the “thing itself” acquires its meaning only via the human mind, or that man is the master of his own fate by controlling his thoughts, can be found in ancient Greek and Roman philosophy (Epictetus: “In a word, neither death, nor exile, nor pain, nor anything of this kind is the real cause of our doing or not doing any action, but our inward opinions and principles.”; from Discourses, chapter 1, n.d.; similar quotes by Marcus Aurelius can be found). About 1,500 years later, Shakespeare (n.d.) puts equivalent words into Hamlet´s mouth in the second act of the second scene: “[…] there is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.” Another 300 years later, there is a related quote by Gandhi (n.d.): “A man is but the product of his thoughts. What he thinks, he becomes.” And finally, before becoming part of the scientific discourse in clinical psychology, the idea of “mind over matter” was propagated by new-age and self-help writers such as Dale Carnegie (1981): “It isn’t what you have or who you are or where you are or what you are doing that makes you happy or unhappy. It is what you think about it.”
Nowadays, the influence of mental processes on our well-being is a well-documented scientific fact. It is the foundation of clinical interventions such as the “ABCDE” tool in CBT (Wells, 1997), as well as most positive (psychology) interventions (Seligman, Steen, Park, & Peterson, 2005). Therefore, it is safe to say that this branch of psychology was heavily informed by the aforementioned philosophers and writers of the past, especially when taking into account that Martin Seligman, one of positive psychology´s founding fathers, earned a bachelor´s degree in philosophy at Princeton before turning his mind towards psychology (Positive Psychology Center, University of Pennsylvania, n.d.).
The aforementioned educational background of Martin Seligman might also (partially) explain the strong presence of another “godfather of philosophy”, namely Aristotle. One of the first hallmark projects after the founding of positive psychology was the creation of a compendium of 24 human strengths that group into 6 overarching virtues (Peterson & Seligman, 2004). Aristotle is mentioned 23 times in that textbook. Among other sages of his time, Aristotle proposed that a life worthwhile of living should entail the presence of Eudaimonia which can loosely be translated into the English term “flourishing”. In Aristotle´s opinion, the key to experiencing eudaimonia is leading one´s life according to certain virtues, where a virtue is seen as the middle point between two vices (e.g., courage lies between cowardice and daredevilry). In light of the frequent references to Aristotle it can be assumed that Peterson and Seligman´s idea of character strengths and virtues was heavily influenced by the Greek philosopher. Over the recent years, some evidence on the connection between the presence of character strengths and well-being has been gathered. While not all of the 24 strengths display a distinct correlation with variables such as life satisfaction, concepts such as hope, zest, gratitude, love, and curiosity seem to be present more often in people that report high levels of psychological well-being (Park, Peterson, & Seligman, 2004).
In addition to standing on the shoulders of bygone giants, positive psychology is also heavily influenced by contemporary philosophers such as Schneider (2001) and Pawelski (2012). Both researchers aid the scientific study of well-being, for instance, by trying to define (and refine) important constructs in positive psychology. By way of example: when the discipline was founded at the onset of the third millennium, it was not utterly clear, e.g., what the term “positive” in positive psychology is actually referring to. 15 years later, we have made some progress pertaining to that question. Pawelski (2012) points out that the “positive” in positive psychology cannot just be the absence of something negative. (Psychological) well-being cannot be explained by looking at what is not there (e.g., unhappiness, mental illness). In recent years, this viewpoint also receives more and more empirical support (Huppert & Whittington, 2003).
Yet, philosophers do not only refine the methodology of positive psychology – they also convey valuable impulses for psychological phenomena to be explored and possible interventions in the context of these phenomena. For instance, an issue that has received a lot of attention in positive psychology is the notion of “positivity ratios”. Fredrickson and Losada (2005) argue that it is possible to enter into an upward spiral of well-being when one manages to experience a significant surplus of positive over negative emotions. While it remains unclear up to now where the exact “tipping point” lies (Brown, Sokal, & Friedman, 2013), there remains a lot of evidence for the idea that, in order for a person to flourish, he or she has to experience positive emotions considerably more often than negative feelings (Fredrickson, 2013). Interestingly, this does not only hold true for a person´s “internal emotional chemistry” but also for the chemistry between two people. John Gottman, one of the world´s most renowned researchers on the subject of marriage was repeatedly able to show that a marriage flourishes when the interactions between the spouses display a ratio of approximately 5:1 in favor of positive (micro-) interactions (Gottman, Coan, Carrere, & Swanson, 1998).
This need for a distinct positivity bias in daily life is also proposed by a contemporary philosopher from Finland, Esa Saarinen. He and his coworkers posit that one way to achieve human flourishing is the development of systems intelligence which is defined as “intelligent behaviour in the context of complex systems involving interaction and feedback” (Luoma, Hämäläinen, & Saarinen, 2010, p. 1). An important framework within systems intelligence is the notion of “Systems of Holding Back in Return and in Advance” (Hämäläinen & Saarinen, 2008, p. 824). These systems can be regarded as a downward spiral in personal interactions because “there is a bias in human mental constitution to be more aware of the contributions others fail to make to me than of the contributions I fail to make to others” (p. 824). The framework seems to mirror important aspects of the research on positivity ratios in positive psychology.
In light of the distinct overlaps between philosophy and the research and practice of positive psychology, it is therefore reasonable to assume these two disciplines will continue to cross-fertilize in the arena of human interaction. And one day, maybe, there will be something new under our sun.
As I´ve already told you in this post on the significance of empathy, one guest lecturer at MAPP 13/14 onsite has been Jane Dutton who is known best for her research and teaching on high-quality connections (at work).
Jane stopped her lecture once in a while to lead us through some practical exercises on that topic. On one occasion, half of the group was blindfolded and then led through the hallways of Penn´s Huntsman Hall by the other people for several minutes. Now, I´ve done this sort of thing a couple of times before in coaching seminars – but I´ve never had such a powerful realization as I had this time:
I was feeling pretty save and comfortable in the beginning. My partner guided me with her hands and simple verbal cues, telling me to go left and right whenever needed. At one point, we were walking straight along a stretched-out hallway.* All I had to do was walk straight-on – so my partner stopped giving verbal feedback.
Somewhere half-way down that hallway, there was an ever so small bump in the floor, I guess a spot where a cable lay beneath it. But it was enough to catch me off-guard and lessen my trust considerably. Upon understanding that, my partner started to behave very differently. Instead od telling me only about necessary changes, she started to give me constant feedback, mostly along the lines of:
You´re doing just fine. The way is free. Just keep on going!
What a tremendous change that was! A genuine difference that makes a difference! And a powerful metaphor for everyday (business) life…
Because, on a closer look, we´re running around blindfolded all the time. We hear, see, and know so little compared to the sheer endless amount of information that is out there and could be of value for us. What a difference it makes to just hear “You´re on the right track” from somebody who just happens to know a little bit more than you do.
So if you´re a boss, a parent, or just somebody who happens to care about other people: How about telling them that they´re doing fine at least once every day? Not because they did something special. Just because they need and deserve it…
*I still wonder what all those suited-up Wharton MBAs thought of our crazy group of people playing children´s games in their sacred halls…
Mappalicious 
