Only three months left for 2019. Where has summer gone? But at least, our friends at Action for Happiness help to spread some warmth and light via their new Positive Psychology-infused calendar for October. You can get your high-resolution version here.
This week, I stumbled upon a fascinating article in the MIT Sloan Management Review written by Catherine Bailey and Adrian Madden. They interviewed 135 people from 10 different walks of life in order to find out what makes their work especially meaningful – and also, what destroys their job-related sense of meaningfulness. While I´ve read other articles that provide valuable syntheses of meaning in work in the past (see here, here, and here), this one is especially rich in context, providing in-depth personal accounts of peoples´ experiences. This makes the findings especially palpable.
Here are some takeaways:
Moreover, the researchers describe several crucial components of meaningful work. They´ve inspired me to create this infographic based on their findings. Share and enjoy!
Additionally, Bailey and Madden describe the “seven deadly sins” leaders can commit to destroy meaningfulness. I´ll share those in the upcoming post.
By now, I have written +400 blog posts on Positive Psychology and given +30 talks and presentations for different audiences, mostly in the realm of business. While I receive a lot of positive feedback (referring to the PP content; I´m not talking about my presentation style here), quite obviously, I also get some pushback once in a while. Over time, I´ve come to notice that most of the counterarguments I hear are based on a rather small set of “shared (mis-)conceptions”. I guess, a lot of these arise over time due to the fact that – for the sake of brevity – speeches and news articles on Positive Psychology have to simplify and overgeneralize their messages in order to get their points across. In order to structure my own thoughts vis-à-vis this situation – but also for discussion – in the following, you´ll find…
1) I feel, therefore I am. Emotions are among the very few constants in life. Where´s the consciousness, there´s emotion. They may not always be strong, and we may not always be aware – but they are there.
2) All emotions are valid and adaptive, depending on context and dose.
3) In excess, every emotion can and probably will have detrimental side effects.
4) Different emotions will have different consequences (e.g., for our overall health or the perception of “meaning in life”), especially in high doses and in the long-term.
5) Feelings are contagious and therefore, (almost) always “social”: What we do unto ourselves, we do unto others (to some degree). With that, there comes a responsibility.
6) Happiness is mostly used as an umbrella term, it comes in many different forms and sizes (e.g. serenity, exhilaration, relaxation).
7) Feeling happy is not a (or the) goal in life itself, it’s a “positive side effect” of certain behavior patterns and thinking styles.
8) Feeling happy is not shallow. At least, it´s not shallower than experiencing sadness, anger, or any other kind of emotion.
9) Feeling mostly happy requires effort, at least more work than feeling mostly unhappy (especially with regard to people displaying certain unfavorable genetic predispositions).
10) We seldom feel pure emotions. In most situations, we have several feelings at the same time. Quite often, they display a somewhat antagonistic structure (e.g., experiencing a bittersweet moment; or feeling proud of having been humble).
Picture via Gratisography
Today has been the third day of MAPP immersion week – another day packed with truly extraordinary experiences. Today´s lectures took place at Wharton Business School. For the morning, Martin Seligman invited a guest lecturer, Chandra Sripada, who introduced us to concept of the Default Mode Network of our brain – which basically represents the specific and recurring pattern of activation in the brain that can be seen in fMRI studies when the brain is supposed to be doing “nothing at all” (which obviously isn´t the case). Being in the default mode seems to be connected to the mental task of prospection which involves future-oriented problem-solving, creating mental simulations of the world and the minds of other people, and daydreaming (among other things). I´m pretty sure that I´ll write more about prospection in the near future (no pun intended) – but I am still “digesting” all of that input – so this will have to do for today,
Over lunchtime, we were invited over to the Positive Psychology Center at Penn to meet, greet and eat with Seligman´s research team.
For the afternoon, Marty invited Barbara Fredrickson, the world´s foremost researcher on positive emotions and their role in human flourishing. She developed the Broaden-and-Build theory of positive emotion which basically posits that the reason why we experience positive emotions is fundamentally different from the reason for the existence of negative emotions. While negative emotions such as anxiety provoke narrow(ing), immediate survival-oriented behaviors, positive emotions are supposed to broaden our awareness and inspire novel, exploratory, and creative thoughts and/or actions. In turn, this expanded behavioral repertoire builds our skills, resources, and resilience. All of that needs some further mental digestion as well. You can find one of Barbara´s books on the reference list.
The high point of the day was an invitation from Martin Seligman and his wife Mandy for food and drinks at their house in the outskirts of Philadelphia. I feel very honored since usually, he´s more likely to associate with top-tier researchers, political and military leaders – or the Dalai Lama. Thanks for that one, Marty…
Mappalicious 