Exercise 1

• Think of significant world events and tell me 2 or 3 of them. Write these down.

Psychology

• Positive emotions to Psychology were viewed as an added extra or bonus, usually only seen as an indicator that someone was not suffering from depression. Psychology did not see them as serving a specific function.

• Difficult to study in the lab, there appear to be fewer positive emotions

• Positive emotions are fairly diffuse in terms of autonomic activation unlike the fight or flight response

• The unique facial expressions accompanying negative emotions are easier to identify

• Most positive emotions share the characteristics of a basic smile - Duchenne smile

• Psychological research was driven from World War II onwards by a focus on fixing people and curing mental illness

• This meant that Psychology had to focus on understanding negative emotions

Other main reason

Research imbalance

• Anger 8, 072

• Anxiety 57,800

• Depression 70,856

•Life Satisfaction

•5,707•Happiness

2,958 •Joy 851

21:1

• Psychology has ignored....

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=5P6UU6m3cqk

Positive emotions

• Why they matter

• Their infectious nature

Positive emotions

• Positive affect - positive emotions, positive moods and positive attitudes – may in fact be the single most important active ingredient in the recipe for human flourishing (Barbara Fredrickson, 2005)

Benefits of positive emotions

• Undo the negative effects of stress

• Broaden thought action repetoire

• Positive emotions build up resilience

Nun study

• Diary entries and longevity

Duchenne smile

• Yearbook study. Duchenne smile associated with later well-being, less negativity, greater competence and more positive ratings by others.

• After bereavement, laughter and a Duchenne smile predicted the duration of grief, and whether the person was engaged in life and dating again 2 half years later

• Physicians make more accurate diagnoses

Positive emotions matter

Yet it is very easy to be negative

Your exercise 1

It is very easy to be negative

• Hard wired to be negative; it’s the brains default position

• Prioritise negative information

• Left to our own devices we will worry

• Negative emotion always has the ability to trump positive emotion

(Csikszentmihalyi)

Negativity bias

• Losing money, being abandoned by friends and receiving criticism makes more of an impact than,

• Winning money, gaining friend and receiving praise (Baumeister, 2001)

When equal measures

• Negative trumps positive

3:1 ratio

Barbara Fredrickson

There seems to be an ideal ratio of positive to negative 3:1 for human flourishing

Gottman

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xw9SE315GtA

Exercise 2• Does the 3:1 ratio have implications in

your life?• Does the media tend to report more,

less or equal negative events? What are the implications of this.

• At work do people tend to focus on weaknesses and what’s wrong, less more or equal to the amount they focus on what went well and what is right?

• What about relationships? The 5:1 ratio (or 21:1 ratio). Discuss with a neighbour.

Caveat

• Context needs to be considered. Some negative emotions can produce optimal or positive outcomes and some positive emotions can produce non optimal or negative outcomes.