Introducing … ASSESSMENTS!

If you decide that you’re going to
* get more organized in order to have more peace of mind
* spend more time with your family and friends in order to be more relaxed
* stress less
* increase your happiness…
how will you know once you’re succeeding in these resolves?

There’s a simple idea in Positive Psychology that you should be able to measure how you are progressing in terms of increasing your happiness, well-being, life satisfaction. One large way that these items are measured is through self-reporting.

This means that if you were to start working with a Positive Psychology coach to improve your enjoyment of life, work-life balance, or productivity at work, that pretty early on the coach would ask you, “Would you like to get some baseline measurements at the start?” And it makes sense to. I recommend it. This way, you have a sense of how you acted and reacted before you started actively increasing your life happiness or life satisfaction. In a way, it’s like measuring your weight before going on an exercise-and-moderated-eating plan. (BTW, you’ll notice that these assessments are not usually called quizzes or tests because that would imply that there is a ‘best way’ to be or a ‘best score’ to get.)

My favorite thing about these particular assessments is that they describe you. After taking them, I’ve often been able to crystalize into words some things that I may never have thought of before about myself, and I hear this comment frequently from other people that have taken assessments too.

And, finally, if you still need a boost as to why you should go to this page and take them … THEY’RE FUN! :)

Over the next few weeks, I’ll be writing up more about what they mean and what info from the assessments you can really use productively. Here is the great site where you can find assessments for yourself and your friends: the Authentic Happiness site.

Here are the assessments I most recommend (you’ll need to create a login at that site):
* VIA Signature Strengths Survey – this shows you your main character strengths – VERY INTERESTING; assessment by Peterson and Seligman (takes 20 minutes to complete).
* Optimism Scale – This shows you how you interpret good and bad events, reference: Learned Optimism; assessment by Seligman (32 questions, takes a few minutes).
* Satisfaction with Life Scale – Simple assessment of subjective well-being. Here is an article that highlights Ed Diener, the lead author of this assessment scale (5 questions).
* General Happiness Questionnaire – This is actually my favorite one of all of them, Lyubomirsky’s and Lepper’s assessment (4 questions). I’d love to know what you guys get on this little survey!

Enjoy! And I’ll write more about these later.

APA Format

Hi guys, I’m writing a paper which will be in APA (American Psychological Association) format, and here are the two sources I’ve found the most useful:

* How to Format an APA Paper from Mark Plonsky‘s site at the University of Wisconsin.

    Very useful description of what sections, what formating, and what content to include in an APA style paper.

* How to Cite References in an APA Paper from the University of Minnesota site.

    Great summary of how to cite references for the end of your APA-format paper.

KEYWORDS: Psychology, Writing, Format, APA, APA Format

Psychology of Success (in progress)

This is a post in progress, just to let you know that there are some findings about psychology and success.

Here, Phil Zimbardo writes this great paper when he is APA President in 2004: “Does Psychology Make a Significant Difference in Our Lives?” (this is also a very interesting history of psychology). Also, here is the site that was born from this paper: www.psychologymatters.org, which illustrates in which fields psychology has made some significant inroads and found results that people can and do implement (I like the post here on multitasking).

And here is a nice 2002 Forbes article on the “Psychology of Success”.

Tanabata – Make a Wish Today!

Hello, today is the seventh day of the seventh month. This is one of my favorite holidays! TANABATA, meaning “Star Festival.”

If you make a wish, as long as it doesn’t rain where you are, your wish will come true. Here’s the story from this site:

    Two stars, Weaver Princess Star and Herd Boy Star were in love. The Weaver Princess Star was very good at weaving, and her father was a heavenly king. Although the Herd Boy Star was a boy of lowly birth, the king, kind-hearted, let them marry. But because they were in love so much, they forgot to do their work. The Weaver Princess Star did not weave the cloth and the Herd Boy Star did not take care of the herds of sheep. The king became so angry, that he decided they must be separated. They were told to live at the opposite sides of the Milky Way, the Sparkling River of the Heavens. They were only to meet on the night of July 7th, when they cross the sky.

If it rains on July 7th, then the two stars, Orihime the weaver princess and Hikoboshi the herd boy, will not be able to meet for another year. So children and adults in Japan write down their wishes on this day on colorful origami paper and hang up their wishes on bamboo trees.

Tanabata Tree

If it does not rain on this year, then the two stars meet and everyone who made a wish has his wish come true! But if it rains, then the Milky Way, the river of the heavens, overflows, and the two cannot cross to meet each other on this one day of the year. People in Japan also wear the summer yukata (see further down the page here) and dance for the festival.

The particular two stars that this story describes are Orihime the princess weaver star called Altair in the constellation Aquila and the Hikoboshi herd boy star called Vega in the constellation Lyra. Altair and Vega are two of the three vertices of the Summer Triangle, which can be seen best in the summer months when it is almost directly overhead. Here are some other Tanabata sites: a children’s version, probably the most in-depth description, the full version, and a simple great description.

WHERE: Japan
WHEN: July 7th, every year.

Who are you happiest around?

Who are you most happy around? What are the qualities of that person? What is that person like?
* Adventurous people, confident & crazy people!
* Optimists
* Dreamers
* People who love a sport, their job, or some topic!

When you read this question… you may have thought of a person or of some people. What is it about being around that person or those people makes you so happy?
* Feeling comfortable makes me happy
* Doing new things that I might otherwise not do makes me happy
* When talking feels good, that makes me happy (also, when I learn new things about the world!)

This is my first time posting a two-part question! Here goes:
a) Who are you most happy around?
b) What is it about being around that person or those people makes you so happy?


On Fridays, I post questions because I love questions. I would love it if you feel like answering the questions! Thanks. (I’m a big fan of privacy also, so if you don’t want to put your name in, just use an initial or just fill in the letter “A” and we’ll know it’s anonymous, and if you don’t want to put your email address for privacy reasons, just put mine – it’s at the link ‘email me’ above.)

… in the Details

God is in the details.
~ Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, architect

When I’m writing, I am concentrating almost wholly on concrete detail: the color a room is painted, the way a drop of water rolls off a wet leaf after a rain.
~ Donna Tartt, writer

In photography, the smallest thing can be a great subject. The little, human detail can become a leitmotiv.
~ Henri Cartier-Bresson, photographer

One does a whole painting for one peach and people think just the opposite – that particular peach is but a detail.
~ Pablo Picasso, painter and sculptor

Peach

Composing is like driving down a foggy road toward a house. Slowly you see more details of the house – the color of the slates and bricks, the shape of the windows. The notes are the bricks and the mortar of the house.
~ Benjamin Britten, conductor

As a journalist, the details always tell the story.
~ James McBride, writer and musician

In a Bad Mood? Pretend You’re Giving Advice to Your Friend

Sometimes you think that because you have a thought, that it is the truth. But, often your own thoughts can fool you. How many times have you thought, “Everything is going wrong, and there’s nothing I can do,” and then you come out from that into new great things (and sometimes new bad things). Life changes. Things change. You can’t believe every thought you have – you wouldn’t believe every word that someone else says to you, so why believe every subconscious half-thought of your own head? You can use those thoughts that are productive and useful to move you forward, but if you have negative thoughts that spin in a downward spiral, then it may be that at that point, the ticker tape in your head is on automatic, and that it may be useful to switch it around.

It’s funny that people respond to themselves differently than they would to their friends. I just had a unusual time where I wasn’t sure this was going right, or that was going right, etc. And it just made me so upset at myself to I know that if I were to step aside and if my friend were saying the same things… I know what I would tell her! Isn’t that so often the case – when a friend asks for advice on work, on romance, on school, on organization, on home buying, on exercise, etc., you know exactly what to suggest and recommend, but when it’s your life… so often you don’t know! Why is that? Why doesn’t your “intuition” or other advice-giving center kick in when it’s for you as much as it should when it’s for someone else?

Is it because:
* You don’t want to make a mistake (a mistake in your life is more costly than advice for your friend’s life – because after all that was only advice; in the end, the friend makes the decision herself)?
* You don’t believe the counterarguments when it’s about you?
* You want to feel down and dark for a while?

Those are all valid. But let’s break them down. You don’t want to make a mistake – so what?! So you make a mistake. “Do not fear mistakes, there are none,” says Miles Davis. Everything you go through can make you not go through that same thing later. Everything somehow shapes you.

You don’t believe in counterarguments when it’s about you? Yes, this is an ego thing – not in a bad way! This is just a matter of – like the ticker tape beliefs – thinking that if a thought comes from you, then it maybe doesn’t need to be counterargued. That’s just not true! A million times, I will tell you that this is just not true! Your mood, your latest food, the rain, smells around you, the news that day – everything can affect you, and when you have a thought, it may just be a reaction, and something to say, “Thanks for coming, but you’re not really real.” You can have two thoughts, “this food is good for me” or “this food is bad for me.” And the funny thing is that both viewpoints may be valid. Ice cream can be bad for you, or good for you – simply because deprivation in the long run may not work for your personal body system. Broccoli can be good for you for the vitamins, or can be bad for you if farmed in some certain strange way. Everything is arguable. Including your thoughts.

You may want to feel dark and down for a while? The strange, strange, strange thing is that people who go out and FORCE themselves to have a good time anyway usually make themselves feel better. This is especially true of people that have a good time, or better yet, do something FOR someone. Doing something for another person often immediately makes the first person feel better – Sonja Lyubomirsky and colleagues did a study with a control group, a group that chose one day in a week in which to do act kinds for people, and a group that did something kind everyday. The researchers asked the participants to continue this for six weeks and at the end of the six weeks, the control group had slightly decreased happiness from the start of the study, participants that had done kind things every day were much unchanged (and the researchers postulate that this is because the kind acts were not anything unusual and became habitual for that group), and participants that had done kind things on one day of each week reported significantly increased levels of happiness (i.e. well-being).

performing acts of kindness increased peoples' happiness

And about going out and having a good time, there is a great study about bowling alone: participants that were introverts and did not want to go out bowling were taken out to go bowling with strangers, and they showed markedly increased levels of satisfaction after bowling with strangers than before.

So your own advice-giving center may not kick in naturally for you. Still, it would if you were talking to a friend. From an article on relationship advice:
“For example, take a young couple who goes out for a romantic dinner for the first time after the birth of their first child, but spend the entire evening arguing over silly things, and return home deflated. The woman, whose read plenty of articles on “marriages that deteriorated after the first child’s birth”, is panic-stricken and flooded with difficult thoughts of divorce. These thoughts can get so out of hand that she begins planning her visitation arrangements and tries to imagine how she’ll manage raising the child on her own. If a friend would have told her the same thoughts, she would have undoubtedly dismissed them. She would have likely pointed out that it is difficult to be romantic when you don’t sleep more than three hours a night, and when you worry during the meal that the baby might wake up crying and the babysitter won’t be able to calm him down. It is easier for us to encourage others, but when it is happening to us, we have a hard time dealing with the false thoughts. Therefore, it is helpful to treat them as if they were voiced by another person whose principal goal is to make us miserable. At the next stage we must conduct an internal argument with those thoughts, resist them with all our persuasive willpower, and prove to ourselves that they are not grounded in reality.”

So, in short, be a good friend to yourself! Pretend you are your best friend and play! Make up other ideas and explanations for yourself that will let you see the big picture, and that will make you act more productively than stewing in those not-helpful thoughts.

Take-away: Pretend you’re your best friend, and talk to yourself kindly, productively, encouragingly – the way you might to your really good friend!

Source for acts of kindness study: Lyubomirsky, S., Tkach, C., & Sheldon, K. M. (2004). [Pursuing sustained happiness through random acts of kindness and counting one’s blessings: Tests of two six-week interventions]. Unpublished raw data.

“The Treasure” by Vito

This week’s short story is by a guest author! This is a children’s story by my friend, who appears here as the author VITO. Enjoy! S.
———

It was just the beginning of summer, and it was the first time a little boy would be spending time with his grandparents in the countryside by himself. He already was a little bored: no television or video games, and everything smelled musty. His grandparents didn’t seem to like anything very sweet or loud, or have anything made of brightly-colored plastics. He sat in his room, wondering if maybe he could convince his grandparents that going to McDonald’s for his birthday would be a good idea. He had already worked out an escape plan: he’d swap clothes with some other boy, slipping him the 5 dollars of “emergency money” that Mom had solemnly entrusted to him, and then hide under the giant pile of balls in the playroom. Then he would live at McDonalds until his parents came back. He felt a little bad about using the emergency money, as he had thought it would be useful for the purchase of chocolate if he saved it, but if this wasn’t an emergency, he didn’t know what was. He was going to be stuck here for a whole week otherwise! It had already been 30 minutes since he’d been dropped off, and he felt like he was going to die of boredom.

There was a gentle knock at the door, followed by the craggy head of his Grandfather.

“Hello, Vito!” said Grandpa. “Your mother told me that your birthday is today!”

“Yeah…” muttered Vito, who was still lost in the planning of his escape. He did not fail to notice, however, that Grandpa was carrying a small covered basket. That had some entertainment potential, especially in the context of birthdays.

Grandpa sat next to Vito with a thump, looking him in the eye appraisingly, “Bored?”

Vito nodded sullenly.

“Well, maybe this birthday present will cheer you up. Your mother tells me that it was today. Did I already say that? Happy Birthday!” He handed the basket to Vito with a small flourish. Vito took it and gave it an exploratory shake. It was awfully light. Upon opening it, he saw it was empty. Vito, veteran of many birthday parties, fished around with his hand to make sure there wasn’t a check or gift card stuck inside. Nope, it was empty…it was quite probable that—and the horror of this was not lost on Vito—that the basket was the gift. Grandfather noted Vito’s expression of consternation with amusement.

“Grandpa”, said Vito slowly, so he would be understood, “The basket is empty.”

“A Hah! But the basket is just the key to your present!” boomed Grandpa. “Your real present is out in the field in back of the house, but first I’m going to tell you a secret that only your grandmother, myself, and now you know. There’s a treasure in that field that has been lost for many years, and because you’re such a good boy we’re going to let you look for it. The basket is for putting clues into, so you can bring them back to the house for inspection, and we can tell you if you’re getting warmer or colder. Whaddya say?”

Treasure! Vito was all about treasure! But still…”Grandpa, is there a McDonald’s nearby?”
Continue reading ““The Treasure” by Vito”

James and James: SNAP Habit Training

James Pawelski, Philosopher and Positive Psychologist, has put an acronym to William James‘ four steps to creating a habit. I mentioned this in passing before, and now I’ll introduce you to the handy acronym: SNAP

1) S: Start Strong – Launch the new habit decisively.
2) N: No exceptions – Never make an exception to the new habit.
3) A: Act when promted – Act “on every emotional prompting,” i.e. whenever you want to act on the new habit, be sure to do so!
4) P: Practice! – Do it every day. Exercise the new habit every day.

At the same time, I’ll be posting later about Changing for Good, which is a super book about the psychology of changing a habit. And the main point of that book is that you can’t take a step you’re not ready for. And James and James’ SNAP training is for the action phase of taking on a new habit or breaking an old one. There are several stages before the action phase which involve getting ready to and convincing yourself that you need to create the new habit.

But, surely if you are in the action phase, if you are ready to change something, then ask yourself every day, am I doing it? Am I doing SNAP? These are four fun questions just in order to have a structure. Enjoy!

Update: James Pawelski reminds me that the P in SNAP refers to not only daily practice of the particular habit, but more importantly to the general practice of using the will. It is focus, discipline, self-regulation. William James believed that “we need to do something strenuous every once in a while – even if it’s not directly related to the habit we are trying to create. This, he believes, will keep our wills strong and in good shape,” says James Pawelski.

What’s the Best Thing in the World?

Question Day! I’m so glad it’s Friday, question day on this blog! I love questions! Am looking forward to hearing your comments on this! Have a super Friday and best of the weekend!

What’s the best thing in the world?

* Breathing
* The Wind
* Family, Friends
* Calm, relaxed happiness
* Reading a fiction book while eating a bowl of blueberries
* When you feel good inside
* When you don’t need to rush
* Being high up on a mountain in the warm wind

Those are some of my answers. What are yours?


On Fridays, I am going to post questions because I love questions and ask myself questions regularly. I would love it if you feel like answering the questions! Thanks. (I’m a big fan of privacy also, so if you don’t want to put your name in, just use an initial or just fill in the letter “A” and we’ll know it’s anonymous, and if you don’t want to put your email address for privacy reasons, just put mine – it’s at the link ’email me’ above.)