Virtue and Positive Psychology

OPTIMISM and RESILIENCE
in POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY

1. OPTIMISM

ALAN Carr devotes a chapter of Positive Psychology to various approaches to optimism, summarizing the conclusions of different researchers:

Seligman, M. (1998). Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life (2nd edn). New York: Pocket Books.

Optimism has been conceptualised as a broad personality trait and as an explanatory style in which the causes of negative events are attributed to external, transient, specific factors rather than internal, stable, global factors.

• For any situation in which you attribute adversity to intrinsic, global stable attributes identify the Adversity, the pessimistic Beliefs, and Consequent negative mood change on a 10-point scale.

• Distract yourself from adversity and rumination by saying STOP, by snapping yourself with an elastic band, or by focusing on another activity or object.

• Distance yourself from the pessimistic explanation by noting that there are other explanations.

• Dispute the pessimistic beliefs by checking the evidence for the pessimistic explanation and an optimistic alternative where you attribute adversity to extrinsic, specific and transient situational factors.

• Notice how distraction, distancing and disputing lead your mood to change positively to Energize you.

POSITIVE ILLUSIONS and SELF_DECEPTION [104-105]
(seen as a good thing – note that this is disputed by advocates of “depressive realism” – i.e. depressed individuals who are considered by [probably depressed and negative[ researchers to be more psychologically-healthy than [unrealistic] optimists])

Taylor, S. (1989). Positive Illusions: Creative Self-Deception and the Healthy Mind. New York: Basic Books.

Research on positive illusions and self-deception has shown that human thought is distinguished by a robust positive bias. Most people view themselves, the world and the future in positive terms. The self-deceptive strategies we use to manage this negative [p. 105] information, which is contrary to an optimistic world view, includes defence mechanisms such as denial and repression and positive illusions. Positive illusions involve the cognitive processes of selective attention, benign forgetting, maintaining [isolated] pockets of incompetence and maintaining [in isolation] negative self-schemas.

• When thinking about past experience, focus predominantly on details of positive events.

• Psychologically, ring-fence areas where you have poor skills or personal characteristics that you have but do not like. Define these as exceptions to your predominantly competent and attractive self-image.

Hope involves the ability to plan pathways to desired goals, despite obstacles, and agency or motivation to use these pathways.

Wilde, G. (2001). Target Risk 2: A New Psychology of Health and Safety: What Works, What Doesn't and Why... Toronto: PDE Publications. Available as e-book at <http://psyc.queensu.ca/faculty/wilde/wilde.html>

Expectationism is a preventive strategy for reducing lifestyle-dependent disease, accidents, violence and death rate by enhancing people's perceived value of the future. It is based on risk homeostasis theory which argues that the amount of risk-taking behaviour, accident-rate and lifestyle-dependent disease rate in a population are maintained over time, unless there is a change in the target level of risk and enhancing the degree to which the future is valued over the present is one way of altering target risk.

• To reduce risk taking that may foreshorten your lifespan, develop incentives to help you to value the future more than the present.

2. RESILIENCE

Related to optimism, but particularly associated with trauma and stress is RESILIENCE:

Resilience is the quality of recovering quickly from failure and adversity, and not only returning to the status quo but actually using the opportunity to grow and further your personal development. [...]

· Developing an internal locus of control: believing that you are in control of your life

· Developing a good sense of self-esteem: believing that you have value and are worthy

· Developing a good sense of self-efficacy: believing that you can do what you set your mind to

· Developing self-awareness and emotion regulation/management: understanding and managing your own emotions

· Developing optimism and hope: engaging in life and looking forward to the challenges it brings

· Developing positivity and positive emotions: cultivating a sense of positivity, well-being, and meaning in life

· Developing gratitude and appreciation: being appreciative of what you have and practicing gratitude on a regular basis

· Developing SMART goals: setting goals that are specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound

· Developing a flexible and adaptable attitude: keeping your thinking from becoming rigid or inflexible

· Developing a positive, optimistic explanatory style: choosing to see the glass as half-full rather than half-empty (Woodworth, 2016)

A second Training Programs in Resilience for adults [http above] includes the following (from the Penn Resiliency Program):

1. Self-Awareness – the ability to pay attention to your thoughts, emotions, behaviors, and psychological reactions.

2. Self-Regulation – the ability to change one’s thoughts, emotions, behaviors, and physiology in the service of a desired outcome.

3. Mental Agility – the ability to look at situations from multiple perspectives and to think creatively and flexibly.

4. Strengths of Character – the ability to use one’s top strengths to engage authentically, overcome challenges, and create a life aligned with one’s values.

5. Connection – the ability to build and maintain strong, trusting relationships.

6. Optimism – the ability to notice and expect the positive, to focus on what you can control, and to take purposeful action.

Training programs in resilience for soldiers suffering from PTSD include the following:

1. Understanding the response to trauma (read “failure”), which includes shattered beliefs about the self, others, and the future. This is a normal response, not a symptom of PTSD or a character defect.

2. Reducing anxiety through techniques for controlling intrusive thoughts and images.

3. Engaging in constructive self-disclosure. Bottling up trauma can lead to a worsening of physical and psychological symptoms, so soldiers are encouraged to tell their stories.

4. Creating a narrative in which the trauma is seen as a fork in the road that enhances the appreciation of paradox—loss and gain, grief and gratitude, vulnerability and strength. A manager might compare this to what the leadership studies pioneer Warren Bennis called “crucibles of leadership.” The narrative specifies what personal strengths were called upon, how some relationships improved, how spiritual life strengthened, how life itself was better appreciated, or what new doors opened.

5. Articulating life principles. These encompass new ways to be altruistic, crafting a new identity, and taking seriously the idea of the Greek hero who returns from Hades to tell the world an important truth about how to live.

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