DaveShearon

Instalanche benefits

One of the bonuses of an Instalanche is the interesting folks who leave comments and the chance to check out their web sites.  At Jon's, I found this.  I agree; quite an unusual visual effect.

"If You're Going through Hell"

I'd love to develop a seminar on the positive psychology of country music.  It would be fun and easy!  Except, of course, for copyright  and licensing problems, which I suspect are virtually insurmountalbe for any reasonable investment of time, energy, and legal fees!

If I ever do this, one aspect I'll focus on is the role of positive psychology constructs in the face of adversity.  Many of the constructs -- Seligman's attributional style theory, Dweck's theories of intelligence, and Snyder's hope theory -- really come into play when we face adversity.  Perhaps the old saying should be revised to state, "When the going gets tough, the positive get going."  Or, even more accurately, the positive never slow down.  And, in that vein, I'd use Rodney Adkins' "If You're Going through Hell" as the musical interpretation.   If you haven't heard this song, you can listen to a clip in the Amazon widget above or try here.  (If you're a Firefly/Serenityfan, the video's a bonus.  If not, well, maybe you'll become one!) (If the link doesn't work, youtube's taken that video down.)  Here are the key lyrics:

Well you know those times
When you feel like there's a sign there on your back
Say's I don't mind if ya kick me
Seems like everybody has
Things go from bad to worse
You'd think they can't get worse than that
And then they do

You step off the straight and narrow
And you don't know where you are
Use the needle of your compass
To sew up your broken heart
Ask directions from a genie
In a bottle of Jim Beam
And she lies to You
That's when you learn the truth

If you're going through hell
Keep on going, Don't slow down
If you're scared, don't show it
You might get out
Before the devil even knows you're there

The title of this song comes from a Winston Churchill quote, "If you are going through hell, keep going."  Churchill certainly faced uncontrollable negative events, and he responded in positive way.  "Not me, not always, not everything" -- he didn't see himself or England as responsible, didn't think the causes of the conflict would always exist or that they would tarnish everything.  This is positive attributional style, a/k/a "optimism", from the work of Marty Seligman.  Churchill did not know exactly how England would win through, but he seems to have had confidence that they could figure it out.  This is Carol Dweck's incremental view of intelligence.  And, he clearly envisioned the goal of defeating the Nazi war machine, generated alternative pathways toward that end, and deemed himself and England capable of traversing those pathways, however rocky and winding they might be.  That's Rick Snyder's Hope Theory.

At bottom, that's the power of habitual positive thought patterns and the regular experience of positive emotions -- those habits work!  As Barb Fredrickson has shown, the survival value of positive emotions is in helping us broaden our behaviors and build connections with one another.  That "together" idea is another good reason for the muscial metaphor.  Solos are great, but we generally find the greatest music performed by groups.

What's your music for the positive?

Creativity, peace, and aging

Hugh Macleod at gapinvoid writes:

The older you get, the harder it is to be creative without large swathes of peace, quiet and solitude to sustain you. Or maybe that's just me?

I'm doing a lot of creating right now.  It's one of my strengths.  And I agree -- it takes time and space, especially when I'm trying to pull large amounts of information in new areas together into something I can present to others.  Currently, that's what I'm doing as I prepare for a series of Continuing Legal Education presentations I'll be making over the next few months.  Fun, but it takes time and space.  I find the need to mull things over a good bit.  We'll see how the final product turns out.

Looking good by being negative (and hurting your team)

Although positive psychology has gotten a lot of favorable press, there have also been a number of stories that, at the end, turn critical.  Richard Handler's "20 Weeks to Happiness" (http://tinyurl.com/yxf98v) is one example.  I've seen others, but can't put my cursor on them right now; perhaps you can.  I've often felt that that turn to negativity near the end of some pieces on positive psychology represented two things:  (1) a feeling that it's too hard to be positive and (2) an attempt to look smart by being negatively critical.  Monday's Wall Street Journal gave me some evidence for the latter point.  Jared Sandberg's "Cubicle Culture" column was entitled, "Some Managers Make It Easy on Themselves with a Ready 'No'".  After quoting several sources who talked about their experience with negative, nitpicking, no-saying managers (anyone remember Spiro Agnew's "nattering nabobs of negativity?), there's this paragraph:

Naysayers tend to deflate motivation and bring productivity to a grinding halt -- just to salve their needy egos. "Negative evaluation is a tactic people use when they're intellectually insecure," says Teresa Amabile, a professor of business administration at Harvard Business School. More than 20 years ago, Prof. Amabile conducted a study in which she discovered that criticism sounds smarter than praise -- that people believe lashing critics are smarter than the approvers.  

When people evaluated edited excerpts from negative and positive book reviews, she found that negative reviewers also were seen as more expert and competent "even when the content of the positive review was independently judged as being of higher quality and greater forcefulness."

There's lots of evidence about how positivity boosts productivity.  Jane Dutton, David Cooperrider, Bob Quinn, and Amy Wirzesniewski come to mind.  But it's easier to be negative, and may make others view you as smarter to boot!

5th International Positive Psychology Summit

Twenty-eight of my MAPP classmates attended the Summit that concluded last night.  A dozen or so capstones were presented through posters.  Sherri has "Appreciation of Beauty and Excellence" as a strength and she used it well here; our poster was gorgeous!  I've got to admit, I wasn't an optimist about how much traffic we would receive.  Our display was scheduled for 9 -11 on Saturday and the other sessions scheduled for that time included Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman!  But, the room drew quite a crowd.  Sherri and I were in a back corner and still talked to a stream of folks throughout the morning.  Although our capstone focused on a positive psychology profile of a large, non-urban school system, I had spoken at a Friday session about MAPP on what's happening in the legal field and found found myself talking with folks about both law and education.  For example, I had a very interesting conversation with Dr. Carol Kaufman of Harvard on new technologies and micro-learning as they might apply to continuing legal education for lawyers.

On the subject of education, Tal Ben-Shahar gave a workshop on teaching positive psychology.  Dr. Ben-Shahar was the instructor of the positive psychology course at Harvard that got so much attention earlier this year for its enrollment of over 850 students, and he demonstrated how he uses music, video, stories and data to create a rich learning experience in his class.  It was a personal inspiration as I am preparing for a series of CLE presentations later this Fall.

Finally, those of us from the first MAPP class got to meet the members of "MAPP.2".  They are an impressive group!  They have three lawyers, two of whom are currently practicing and one in the banking world, so I enjoyed sharing ideas with them and look forward to working together in the future.  The young woman from India who contacted me last year is enrolled, and they have two class members commuting from Hong Kong!  Quite an international contingent.  Several of the international folks from my class made it to the Summit made it, including Emma Judge from the UK and Juan Young from Switzerland.  It was wonderful to see my classmates as the relationships we built are special.  I've added links to what some of my classmates are doing, so if you're interested in how MAPP degrees can be put to use, check them out.

Can schools close the gap?

Missed the article from the WSJ that Econmist's View picked up back in January (maybe because of MAPP?).  The article is by a Nobel laureate economist arguing that increased investment in early childhood programs for disadvantaged children make economic sense.  The comments drift toward rants about vouchers, but I picked up on this part of the article:

Although much public policy discussion focuses on the failings of schools, a major finding from the research literature is that schools ... contribute little to the emergence of test-score gaps among children. By the second grade, gaps ... across socioeconomic groups are stable

This is a common failing in discussions of this type -- assuming from average data that schools can't remedy the gap.  Now, I am all in favor of developing proven, emphasis on proven, programs that can help get all children to school age ready to learn, but, right now, we do know that some schools and some teachers are managing to boost kids along the learning path at significantly higher than average rates and thereby reduce those gaps.  (See here.)  The point is, we need to be identifying ways to close the gaps between the most effective teachers and schools and those who are not nearly as effective.  This will help close the achievement gaps between students without holding any student back. 

Teacher smarts

In a Spring 2006 Newsletter, the Teacher Quality Partnership of Ohio announced results of a survey of 10,000 2003-2005 graduates of Ohio Teacher Preparation programs:

• Average GPA of 3.47 on 4.0 scale
• Average ACT of 22.52
• Average SAT 1074.04

The ACT and SAT scores are one standard deviation above both Ohio and national norms.  The report states, "These grades and test scores create a stronger academic profile than some would expect...."  Yep.  This backs up the results of a College Board study from a few years ago showing that teachers' writing and math skills are comparable to those of engineers and lawyers, and their altruism is much higher. Hopefully, this kind of data will begin to convince school boards to support, even demand, administrative actions to develop and count on teacher-led instructional improvement.