DaveShearon

Teaching Optimism

The University of Pennsylvania has announced a Masters in Applied Positive Psychology under Martin E.P. Seligman.  The site includes:

Teaching Taskforce
A research-based initiative is underway to engage high school teachers and students in a program designed to build students' understanding of and ability to make use of the tools of positive psychology in their own lives and in the larger community.

I think the program would be interesting and the Teaching Taskforce is very interesting.

Turning Over Rocks

A business associate who strikes me as an optimist said to me this last week, "My Dad always said you have to turn over a lot of rocks to find the right thing."  Classic example of the energy and action orientation of optimists.  Man, are they fun to work with, or what?

On Living with Optimists

Optimists can be REALLY IRRITATING to those that aren't with them. Think about it. I bet you've known some of these folks. They just keep smiling and moving. They're always saying how things are going to work out. And you just always know they are underestimating the problems, overestimating their strengths, and generally just not grounded in reality. But they keep smiling and moving and good things keep happening to them. Frustrating, huh? But, it doesn't have to be a source of frustration. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.  Now I'm not saying any of us should disconnect from reality! Nope. But I am saying it's a good idea to put yourself in league with the optimists in your life. They're the people who get things done. Hire optimists. Contract with optimists. Get optimists in your circle of friends and spend time with them. When they start to wear on you, consider becoming more like them -- you'll be glad you did. (To learn how, read the book, or click here.)

Quote of the day

With the picture of SpaceShipOne occupying the upper left corner today, this Frank Lloyd Wright quote seems appropriate:

The thing always happens that you really believe in; and the belief in the thing makes it happen.

Do you dare to be an office Pollyanna?

I'm in Quebec City for an meeting of the American Bar Association Standing Committee on Specialization. Picked up the Globe and Mail and ran accross a guest article by John Izzo entitled "Do you dare to be an office Pollyanna?" It's a little about optimism and a little about finding meaning in work. Of course, it happens he's got a book out, Second Innocence: Renewing Work & Daily Life. But, that's ok -- just because he's selling doesn't mean I shouldn't be buying. One part of the story:

How do you keep feeling glad about work after you've done a job for many years? One real-life Pollyanna I met had been teaching fourth graders at the sameVancouver school for 42 years. Yet she seemed to have kept her fire for teaching.

I don't know about the book, but the article is worth a read.

The "wrong" blacks, optimism, hard work, and "closing the gap"

Clarence Page's July 8 column at JWR ties the report out of Harvard that most of that school's black minorities are "West Indian and African immigrants or their children, or to a lesser extent, children of biracial couples" to optimisim and hard work. I've tied Bill Cosby's recent remarks to hard work, and I agree completely with Mr. Page's assertion that optimism is key to that based on Dr. Seligman's research. Mr. Page writes:

I can offer the group one easy possibility, no charge: Immigrant kids work harder.

They work harder, in part, because their parents work harder — and their parents work harder because of their relentless optimism: Where others might see a dead-end job, immigrants of all colors see an entry-level opportunity.

Where others may see inequities, immigrants tend to see a ladder to be climbed. With a hyperoptimism, they move ahead, upward and outward, undeterred by discrimination, short-term poverty, substandard housing, lack of financial capital or any other barriers that fate throws in the way of their hopes and dreams.

And they pass this spirit of enterprise on to their children. A University of Chicago study in 1995, for example, found children from a variety of minority groups whose mothers are immigrants outperform students from their respective ethnic groups whose mothers were born in the United States. "Family optimism" about the future played a crucially important role in determining school success, according to sociology professor Marta Tienda, an author of the study.

And the more recent the family's arrival, the better the children perform, according to a study of Asian and Hispanic families by Laurence Steinberg, a Temple University social scientist whose latest book is "The 10 Basic Principles of Good Parenting."

What's your attributional style?

I just posted on the optimism meme. To check your own attributional style (positive or negative, a/k/a optimistic or pessimistic), go here.

Problems with happiness?

Happy people are more likely to be bigots? Maybe. See this NY Times article. Actually, this doesn't seem inconsistent with Seligman's work on optimism and his more recent, broader book Authentic Happiness.

Thanks to Futurepundit.