We’ve been reading lots about the book coming out by Barbara Ehrenreich: Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America. We were invited to respond to an article about Ehrenreich following her talk at the University of Pennsylvania. The original guest column is online, and included below, with text linked out to original sources where appropriate.
Comments? Questions? Leave a note in the comments section and let us know.
Guest Column | A personal trainer for your happiness
Learning and practicing optimism can literally brighten your future
By Andrew Rosenthal and Doug Hensch
Last week, The Daily Pennsylvanian asked “Does Positivity Cripple the U.S.?” after hearing Barbara Ehrenreich speak in College Hall about her new book, Bright-Sided: How The Relentless Promotion Of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America. According to reports, her talk was an argument against positive thinking and smiles. Seriously.
Although we did not attend the talk or review a pre-released copy of the book, a few things about Ehrenreich are clear. According to the DP and The New York Times, she finds herself “infuriated” by teddy bears and frustrated by upbeat T-shirts. Positivity and optimism are “the strongest sources of negativity in our society” she claims — and optimism is “just too damn much work” to be a worthwhile pursuit. However, we resist the urge to dismiss Ehernreich outright as a grump.
Ehrenreich is critical of “bogus” and “false” and “unsullied” optimism. Fine. But such specific modifiers mean that there must be a “genuine,” “real” and “authentic” optimism out there — something imperfect but grounded in reality. In fact, realistic optimism is the bedrock of positive psychology — the scientific study of well-being. When carefully defined, optimism is about seeing opportunity in challenge, identifying the limitations of bad events and finding hope in the most dire of times. Optimism is what got Barack Obama elected.
In practice, what is the difference between optimism and pessimism? A pessimist examines a situation and can identify only the most dire possible outcomes. Case in point: Ask a good attorney to review a contract, and she will point out everything that might possibly harm you in its execution. Planning for the worst situation is a good thing when it comes to attorneys and airline pilots. But artists and authors and athletes flourish as optimists, when they take a chance and try to do better, and more, than their predecessors.
This isn’t just a matter of semantics — it’s science. Research started decades ago shows that Penn students who are optimists perform better in school and exhibit fewer signs of anxiety and depression than those who are pessimists. Today, every freshman in Wharton is required to complete the PennSTART program to learn how to enhance optimism skills through resilience training. In last week’s DP, columnist Maya Brandon called for PennSTART to become available to students in all schools.
In her talk, Ehrenreich reportedly railed against smiling. But research shows that people who exhibit genuine smiles in a high-school yearbook picture are less-likely to be divorced in their mid-50’s. And a happy physician reaches a faster, more accurate diagnosis of a difficult liver condition. Positivity levels were the difference between life and death for the Sisters of Notre Dame. Nuns who expressed the most positivity throughout life lived an average of 6.9 years longer than those who expressed the least.
But some of the most striking research shows that emotions of the heart, like hope and optimism are good … for the heart. Pessimistic men who suffered heart attacks were 86 percent more likely to die of another heart attack within 10 years. Only 33 percent of the most optimistic patients suffered the same fate. Put more bluntly, being a pessimist has the same effect on heart health as smoking about three packs of cigarettes a week. These findings are nothing to sneeze at — unless, of course, you’ve got a cold. If so, your roommate should hope he is an optimist — optimists have a significantly reduced chance of catching a cold, compared to pessimists.
Authentic happiness and realistic optimism have been rigorously studied around the world. Some of the best work comes from Penn’s own Martin Seligman, Ph.D., the Fox Leadership Professor of Psychology. Seligman and his colleagues have developed tests to let you measure your own optimism and happiness. The tests are available for free, at happier.com. Is your glass half empty, or half full?
happier.com is a personal trainer for your happiness. With more than a dozen tools and tests to help you measure, track and improve your happiness, you can trust the happier.com experts to help you reach your goals. Exclusive videos and a popular blog mean there’s something new to learn every day. Download the free iPhone application or find what you’re looking for with the Positive Psychology Practitioner Directory. happier.com is on Facebook, LinkedIn, and twitter and has meetup groups in Washington, Philadelphia, and Portland, with more planned. Click here for a social media press release from our launch.
Why would someone suggest that positivity is crippling the U.S.? Does anyone besides Stephen Colbert really think happiness is a threat? Today’s Daily Pennsylvanian ran an article, “Does Positivity Cripple the U.S.?” detailing a talk given at the University of Pennsylvania by Barbara Ehrenreich about her forthcoming book Bright-sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America.
The article reports:
According to Ehrenreich, our society’s bombardment with constant pressure to “put a smile on” and a belief that “life is good” – the name of a company with which she expressed particular frustration – emerge as the strongest sources of negativity in our society.
At happier.com, we’re pretty sure that positivity is not the “strongest source of negativity” in society. In fact, Barbara Fredrickson, one of the happier.com experts, wrote the book on the subject: Positivity: Groundbreaking Research Reveals How to Embrace the Hidden Strength of Positive Emotions, Overcome Negativity, and Thrive. One of her key findings is, essentially: don’t fake your positivity. Genuine, realistic optimism and positivity is a source of social good.
Here’s our response to the article:
In today’s world, positivity provides an easy target. It’s simple to be reactionary when the economy is stumbling and people are without healthcare, and you see a “life is good” shirt. But the reality is, responsible critics separate out realistic optimism from “pollyana hapiness” or blind optimism.
The difference isn’t just semantics — it’s science. Decades of research show that realistic optimism is beneficial for everyone from college students to cancer survivors. Optimism and positivity based in reality helps prevent depression and improve academic performance and it helps patients heal faster. Optimists have 1/4th the morbidity rate from heart disease that pessimists have. And the best research in this field has been conducted at Penn over the last 30 years. Just this year, the University made headlines with its multi-million dollar project to improve resilience and optimism in the Army. The data show that it’s foolish to dismiss positivity out-right. And if the Army is willing to get behind it, we ought to give the science of happiness the respect it’s due.
-Andrew Rosenthal
co-founder, happier.com
happier.com is a personal trainer for your happiness. With more than a dozen tools and tests to help you measure, track and improve your happiness, you can trust the happier.com experts to help you reach your goals. Exclusive videos and a popular blog mean there’s something new to learn every day. Download the free iPhone application or find what you’re looking for with the Positive Psychology Practitioner Directory. happier.com is on Facebook, LinkedIn, and twitter and has meetup groups in Washington, Philadelphia, and Portland, with more planned. Click here for a social media press release from our launch.
Building optimism and positivity just got easier. I am proud to announce that happier.com has added one new exercise (What Door Opened?) and another highly-validated test (Positivity Test) to its growing library of tools to inspire you to be happier and more resilient.
What Door Opened?
“The first step in learning optimism is to realize that in your own life, every time a door closed, another door opened,” says Dr. Martin Seligman, consultant to happier.com.
What Door Opened helps you:
- make accurate, realistic descriptions of past adversities
- find the silver lining in things that have gone wrong
- learn lessons from bad events
- build optimism when facing adversities in the future
- discover lessons of resilience in the real-life stories of others
Positivity Test
Dr. Barbara Fredrickson has discovered that experiencing positive emotions in a 3-to-1 ratio with negative ones leads people to a tipping point beyond which they naturally become more resilient to adversity and effortlessly achieve what they once could only imagine.
With the permission of Dr. Fredrickson, happier.com can now offer the test that makes it possible to determine how much positivity exists in your life. The Positivity Test is only 20 questions long and is designed to be taken every day. You get instant results and you can track your progress over time.
Positivity Portfolio
To take advantage of our new test and all the other great tools on happier.com, we have developed a new feature to help you keep all of your positive activities in place – the Positivity Portfolio. Think of it as your own, personal recipe book for generating positivity. With the Positivity Portfolio, you can label your entries from various exercises which empowers you to take a broader view of the activities that give you the most positivity and engage them more frequently.
And, one last reminder…
To get the most out of your experience on happier.com and see real change in your life, we highly recommend that you set up some reminders to help you remember to use your favorite tests and exercises.
happier.com is a personal trainer for your happiness. With more than a dozen tools and tests to help you measure, track and improve your happiness, you can trust the happier.com experts to help you reach your goals. Exclusive videos and a popular blog mean there’s something new to learn every day. Download the free iPhone application or find what you’re looking for with the Positive Psychology Practitioner Directory. happier.com is on Facebook, LinkedIn, and twitter and has meetup groups in Washington, Philadelphia, and Portland, with more planned. Click here for a social media press release from our launch.
