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A reprint from American Scientist the magazine of Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society

This reprint is provided for personal and noncommercial use. For any other use, please send a request to Permissions, American Scientist, P.O. Box 13975, Research Triangle Park, NC, 27709, U.S.A., or by electronic mail to [email protected]. ©Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society and other rightsholders The of Positive

The emerging science of positive is coming to understand why it’s good to feel good

Barbara L. Fredrickson

ack in the 1930s some young (APA). Like many , Selig- positive psychology movement is BCatholic nuns were asked to write man had devoted much of his research changing that. Many psychologists short, personal essays about their lives. career to studying mental illness. He have now begun to explore the largely They described edifying events in their coined the phrase learned helplessness to uncharted terrain of human strengths childhood, the schools they attended, describe how hopelessness and other and the sources of . their religious experiences and the in- negative can spiral down into The new discoveries generated by fluences that led them to the convent. clinical . positive psychology hold the promise of Although the essays may have been ini- At the start of his term as APA pres- improving individual and collective tially used to assess each nun’s career ident, Seligman took stock of the field functioning, psychological well-being path, the documents were eventually of psychology, noting its significant ad- and physical health. But to harness the archived and largely forgotten. More vances in curing ills. In 1947, none of power of positive psychology, we need than 60 years later the nuns’ writings the major mental illnesses were treat- to understand how and why “goodness” surfaced again when three psycholo- able, whereas today 16 are treatable by matters. Although the discovery that gists at the University of Kentucky re- , people who think positively and feel viewed the essays as part of a larger or both. Although psychology had be- good actually live longer is remarkable, it study on aging and Alzheimer’s dis- come proficient at rescuing people raises more questions than it answers. ease. Deborah Danner, David Snowdon from various mental illnesses, it had Exactly how do positive thinking and and Wallace Friesen read the nun’s bio- virtually no scientifically sound tools pleasant feelings help people live longer? graphical sketches and scored them for for helping people to reach their higher Do pleasant thoughts and feelings help positive emotional content, recording ground, to thrive and flourish. Selig- people live better as well? And why are instances of happiness, interest, man aimed to correct this imbalance positive emotions a universal part of hu- and . What they found was re- when he called for a “positive psychol- man nature? My research traces the pos- markable: The nuns who expressed the ogy.” With the help of Mi- sible pathways for the life-enhancing ef- most positive emotions lived up to 10 haly Csikszentmihalyi—who originat- fects of positive emotions and attempts years longer than those who expressed ed the concept of “” to describe to understand why human beings the fewest. This gain in life expectancy peak motivational experiences—Selig- evolved to experience them. is considerably larger than the gain man culled the field for scientists achieved by those who quit smoking. whose work might be described as in- Why So Negative? The nun study is not an isolated case. vestigating “that which makes life There are probably a number of reasons Several other scientists have found that worth living.” why the positive emotions received little people who feel good live longer. But This is how many research psychol- in the past. There is, of course, why would this be so? Some answers ogists, myself included, were drawn to the natural tendency to study something are emerging from the new field of pos- positive psychology. My own back- that afflicts the well-being of humanity— itive psychology. This branch of psy- ground is in the study of emotions. For and the expression and experience of chological science surfaced about five more than a dozen years, I’ve been negative emotions are responsible for years ago, as the brainchild of Martin studying the positive emotions—joy, much of what ails this world. But it may E. P. Seligman, then president of the , and love—to also be that the positive emotions are a American Psychological Association shed light on their evolved adaptive little harder to study. They are compara- significance. Among scientists who tively few and relatively undifferentiat- study emotions, this is a rare specialty. ed—joy, amusement and serenity are not Barbara L. Fredrickson is the director of the Posi- Far more researchers have de- easily distinguished from one another. tive Emotions and Laboratory at the University of Michigan. In 2000 she won the voted their careers to studying nega- Anger, fear and , on the other Templeton Prize in Positive Psychology. Address: tive emotions, such as anger, hand, are distinctly different experiences. 3006 East Hall, 525 East University Avenue, and sadness. The study of This lack of differentiation is evident University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI and positive emotions was seen by in how we think about the emotions. 48109–1109. Internet: [email protected] some as a frivolous pursuit. But the Consider that scientific taxonomies of

330 American Scientist, Volume 91 © 2003 Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society. Reproduction with permission only. Contact [email protected]. Figure 1. Feeling joy in the of life, as depict- ed in Marc Chagall’s Fes- tival in the Village, offers rewards beyond those of simply experiencing the moment. There are bene- fits to personal health, de- velopment and longevity, as well as evolutionary reasons why human be- ings experience positive

Corbis emotions.

basic emotions typically identify one gry, sad or fearful faces. In contrast, fa- enson at Indiana University showed positive emotion for every three or cial expressions for positive emotions that anger, fear and sadness each elicit four negative emotions and that this have no unique signal value: All share distinct responses in the autonomic ner- imbalance is also reflected in the rela- the Duchenne smile—in which the cor- vous system. In contrast, the positive tive numbers of emotion words in the ners of the lips are raised and the mus- emotions appeared to have no distin- English language. cles are contracted around the eyes, guishable autonomic responses. Various physical components of emo- which raises the cheeks. A similar dis- The study of positive emotions has tional expression similarly reveal a lack tinction is evident in the response of the also been hindered because scientists at- of differentiation for the positive emo- autonomic nervous system to the ex- tempted to understand them with mod- tions. The negative emotions have spe- pression of emotions. About 20 years els that worked best for negative emo- cific facial configurations that imbue ago, psychologists and tions. Central to many theories of them with universally recognized sig- Wallace Friesen at the University of Cal- emotion is that they are, by definition, nal value. We can readily identify an- ifornia, San Francisco, and Robert Lev- associated with urges to act in particular

www.americanscientist.org © 2003 Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society. Reproduction 2003 July–August 331 with permission only. Contact [email protected]. Figure 2. Negative emotions—like anger, fear and disgust—can be understood as evolutionary adaptations to threats our ancestors faced. Anger (left) elicits the urge to attack, fear (middle) the urge to escape and disgust (right) the urge to expel. In this view, the negative emotions nar- row our thoughts and actions to those that promoted survival in life-threatening situations. Because the positive emotions—joy, serenity, grat- itude and the like—were not so readily understood from this perspective, psychological science had not come up with with a satisfying expla- nation for their evolutionary significance until recently. ways. Anger creates the urge to attack, The Broaden-and-Build Theory figure. Neither choice is right or fear the urge to escape and disgust the We gain some insight into the adaptive wrong, but one comparison figure re- urge to expectorate (Figure 2). Of course, role of positive emotions if we aban- sembles the standard in global config- no theorist argues that people invari- don the framework used to under- uration, and the other in local, detailed ably act out these urges; rather, people’s stand the negative emotions. Instead of elements. Using this and similar mea- ideas about possible courses of action solving problems of immediate sur- sures, we found that, compared to narrow in on these specific urges. And vival, positive emotions solve prob- those in negative or neutral states, these urges are not simply thoughts ex- lems concerning personal growth and people who experience positive emo- isting in the mind. They embody spe- development. Experiencing a positive tions (as assessed by self-report or cific physiological changes that enable emotion leads to states of mind and to electromyographic signals from the the actions called forth. In the case of modes of behavior that indirectly pre- face) tend to choose the global config- fear, for example, a greater amount of pare an individual for later hard times. uration, suggesting a broadened pat- blood flows to the large muscle groups In my broaden-and-build theory, I pro- tern of thinking. to facilitate running. pose that the positive emotions broad- This tendency to promote a broader The models that emphasize the role en an individual’s momentary mind- -action repertoire is linked to a of these specific action tendencies typi- , and by doing so help to build variety of downstream effects of posi- cally cast the emotions as evolved enduring personal resources. We can tive emotions on thinking. Two decades adaptations. The negative emotions test these ideas by exploring the ways of by Alice Isen of Cornell have an intuitively obvious adaptive that positive emotions change how University and her colleagues have value: In an instant, they narrow our people think and how they behave. shown that people experiencing posi- thought-action repertoires to those that My students and I conducted experi- tive (feelings) think differently. best promoted our ancestors’ survival ments in which we induced certain One series of experiments tested cre- in life-threatening situations. In this emotions in people by having them ative thinking using such tests as Med- view, negative emotions are efficient watch short, emotionally evocative film nick’s Remote Associates Test, which solutions to recurrent problems that clips. We elicited joy by showing a herd asks people to think of a word that re- our ancestors faced. of playful penguins waddling and slid- lates to each of three other words. So, Positive emotions, on the other ing on the ice, we elicited serenity with for example, given the words mower, hand, aren’t so easily explained. From clips of peaceful nature scenes, we atomic and foreign, the correct answer is this evolutionary perspective, joy, elicited fear with films of people at pre- power (Figure 3, right). Although this test serenity and gratitude don’t seem as carious heights, and we elicited sadness was originally designed to assess indi- useful as fear, anger or disgust. The with scenes of deaths and funerals. We vidual differences in the presumably bodily changes, urges to act and the fa- also used a neutral “control” film of an stable trait of , Isen and col- cial expressions produced by positive old computer screen saver that elicited leagues showed that people experienc- emotions aren’t as specific or as obvi- no emotion at all. ing positive affect perform better on ously relevant to survival as those We then assessed the participant’s this test than people in neutral states. sparked by negative emotions. If posi- ability to think broadly. Using global- In other experiments, Isen and col- tive emotions didn’t promote our an- local visual processing tasks, we mea- leagues tested the clinical reasoning of cestors’ survival in life-threatening sit- sured whether they saw the “big pic- practicing physicians. They made some uations, then what good were they? ture” or focused on smaller details of the physicians feel good by giving Did they have any adaptive value at (Figure 3, left). The participant’s task is them a small bag of candy, then asked all? Perhaps they merely signaled the to judge which of two comparison fig- all of them to think aloud while they absence of threats. ures is more similar to a “standard” solved a case of a patient with liver dis-

332 American Scientist, Volume 91 © 2003 Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society. Reproduction with permission only. Contact [email protected]. ease. Content analyses revealed that physicians who felt good were faster to global-local Mednick’s integrate case information and less like- visual Remote Associates Test ly to become anchored on initial processing mower ? thoughts or come to premature closure atomic in their diagnosis. In yet another exper- iment, Isen and colleagues showed that foreign negotiators induced to feel good were more likely to discover integrative so- lutions in a bargaining task. Overall, 20 years of experiments by Figure 3. Psychological tests reveal that people tend to think broadly when they experience Isen and her colleagues show that positive emotions. A global-local visual processing test (left) asks participants to judge which of when people feel good, their thinking two comparison figures (bottom) is most similar to a standard figure (top). People experiencing becomes more creative, integrative, positive emotions tend to choose the figure that resembles the standard configuration in global flexible and open to information. configuration (the triangles). Similarly, people experiencing positive emotions score highly on tests of creativity such as Mednick’s Remote Associates Test (right), which asks people to think Even though positive emotions and of a word that relates to each of three other words. (The answer is in the text on the previous the broadened they create page.) The positive emotions broaden people’s mindsets, which allows them to solve problems are themselves short-lived, they can like this more readily. have deep and enduring effects. By momentarily broadening attention learned that after September 11 nearly tions buffered the resilient people and thinking, positive emotions can everyone felt sad, angry and somewhat against depression. lead to the discovery of novel ideas, afraid. And more than 70 percent were Gratitude was the most common actions and social bonds. For example, depressed. Yet the people who were positive emotion people felt after the joy and playfulness build a variety of originally identified as being resilient September 11th attacks. Feeling grate- resources. Consider children at in in the early part of 2001 felt positive ful was associated both with learning the schoolyard or enjoying a emotions strongly as well. They were many good things from the crisis and game of basketball in the gym. Al- also half as likely to be depressed. Our with increased levels of optimism. Re- though their immediate statistical analyses showed that their silient people made statements such as, may be simply hedonistic—to enjoy tendency to feel more positive emo- “I learned that most people in the the moment—they are at the same time building physical, intellectual, psychological and social resources. physical resources The physical activity leads to long- intellectual resources term improvements in health, the develop problem-solving develop coordination skills game-playing strategies develop prob- develop strength and lem-solving skills, and the cama- learn new information cardiovascular health raderie strengthens social bonds that may provide crucial support at some time in the future (Figure 4). Similar links between playfulness and later gains in physical, social and intellectu- al resources are also evident in nonhu- man animals, such as monkeys, rats and squirrels. In human beings, other positive states of mind and positive ac- tions work along similar lines: Savor- ing an experience solidifies life priori- ties; altruistic acts strengthen social ties and build skills for expressing love and care. These outcomes often endure long after the initial positive emotion has vanished. My students and I recently tested these ideas by surveying a group of social resources psychological resources people to examine their resilience and develop resilience and optimism optimism. The people were originally solidify bonds interviewed in the early months of make new bonds develop sense of identity and 2001, and then again in the days after orientation the September 11th terrorist attacks. We asked them to identify the emo- Figure 4. Positive emotions broaden people’s momentary thought-action repertoires. Joy, for tions they were feeling, what they had example, encourages playful behavior. These broadened thought-action repertoires in turn learned from the attacks and how opti- build intellectual, physical, social and psychological resources for the future. Such resources mistic they were about the future. We translate into greater odds of survival and reproductive success. www.americanscientist.org © 2003 Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society. Reproduction 2003 July–August 333 with permission only. Contact [email protected]. anxiety-provoking 1situation 2 short films shown 3 cardiovascular recovery amusement

contentment

no emotion

sadness

0 10 20 30 40 50 time (seconds)

Figure 5. Undoing hypothesis suggests that positive emotions “undo” the lingering effects of negative emotions. This was examined by pro- voking anxiety in a group of participants by asking them to prepare a speech under time pressure. After learning that they did not have to de- liver their speeches after all, the participants were shown one of four films, eliciting either amusement, contentment, no emotion or sadness. Measurements of the participants’ heart rate, blood pressure and peripheral vasoconstriction revealed that feeling positive emotions leads to the quickest recovery to baseline measures obtained before they were placed in the anxiety-provoking situation. These undoing effects may part- ly explain the longevity of people who experience positive emotions more often.

world are inherently good.” Put differ- faced with threats to life or limb, these man primates reveal that recurrent ently, feeling grateful broadened posi- greater resources translated into greater emotion-related cardiovascular activi- tive learning, which in turn built opti- odds of survival and greater odds of liv- ty also appears to injure the inner walls mism, just as the broaden-and-build ing long enough to reproduce. of arteries and initiate atherosclerosis. theory suggests. Because the positive emotions broad- My students and I have recently The Undoing Hypothesis en people’s thought-and-action reper- completed an experimental test of the We might also ask whether there are toires, they may also loosen the hold building effect of positive emotions. other immediate benefits to experienc- that negative emotions gain on both Over the course of a month-long study ing positive emotions, aside from the mind and body, dismantle preparation of daily experiences, we induced one tautology that they make us “feel for specific action and undo the physi- group of college students to feel more good.” One effect relates to how people ological effects of negative emotions. positive emotions by asking them to cope with their negative emotions. If My colleagues and I tested this undo- find the positive and long- negative emotions narrow people’s ing hypothesis in a series of experi- term benefit within their best, worst mindsets and positive emotions broad- ments. We began by inducing a negative and seemingly ordinary experiences en them, then perhaps positive emo- emotion: We told participants that they each day. At the end of the month, tions undo the lingering effects of neg- had one minute to prepare a speech that compared to others who did not make ative emotions. would be videotaped and evaluated by this daily effort to find positive mean- Such effects may extend to the phys- their peers. The speech task induced the ing, those who did showed increases iological realm. The negative emotions subjective feeling of anxiety as well as in . have distinct physiological responses increases in heart rate, peripheral vaso- So “feeling good” does far more than associated with them—autonomic ac- constriction and blood pressure. We signal the absence of threats. It can tivity (as mentioned earlier), including then randomly assigned the participants transform people for the better, making cardiovascular activity, which repre- to view one of four films: two films them more optimistic, resilient and so- sents the body’s preparation for specif- evoked mild positive emotions (amuse- cially connected. Indeed, this insight ic action. A number of studies suggest ment and contentment), a third served might solve the evolutionary mystery that the cardiovascular activity associ- as a neutral control condition and a of positive emotions: Simply by experi- ated with stress and negative emo- fourth elicited sadness. encing positive emotions, our ancestors tions, especially if prolonged and re- We then measured the time elapsed would have naturally accrued more current, can promote or exacerbate from the beginning of the randomly as- personal resources. And when later heart disease. Experiments on nonhu- signed film until the cardiovascular re-

334 American Scientist, Volume 91 © 2003 Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society. Reproduction with permission only. Contact [email protected]. actions induced by the speech task re- an “upward spiral” of continued powerful ally. As John Milton told us, turned to each participant’s baseline growth and thriving. “The mind is its own place, and in itself levels. The results were consistent: But positive emotions don’t just can make a heaven of hell, a hell of Those individuals who watched the transform individuals. I’ve argued that heaven.” The new science of positive two positive-emotion films recovered they may also transform groups of peo- psychology is beginning to unravel to their baseline cardiovascular activity ple, within communities and organiza- how such transformations can take sooner than those who watched the tions. Community transformation be- place. Think about the good in the neutral film. Those who watched the comes possible because each person’s world, or otherwise find positive mean- sad film showed the most delayed re- positive emotion can resound through ing, and you seed your own positive covery (Figure 5). Positive emotions others. Take helpful, compassionate acts emotions. A focus on goodness cannot had a clear and consistent effect of un- as an example. Isen demonstrated that only change your life and your com- doing the cardiovascular repercussions people who experience positive emo- munity, but perhaps also the world, of negative emotions. tions become more helpful to others. Yet and in time create a heaven on earth. At this point the cognitive and phys- being helpful not only springs from iological mechanisms of the undoing positive emotions, it also produces pos- Acknowledgments effect are unknown. It may be that itive emotions. People who give help, The author would like to thank the Univer- broadening one’s cognitive perspective for instance, can feel proud of their sity of Michigan, the National Institute of by feeling positive emotions mediates good deeds and so experience contin- (MH59615) and the John the physiological undoing. Such ideas ued good feelings. Plus, people who re- Templeton Foundation for supporting some need further exploration. ceive help can feel grateful, and those of the research described in this article. who merely witness good deeds can Ending on a Positive Note feel elevated. Each of these positive Bibliography So how do the positive emotions pro- emotions—pride, gratitude and eleva- Aspinwall, L. G., and U. M. Staudinger. 2003. A mote longevity? Why did the happy tion—can in turn broaden people’s Psychology of Human Strengths: Fundamental nuns live so long? It seems that posi- mindsets and inspire further compas- Questions and Future Directions for a Positive Psychology. Washington, D.C.: American tive emotions do more than simply feel sionate acts. So, by creating chains of Psychological Association. good in the present. The undoing ef- events that carry positive meaning for Danner, D. D., D. A. Snowdon and W. V. fect suggests that positive emotions others, positive emotions can trigger Friesen. 2001. Positive emotions in early life can reduce the physiological “damage” upward spirals that transform commu- and longevity: Findings from the nun study. on the cardiovascular system sustained nities into more cohesive, moral and Journal of Personality and by feeling negative emotions. But some harmonious social organizations. 80:804–813. Fredrickson, B. L. 1998. What good are posi- other research suggests that there’s All of this suggests that we need to tive emotions? Review of General Psychology more to it than that. It appears that ex- develop methods to experience more 2:300–319. periencing positive emotions increases positive emotions more often. Al- Fredrickson, B. L. 2000. Cultivating positive the likelihood that one will feel good though the use of humor, laughter and emotions to optimize health and well-being. in the future. other direct attempts to stimulate posi- Prevention and Treatment 3. http:// My colleague Thomas Joiner and I tive emotions are occasionally suitable, journals.apa.org/prevention/volume3/ toc-mar07-00.html sought to test whether positive affect they often seem poor choices, especially Fredrickson, B. L. 2001. The role of positive and broadened thinking mutually en- in trying times. Based on our recent ex- emotions in positive psychology: The hance each other—so that experiencing periment with college students, my ad- broaden-and-build theory of positive emo- one produces the other, which in turn vice would be to cultivate positive emo- tions. American Psychologist 56:218–226. encourages more of the first one, and tions indirectly by finding positive Fredrickson, B. L., and T. Joiner. 2002. Positive so on in a mutually reinforcing ascent meaning within current circumstances. emotions trigger upward spirals toward emotional well-being. Psychological Science to greater well-being. We measured Positive meaning can be obtained by 13:172–175. positive affect and broadened thinking finding benefits within adversity, by in- Fredrickson, B. L., and R. W. Levenson. 1998. strategies in 138 college students on fusing ordinary events with meaning Positive emotions speed recovery from the two separate occasions, five weeks and by effective problem solving. You cardiovascular sequelae of negative emo- apart (times T1 and T2), with standard can find benefits in a grim world, for tions. and Emotion 12:191–220. psychological tests. When we com- instance, by focusing on the newfound Fredrickson, B. L., M. M. Tugade, C. E. Waugh pared the students’ responses on both strengths and resolve within yourself and G. Larkin. 2003. What good are posi- tive emotions in crises?: A prospective occasions we found some very inter- and others. You can infuse ordinary study of resilience and emotions following esting results: Positive affect at T1 pre- events with meaning by expressing ap- the terrorist attacks on the United States on dicted increases in both positive affect preciation, love and gratitude, even for September 11th, 2001. Journal of Personality and broadened thinking at T2; and simple things. And you can find posi- and Social Psychology 84:365–376. broadened thinking at T1 predicted in- tive meaning through problem solving Isen, A. M. 1987. Positive affect, cognitive processes and social behavior. Advances in creases in both positive affect and by supporting compassionate acts to- Experimental Social Psychology 20:203–253. broadened thinking at T2. Further sta- ward people in need. So although the tistical analyses revealed that there was active ingredient within growth and re- indeed a mutually reinforcing effect be- silience may be positive emotions, the For relevant Web links, consult this issue of tween positive affect and broadened leverage point for accessing these bene- American Scientist Online: thinking. These results suggest that fits is finding positive meaning. http://www.americanscientist.org/ people who regularly feel positive So, what good is it to think about the template/IssueTOC/issue/394 emotions are in some respects lifted on good in the world? The mind can be a www.americanscientist.org © 2003 Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society. Reproduction 2003 July–August 335 with permission only. Contact [email protected].