Love 2.0 (32 page)

103   
wide array of benefits after just a few months of practicing LKM for an average of sixty minutes a week:
Fredrickson et al. (2008); Kok et al. (in press).

104   
striving too hard for happiness backfires:
Iris B. Mauss, Maya Tamir, Craig L. Anderson, and Nicole S. Savino (2011). “Can seeking happiness make people unhappy? Paradoxical effects of valuing happiness.”
Emotion
11(4): 807–15.

105   
whatever positive feelings you generate in LKM are likely to imbue the rest of your day with more positivity as well:
This comes from the data we gathered using the Day Reconstruction Method and published in Fredrickson et al. (2008).

105   
openness that can be readily spotted by those with whom you interact or cross paths:
Gross et al. (in press). See also Melissa M. Gross, Elizabeth A. Crane, and Barbara L. Fredrickson (2010). “Methodology for assessing bodily expression of emotion.”
Journal of nonverbal behavior
34(4): 223–48. See also Kathi J. Kemper and Hossam A. Shaltout (2011). “Non-verbal communication of compassion: Measuring psychophysiological effects.”
BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine
11: 132.

105   
Since nonverbal gestures are contagious, your openness also allows others to become more open and relaxed:
Tanya L. Chartrand and Rick van Baaran (2009). “Human mimicry.”
Advances in Experimental Social Psychology
41: 219–74. See also Kemper and Shaltout (2011).

105
You’re more likely to see things in a good light, give the benefit of the doubt, and be optimistic about the future and others’ potential:
Seunghee Han, Jennifer S. Lerner, and Dacher Keltner (2007). “Feelings and consumer decision making: The appraisal-tendency framework.”
Journal of Consumer Psychology
17(3): 158–68.

105
Your intonation becomes more upbeat and inviting:
Leher Singh, James L. Morgan, and Catherine T. Best (2002). “Infants’ listening preferences: Baby talk or happy talk?”
Infancy
3(3): 365–94.

Chapter 6

113
I exist as I am, that is enough
: Walt Whitman (1855/2009).
Leaves of Grass.
Nashville, Tennessee: American Renaissance.

115
studies show that self-directed, self-compassionate love is far more vital to your health and happiness than is oft-touted high self-esteem:
Mark R. Leary, Eleanor B. Tate, Claire E. Adams, Ashley Batts Allen, and Jessica Hancock (2007). “Self-compassion and reactions to unpleasant self-relevant events: The implications of treating oneself kindly.”
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
92(5): 887–904.

115
Kristin Neff, a developmental scientist at the University of Texas at Austin who has pioneered scientific assessment of a form of self-love that she calls
self-compassion
, has found this to be the case:
For an accessible review of relevant research, see Kristin Neff’s 2011 book,
Self-Compassion
:
Stop Beating Yourself Up and Leave Insecurity Behind.
William Morrow.

116
Sharon Salzberg, cofounder of the Insight Meditation Society, in Barre, Massachusetts, is perhaps the leading Western teacher of LKM:
To learn more, please visit
www.SharonSalzberg.com
.

119
American poet Galway Kinnell describes how Saint Francis gently put his hand on the forehead of a sow to remind her “in words and in touch” of her value:
This vivid poem was first published in 1980 in a volume entitled
Mortal Acts, Mortal Words.
Mariner Books.

119
As you recognize your own value and value-added,  . . . you open as a flower, “from within, from self-blessing”:
This is another phrasing and idea drawn from Galway Kinnell’s famous poem “Saint Francis and the Sow.”

121
Adopting this loving observers’ perspective on yourself can offer an “appreciative jolt” that allows you to see—and truly feel—how it is
that you add value to those around you:
I borrow the phrase “appreciative jolt” from the work on reflected best-self portraits by my colleagues at the Positive Organizational Scholarship Center at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business, which I describe in chapter 11 of
Positivity.
See also Laura Morgan Roberts, Jane E. Dutton, Gretchen M. Spreitzer, Emily D. Heaphy, and Robert E. Quinn (2005). “Composing the reflected best-self portrait: Building pathways for becoming extraordinary in work organizations.”
Academy of Management Review
30(4): 712–36.

128
Try your best Homer imitation now:
If you don’t know Homer Simpson, you can hear how he says this by looking up “D’oh!” on Wikipedia.

131
These critical ingredients are missing from much of the positive self-talk prescribed in the self-help industry: flexibility, openness, and realism:
Research by David Sherman and colleagues suggests that self-affirmation works best when people are unaware of its possible beneficial effects. See David K. Sherman, Geoffrey L. Cohen, Leif D. Nelson, A. David Nussbaum, Debra P. Bunyan, and Julio Garcia (2009). “Affirmed yet unaware: Exploring the role of awareness in the process of self-affirmation.”
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
97(5): 745–64.

132
“radical acceptance”:
Tara Brach (2004).
Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life with the Heart of a Buddha
. New York: Bantam.

138
it’s in the toughest times that harboring compassion toward yourself makes the biggest difference:
Leary et al. (2007).

Chapter 7

139
What is rich? Are you rich enough to help anybody?:
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1888/2004).
Emerson in Concert: A Memoir Written in the “Social Circle” in Concord, Massachusetts.
Whitefish, Montana: Kessinger Publishing.

139
People are most drawn to others who share roughly their same level of physical attractiveness:
For a summary of this classic work see the 1973 book by Zick Rubin,
Liking and Loving.
Holt, Rinehart and Winston.

140
You grab at opportunities to get more “goods” for yourself, with little regard for whom you may be pushing aside or harming along the way:
Piff et al. (2012).

140
the happiest among us are the ones who’ve simply shed this pernicious habit of social comparison:
Sonja Lyubomirsky and Lee Ross (1997). “Hedonic consequences of social comparison: A contrast of happy and unhappy
people.”
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
73(6): 1141–57. See also Sonja Lyubomirsky, Kari L. Tucker, and Fazilet Kasri (2001). “Responses to hedonically conflicting social comparisons: Comparing happy and unhappy people.”
European Journal of Social Psychology
31(5): 511–35.

142
compassionate responding like this is just as natural, just as hardwired, and just as beneficial to our species:
Stephanie D. Preston and Frans B. M. de Waal (2002). “Empathy: Its ultimate and proximate bases.”
Behavior and Brain Sciences
25(1): 1–20. See also Frans de Waal’s 2009 book
The Age of Empathy
:
Nature’s Lessons for a Kinder Society.
New York: Three Rivers Press.

143
it is precisely this infusion of positive emotions into negative emotional terrain that drives resilient people to bounce back:
Barbara L. Fredrickson, Michele M. Tugade, Christian E. Waugh, and Gregory R. Larkin (2003). “What good are positive emotions in crises? A prospective study of resilience and emotions following the terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11th, 2001.”
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
84(2): 365–76. See also Michele M. Tugade and Barbara L. Fredrickson (2004). “Resilient individuals use positive emotions to bounce back from negative emotional experiences.”
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
86(2): 320–33. For a review, see
chapter 6
in my 2009 book,
Positivity
.

144
hope: Even as you fear the worse, you yearn for better:
I draw this description of hope from the late Richard S. Lazarus (1991).
Emotion and Adaptation.
New York: Oxford University Press.

144
you’re connected to them through your shared experience of this difficulty:
Simply recognizing these similarities can go a long way toward eliminating negativity toward foreigners. See Matt Motyl, Joshua Hart, Tom Pyszczynski, David Weise, Molly Maxfield, and Angelika Siedel (2011). “Subtle priming of shared human experiences eliminates threat-induced negativity toward Arabs, immigrants, and peace-making.”
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology
47(6): 1179–84.

147
Studies show that the continuous support that a doula provides can improve health outcomes for both the mother and the baby:
Ellen D. Hodnett, Simon Gates, G. Justus Hofmeyr, Carol Sakala, and Julie Weston (2011). “Continuous support for women during childbirth.”
Cochrane Database Systematic Reviews
2: CD003766.

153
One rigorous examination of people’s day-to-day lives concludes that good events outnumber bad events by margins of about 3 to 1:
Shigehiro
Oishi, Ed Diener, Dong-Won Choi, Chu Kim-Prieto, and Incheol Choi (2007). “The dynamics of daily events and well-being across cultures: When less is more.”
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
93(4): 685–98.

153
it’s the frequency, not the magnitude of good events, that predicts your overall well-being:
Ed Diener, Ed Sandvik, and William Pavot (2009). “Happiness is the frequency, not the intensity, of positive versus negative affect.” In
Assessing Well-being: The Collected Works of Ed Diener
, edited by Ed Diener, pp. 213–31. Springer.

153
My earlier research identifies 3 to 1 as a key tipping point in people’s emotional experiences:
Barbara L. Fredrickson and Marcial F. Losada (2005). “Positive affect and the complex dynamics of human flourishing.”
American Psychologist
60(7): 678–86. See also
chapter 7
in
Positivity
(2009) for more details on the origins and evidence for the positivity ratio tipping point.

154
people who score higher on our measure of this tendency even receive more emotional uplift from a hug:
Lahnna I. Catalino, Kimberly A. Coffey, and Barbara L. Fredrickson (2012). “Prioritizing Positivity.” Manuscript in preparation.

155
Several randomized controlled trials in positive psychology have confirmed that learning to cherish your own good fortune—for instance, by counting up at least three blessings each day—can boost your gratitude, which in turn strengthens your social bonds and creates abiding happiness, even physical health:
Seligman et al. (2005). See also Robert Emmons’s 2007 book,
Thanks!
:
How the New Science of Gratitude Can Make You Happier.
New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

156
offering social support when things go
right
is a more efficient way to build relationships than offering it when things go wrong:
Shelly L. Gable, Courtney L. Gosnell, Natalya Maisel, and Amy Strachman (in press). “Safely testing the alarm: Close others’ responses to personal positive events.”
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

Chapter 8

161
To love one person with a private love is poor and miserable; to love all is glorious:
Thomas Traherne (1908/2007).
Centuries of Meditations.
Whitefish, Montana: Kessinger Publishing.

161
positive emotions, in and of themselves, unlock your ability to really see other people:
Kareem J. Johnson and Barbara L. Fredrickson (2005). “We all look the same to me: Positive emotions eliminate the own-race bias in face recognition.”
Psychological Science
16(11): 875–81. See also Waugh and Fredrickson (2006).

166
I spent several years early in my career cataloging the psychological damage done to girls and women who face the message that they can be reduced to how they look:
Fredrickson et al. (2011).

170
Thank you for teaching Mr. Wills to be + [positive], [heart] Tisha and Kelly:
Not their real names.

178
To date, I’ve written exactly one paper that has religion in its title, and that was merely a commentary offering my two cents on why religious involvement predicts good health:
Barbara L. Fredrickson (2002). “How does religion benefit health and well-being? Are positive emotions active ingredients?”
Psychological Inquiry
13(3): 209–13.

180
“Feeling is the deeper source of religion, and … philosophical and theological formulas are secondary products, like translations of a text into another tongue”:
Quoted from page 470 of the 2002 edition of William James’s 1902 classic,
The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature
.
New York: The Modern Library Classics.

180
Like art, the truths of religion … more fully than usual and experience an enhancement of being:
Drawn from page 10 of Karen Armstrong’s 2009 book,
The Case for God.
New York: Knopf.

181
experiences of positive emotions can open those doors as well, expanding your outlook on life and setting off spiritual experiences:
Patty Van Cappellen and Vassilis Saraglou (2011). “Awe activates religious and spiritual feelings and behavioral intention
.
”
Psychology of Religion and Spirituality
. Advance online publication. doi: 10.1037/a0025986.

182
“to take the next step, to see the unknown as an adventure, to launch a journey” … “an active, open state that makes us willing to explore”:
These two quotes from Sharon Salzberg are drawn from pages 12 and 67, respectively, of her 2002 book,
Faith: Trusting Your Own Deepest Experience.
New York: Riverhead Books.