Changing Behaviour in Schools

My latest article for Positive Psychology News Daily is a review of a new Positive Psychology-based book by ed psych and consultant Sue Roffey, called Changing Behaviour in Schools: Promoting Positive Relationships and Well-being.

One of the great strengths of this book is its breadth, not just in terms of aims but also its evidence base. It draws on quantitative research from more than a dozen areas including restorative approaches, school culture and leadership, mental health, and values education, not just positive psychology. Thus the suggested approaches have a multi-dimensional foundation.  Not surprisingly, there isn’t space in just over 200 pages to describe positive psychology theories or research in great depth.

Roffey makes use of most of the main positive psychology concepts, such as flow, strengths, resilience, optimism, positive emotions, and emotional intelligence, although with the exception of emotional intelligence, they aren’t described in detail. Depending on your expectations and your association with positive psychology, this might be a disappointment or a welcome relief! I particularly liked the chapter on Being and Becoming Emotionally Literate, with its 11 dimensions of social and emotional literacy, and numerous questions for personal development.

I love the core message, which is that school can be a positive transformational experience, and that building positive relationships and school connectedness lead to both improved learning and better behaviour for all students.

Despite its limitations, I think this is a fabulous resource book for anyone working in primary or secondary education. Dip into almost any page and you will find some gem of information, a question that will challenge your thinking, an activity, or an insightful case study. If you picked up this book expecting it to help you manage challenging student behaviour you may be in for a surprise. It does this exceeding well in my opinion, but it does much more than that.

This book sets out the expectation that everyone in an education role, every teacher, trainee, teaching assistant, support person, and early childhood practitioner, can be a role model of well-being. Changing behaviour is schools is based on the premise that a theoretical knowledge of the subject isn’t sufficient. Teachers have to be able to do well-being in order to teach well-being.

For the full review, click here.

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

Most people with an interest in psychology have heard of Maslow’s theory of motivation and hierarchy of needs, which suggest that we’re driven to satisfy basic physiological needs (such as for food and shelter) first, then to satisfy our needs for safety, love and belonging, self-esteem and lastly self-actualization.

For those interested in positive psychology, there are many unanswered questions about the link between such needs and subjective well-being (SWB) which is why this new research by Louis Tay and Ed Diener* caught my eye today.  Some of the questions tackled in the study include whether needs really are universal and if so whether they are related to subjective well-being (SWB) in all cultures, and whether needs are individually required or influence well-being synergistically.

As this is a pretty complex piece of research, containing multiple studies, there isn’t space here to present the findings in detail, so the focus is on the things that stand out most.

Tay and Diener investigated  six types of needs (i.e. basic, safety, social support, respect, mastery and autonomy). When combined, the fulfillment of  these six needs explained between 10% and 23% of the total variance in SWB, depending on which aspect of SWB we’re referring to.  In terms of life evaluation, having needs met explained 13% of the variance; in terms of positive emotions, 23% of the variance; in terms of negative emotions, 10%. Tay and Diener refer to these percentages as substantial. I’m not sure I agree.

In order to understand which of the six needs is most important, these percentages have been broken down even further;  we’re told that

* basic needs were the strongest predictor of life evaluations (8%)

* respect and social needs were the important predictors of positive emotions  (8% and 5.5% respectively), and

* respect, basic and autonomy  needs were the important predictors of negative emotions (2.5%,  2.3% and 2.2%  respectively).

I don’t know about you, but I thought these percentages were surprisingly small.

To read the full article in Positive Psychology News, click here.

* Tay, L. & Diener, E. (2011). Needs and subjective well-being around the world. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

Image:

Maslow hierarchy from creative chaos, Conversations with Dina

City of Big Shoulders

One of the aspects of studying positive psychology which really appeals to me is its sheer breadth – the fact that it applies in so many fields of human endeavour and experience.  Positive psychology appears in disciplines as diverse as art and design, education, politics, and business. So this new research which looks at urban positive psychology particularly caught my eye this week.

Most of the scientific research related to cities focuses on their geography, history, economy, or politics. Very few studies have looked at them from a psychological perspective. Why does this matter, you might wonder. Can psychology tell us anything interesting about cities and those who live in them anyway?

For more, read my posting to Positive Psychology News Daily

Image courtesy of  Creativity+ Timothy K Hamilton

Working Together

Here’s a link to my posting to Positive Psychology News Daily this month, called      ‘Creating Strong Bonds in the Workplace’, which gives you some of the major theories and practical applications of positive psychology for developing positive relationships at work.

As usual, feel free to leave your thoughts and comment here, or on the PPND website.

Image: thanks to enfad

Family Meal

Here’s a link to my article on Positive Psychology News Daily this month, about  the benefits associated with eating together.

If you’d like to comment, feel free to do that here or on the PPND website.

Thanks!

Image: courtesy of sunface13

So it might be quite surprising to find that psychology research shows that people who communicate via a computer (such as email, Internet chat room or a social networking site) are more friendly, disclose more information about themselves and thus can develop a close relationship more quickly than if they meet face-to-face. This is one reason why organisations should consider using technologies such as social networking to create communities and boost engagement in the workplace.

There are a number of theories which contribute to this phenomenon:

Anonymity:

It has been suggested that the reason people tend to be more open if they communicate through a computer is due to anonymity[1], the use of pseudonyms which are common in newsgroups and chat rooms [2] and ‘the strangers on a train’ phenomenon, whereby people tend to disclose a lot more information about themselves to others they think they’re unlikely to meet again[3]. Additionally research has also shown that people are more honest when asked questions by a computer than in a face-to-face meeting. What we don’t know, however, is whether the choice of the Internet in the first place is motivated by a predisposition to self-disclose.

Visibility:

People also disclose more when they are visually anonymous, which is typical in many forms of computer-mediated communication.  But when a web-cam is introduced into the equation, the amount of self-disclosure as well as the amount of talking is reduced[4]. Visual anonymity means that people are unencumbered by prejudice or stigma based on their physical appearance, gender or age, so interaction with others over the Internet/via a computer may be liberating and empowering, resulting in changes in how they see themselves e.g. developing their confidence and assertiveness.

Absence of non-verbal cues:

Visual anonymity also means an absence of the normal non-verbal cues, which in turn enables people to choose how they present themselves, for example, as more friendly, knowledgeable or empathic [5]. The computer thus acts as a medium for re-inventing oneself, consciously or unconsciously. This doesn’t mean that people are necessarily pretending to be someone they’re not; some researchers have suggested that communication via a computer is a medium to present the true and authentic self3.

Text-based rather than verbal:

There are a number of reason why communicating in writing differs to face-to-face interaction. Firstly, text-based interaction means that you have time to reflect on your message before sending it. The fact that you can choose how and when (or if) to respond means that you have the opportunity to present yourself in particular way. You are more in control of what you communicate (or not) and when.

Secondly, writing down feelings or experiences can be therapeutic and cause cognitive changes[6], which might encourage further self-disclosure.

De-individuation

De-individuation[7] is a process whereby certain social conditions (in particular anonymity) lead to changes in the way you perceive yourself and others, and result in less-restrained behaviour[8]. It has been suggested that this less-restrained behaviour is a reflection of the true self: ‘under the protective cloak of anonymity users can express the way they truly feel and think’.

Detached Attachment

Detached attachment, or ‘dettachment’, refers to the unique opposing features of an online relationship, in that it is distant and immediate at the same time. Online friends might be geographically separate, but they are actually in the same (cyber)space[9]. And whilst they are geographically separate, they are temporally and emotionally immediate.

Online relationships are thus a complex phenomenon, showing many paradoxical features. Although it’s often said that people are less friendly with their neighbours nowadays, electronic communication like social networking is enabling us to easily create and maintain social ties with people on the other side of the world, which was impossible 10 or 20 years ago. Research into social networking is still relatively new, and whilst the form of human relationships seems to be changing, the need to make close connections with our fellow beings is as important, if not more important, than ever. Technology can enable the creation and maintenance of friendships, you just need to be aware that they can develop more quickly than you think.

[2] Finn (1999)

[3] Bargh et al (2002)

[4] Joinson (2001).

[5] Tanis (2007)

[6] Pennebacker (1997)

[7] Zimbardo (1969)

[8] McKenna & Bargh (2000, p62)

[9] Cairncross (1997); Kellerman (2002)

Image: Looking Glass

These were questions asked by recent BBC research into neighbourliness. In response:

• 36% of us wouldn’t trust anyone on our street with a set of keys.
• surprisingly, in the younger age group (25-34 year olds), this is a whopping 48%!
• 22% of us believe our neighbourhoods have become less friendly in the last five years.

A lot of this has been attributed to the loss of local institutions (like schools, small shops, and Post Office closures), and the fact that people work further and further away from home. There are fewer and fewer reasons for people who live near each other to get together.

It’s interesting (and concerning) that British people are far less trusting than other Europeans – when measured by the World Values Survey, which asked ‘Generally speaking, would you say that most people can be trusted or that you need to be very careful in dealing with people?’. Britain is one of the few countries (along with the US) in which the levels of trust have been falling.

In 1981, 42.5% of British people said “yes most people can be trusted”. By 1998 this had fallen to 30.4% The levels of trust in other European countries has actually been rising over this same period of time – take Denmark for example, where the number who said “yes” rose from 45.9% to 64.1% between 1981 and 1999. Apparently Britain is the only European country in which levels of trust have been falling. Hmmmmm, makes you think doesn’t it?

But back to the more immediate question of you and your neighbours…if you think your neighbourhood is unfriendly, you can bet that they feel the same way. So, be bold! Invite a few round for a cup of coffee, or a drink one evening. And now that summer is on its way, you could even bring out the BBQ. Go on, take the first step – you’ll be pleasantly surprised how human your neighbours turn out to be.