The Houses of Parliament and Big Ben

In this month’s article for Positive Psychology News, I look at the government’s plans to measure the UK’s well-being in 2011, and Martin Seligman’s new Well-being Theory.

Stop Press: the Office for National Statistics has now announced the four well-being related questions that will be included in this year’s Integrated Household Survey. They are:

• Overall, how satisfied are you with your life nowadays?
• Overall, how happy did you feel yesterday?
• Overall, how anxious did you feel yesterday?
• Overall, to what extent do you feel the things you do in your life are worthwhile?

Image: The British Parliament & Big Ben: ** Maurice **

Switch

The numbers of employees who work from home, so-called teleworkers, has risen dramatically in the past decade or so, enabled by the internet and the availability of high-speed broadband in many areas of the country.

In the US it’s the same. According to Fortune Magazine this week, nearly half of U.S.-based companies currently have employees who telework, or work from outside the office. And President Obama has just signed into law the 2010 Telework Enhancement Act, which gives government agencies six months to establish a policy on working outside the office and create training programmes for teleworkers and their managers. It is estimated that the bill will affect approximately 1.2 million government workers.

On the one hand, if you’re fairly well-disciplined and not easily distracted by the lure of all those day-time chat shows discussing marital misdemeanors, last night’s washing-up piled up in the sink, or the possibility of cleaning out the rubbish bins (yes, for the easily tempted, even these can seem highly preferable to writing up that project report!), the ability to work from home is an absolute god-send.

On the other hand, when your home is also your workplace, does it become more difficult to switch off from work, to focus on the family instead of business, or to think about domestic issues rather than work issues? Do you need different skills in order to navigate a healthy  path between being effective when you’re working at home and effective when you’re at home and not working?

Interestingly, a recent piece of research from Charlotte Fritz at Portland State University and her colleagues Maya Yankelevich, Anna Zarubin and Patricia Barger at Bowling Green State University, has explored the relationship between switching off from work during non-work time (a.k.a. ‘psychological detachment’), well-being and productivity.

I think that most people would probably agree that being able to distance yourself mentally from work when you’ve left the workplace is a good thing because it helps you to recharge your mental, emotional and physical batteries. The research suggests that there is a linear relationship between psychological detachment and well-being (using the Oldenburg Burnout Inventory which measures emotional exhaustion, and the Satisfaction with Life Scale) which means the more you switch off, the higher your well-being, and vice versa.

In terms of productivity, the study asked the employees’ co-workers to rate their task performance and also their personal initiative over the past couple of weeks. The results suggest that medium levels of detachment are associated with the highest levels of job performance, whereas both very high and very low detachment are linked with lower levels of performance, in other words, the relationship is curvilinear. So whilst switching off completely is linked to a higher level of happiness, it is also linked with lower performance at work.

For more on the subject of working from home,  psychological detachment, well-being and productivity, read my posting to Positive Psychology News Daily.

Image courtesy of javez

* Hope and Hell are both located in Michigan…

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

General Larking About

As the mother of a rapidly-growing boy (aged 8, going on 18), I was very interested to come across the Positive Masculinity Model, and wondered what I could learn from it that would be useful to me as a parent.   Below is my Positive Psychology News Daily article on the subject in full.

I probably wouldn’t have been drawn to write on this subject had it not been for Louisa Jewell’s beautifully-crafted article on Positive Psychology and Femininity, so thanks Louisa!

I’m not going to explore whether men’s happiness has gone up or down in the last 30+ years, however, although that would be a fascinating topic. Instead I’m interested in how Positive Psychology can be used to support troubled men and boys. I was interested to learn about strengths-based approach known as Positive Masculinity. As the mother of a rapidly-growing boy (aged 8, going on 18), I was very interested to come across the Positive Masculinity Model, and wondered what I could learn from it that would be useful to me as a parent.

What Came Before: New Psychology of Men (NPM): A Deficit Model

According to the authors of Identifying, Affirming and Building upon Male Strengths: the Positive Psychology/Positive Masculinity Model of Psychotherapy with Boys and Men, much work into the psychology of men and masculinity over the past couple of decades has been dominated by the deficit approach, and what has been called The New Psychology of Men (NPM).

In short, NPM is an approach to men and to masculinity which not only questions traditional norms of the male role (such as competitiveness, toughness, emotional stoicism), but also takes the view that male problems such as aggression, detached fathering, and neglecting health are the unfortunate but predictable results of the male socialization process. In other words, NPM is a deficit model of male development, which leads to a remedial approach to help men overcome their problems.

Positive Masculinity Model as an Alternative

This article by Mark Kiselica at the College of New Jersey and his colleague Matt Englar-Carlson at California State University – Fullerton, suggests that a far more effective way of working is the Positive Masculinity Model – a framework which accentuates the positive aspects of male development. The goal, they say, is to help men and boys learn and embrace healthy and constructive aspects of masculinity.

Wow! As media headlines tend to focus on the problems that men and boys cause in society (boys being disruptive in the classroom, youths making a nuisance of themselves on street corners, men showing aggression in a million and one ways) it makes a refreshing change to read something that celebrates the positive aspects of being male. Was I skeptical? Yes, but too intrigued not to read further!

So what exactly is Positive Masculinity – or more accurately the Positive Psychology/Positive Masculinity model (PPPM)? In short it’s an approach based on two Positive Psychology principles:

• Emphasizing strengths and virtue over disease, weakness, and damage
• Focusing on building in men and boys what is right rather than fixing what is wrong

Male Bonding

Male Strengths

So far, so good. But what exactly are these male strengths that we should be celebrating? The authors list 10 representative male strengths:

1. Male relational styles – developing relationships through having fun, doing active things, doing shared activities (such as participating in sport)
2. Male ways of caring – being raised with  the expectation that they must care for and protect their family and friends
3. Generative fatherhood –  the way a father is committed to caring for the next generation through meeting the needs of his children
4. Male self-reliance – the way men and boys use their own resources to confront life’s challenges (I’m thinking about the cave in John Gray’s Men are from Mars…)
5. The worker/provider tradition in men – the way men naturally take on the role of the breadwinner and acquire a sense of meaning and purpose through work
6. Male courage, daring, and risk-taking – e.g. in their choice of work or sport (but balanced by good judgment against foolhardiness and recklessness)
7. The group orientation of men and boys – the way they band together to achieve a common purpose
8. The humanitarian service of fraternal organizations – developing social interest and a sense of belonging through involvement in male organizations
9. Men’s use of humor – as a way to attain intimacy, have fun, develop and maintain relationships, show they care, reduce tension, and manage conflict
10. Male heroism – demonstrating exceptional nobility in the way they lead their lives, overcoming great obstacles, or making great contributions to others.

Hmmmmm. I’m not sure that these are the same as the character strengths that Chris Peterson and Martin Seligman describe (and on which the VIA inventory of strengths is based), or the same as  Alex Linley’s definition.

It's raining men

Taking a Positive Approach

But maybe that doesn’t matter. Maybe what’s more important is taking a positive approach, and using strengths (however they’re defined) to find ways to build on what works, rather than to focus on what’s wrong. The authors suggest that professionals working with troubled men and boys in the mental health field could use the PPPM to

1. Help clients understand their areas of growth
2. Demonstrate respect for and confidence in their clients
3. Help clients identify more effective alternative beliefs

With great anticipation I read the concluding case study, in which the PPPM is used with a male client who is experiencing conflict at home with his wife and their wayward 16 year old daughter. The case study primarily focuses on using the PPPM to build rapport with the client and develop his confidence and self-efficacy in tackling the conflicts. I was disappointed – I wasn’t convinced that the same result couldn’t have been achieved by any other empathic mental health practitioner without using the PPPM. Nevertheless the great value of this article is the suggestion that men may be more willing and able to overcome their normal reluctance to seek help if practitioners focused on ‘positive masculinity’ instead of on male deficits, by using the PPPM as a bridge to the real issues.

Open Questions

The topic of ‘positive masculinity’ is in its infancy and requires a great deal more development, research, and refinement.  Even so, it’s an exciting new development in the psychology of men and masculinity, which happily leaves us with many more questions to be answered. Here are a few to get you thinking:

Q.  As a man, how do you identify with the 10 male strengths outlined above?

Q.  If there were an equivalent ‘Positive Femininity Model’, what would it look like? And would it help overcome the issues raised in Louisa Jewell’s article?

References

Kiselica, M.S. & Englar-Carlson, M. (2010). Identifying, affirming and building upon male strengths: the Positive Psychology/Positive Masculinity model of psychotherapy with boys and men. Psychotherapy Theory, Research, Practice, Training, 47(3), 276-287.

Linley, P. A. (2008). Average to A+: Realising Strengths in Yourself and Others. Coventry, UK: CAPP Press.

Peterson, C. & Seligman, M. (2004). Character strengths and virtues: A handbook and classification. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Images

General larking about courtesy of garethjmsaunders

Male Bonding courtesy of Shawn Allen

It’s raining men courtesy of Ewan Thot

Cheers

In the Positive Psychology Masterclasses that my colleague Miriam Akhtar and I co-facilitate, one of the important topics we cover is how to develop positive relationships. Many people who attend want to know what positive psychology can tell them about making their relationships more successful, more enjoyable and more enduring. Our group activities include practicing a technique called Active Constructive Responding, in other words, responding to other people’s good news with enthusiasm, energy, and engagement. Research suggests that this style of communication helps others capitalize on their good news, conveys understanding, validation and caring, and leads to greater well-being….

For the full story, see Positive Psychology News Daily

Image courtesy of  Håkan Dahlström