Positive Traits

What are “traits”?

• Enduring individual disposition: characteristic
way of thinking, feeling and acting across
situations
• “top down” influence
• Inner disposition (top) exert stable and
pervasive influences on many aspects of our
lives (down) that affect our health and
happiness
 What are “positive traits”?
• Positive traits? Contribute
to…
– Subjective well being;
– Eudaimonic well being
(PWB, social)
– Physical health
– Good character
• But…consider context,
culture, development
(desirable in one, but
undesirable in another)
 Positive Traits
• Positive affectivity
• Personality traits
• Optimism
• Self-esteem
 Affectivity
• “hedonic capacity”- capacity for experiencing
positive emotions/pleasure
• PANAS - assesses diff. in characteristic emotional
experience
– High Positive Affectivity: frequent and intense periods
of pleasant enjoyable moods, generally cheerful,
enthusiastic
– High Negative Affectivity: frequent emotional episodes
involving feelings of anger, sadness, distress, guilt and
fear
• PA and NA are very stable; emerge early; genetic
basis (PA – 40%; NA – 55%)
 Personality
• 5 factors: extraversion, agreeableness,
openness, neuroticism, conscientiousness
• Independent factors describe the essential
features of individual personality
• Very stable across lifetime
• Highly heritable (50%)
• PA linked with E; NA linked with N;
overlapping constructs tapping same
underlying dimension?
 Personality
• Diener & Seligman (2002) - Identify undergrads in top 10%
of happiness & Compared to lowest 10%

• Happiness measures (global & daily reports)

– Global affect balance
– SWLS (3 times in semester)
– Daily affect balance (51 days)
– Peer informant affect balance

• 4 measures were standardized and the scores for each

individual were added. Highest and lowest 10% and average
people.
 Personality
• Discriminant function – determine whether
these new three measures would lead to the
same group assignment
– Memory event recall balance
– Trait self-description measure
– Suicide thoughts and behaviours
• Discarded from happy group if classified
differently
 Personality
• Factors that (might) influence high happiness:
– Personality (BIG 5)
– Psychopathology (MMPI)
– Social relationships
• “good relationships”: friends, family, romantic
• self & other rating
• time spent alone vs others
– Various other things: religiosity, exercise, sleep, TV
watching, substance use, achievement (GPA),
attractiveness (coded), and money
– (all been assoc. with WB in correlation studies)
 Personality
Descriptive results: “Happy
group”
• More daily PA than NA
(not ecstatic and not
always happy)
• 30 on SWL (out of 5-35
scale)
• Recall more good than
bad events
• Never thought about
suicide
 Personality
• Personality & psychopathology
– MMPI lowest (except hypomania)
– Big 5: E, A, and low N (O, C not significant)
• Social relationships
– Least time alone; most time socializing
– Highest on “good relationships” (self & peers)
• No difference:
– money perceptions; GPA; physical attractiveness;
smoking/drinking; sleep; TV, exercise; religious activity
• Good personality and social relationships: Necessary,
but not sufficient
 Big 5 and PWB
• Conscientiousness and openness show
relatively strong correlations with self-
acceptance, mastery, and purpose in life

• High Conscientiousness & good health

(exercise, avoid risky health behaviours)
Might extraverts be happier because the world
seems to “favour” them?
 Jung (1921) - Psychological Types
• Extraverts
– Drawn to external life of
people and activities
– Plunge into events
– Recharge when they
don’t socialize enough
 Jung (1921) - Introverts
• Drawn to inner world of thoughts and feelings
• Recharge by being alone
• Not necessarily shy (prefer less stimulation)
 World designed for extraverts
• Group projects
• Classroom
arrangements
• Communal and fluid
office space
• Valuing “people skills”
• TV protagonists
 Development of
Culture of Personality
• Importance of “first
impressions”
• Shows up in self-help books in
1920s
– “Masterful personality”
– Become a “mighty likeable
fellow”
– “to know what to say and how
to say it”
• Pharmaceutical consumption –
1955 – anti-anxiety drug
(Miltown)
Bias against introversion
 Other Implications
• 80-85% average & extracurricular activities
(well-rounded and social skills)
• Talkers perceived as smarter (even though
inaccurate), as better leaders, as more
likeable, even as better looking (phone study)
• Failure to distinguish between good
presentation skills and good ideas
 Optimism
2 ways of looking at optimism:
1) Optimism as an individual
disposition/trait
2) Optimism as an explanatory style
describing how people characteristically
interpret the causes of bad events in
their lives
 Optimism as trait/disposition
• Scheier and Carver
(1992)
• Dispositional optimism
– a global expectations
that the future will
bring a bounty of good
things and a scarcity of
bad things
• Pessimism – the future
will have more bad
outcomes than good
 Life Orientation Test (LOT-R)
1. In uncertain times, I usually expect the best.
2. It's easy for me to relax. (F)
3. If something can go wrong for me, it will.
4. I'm always optimistic about my future.
5. I enjoy my friends a lot. (F)
6. It's important for me to keep busy. (F)
7. I hardly ever expect things to go my way.
8. I don't get upset too easily. (F)
9. I rarely count on good things happening to me.
10. Overall, I expect more good things to happen to me than
bad.
 Some well-being outcomes
• Associated w/ better physical health, less depression,
work performance, educational attainment, etc.
(Scheier & Carver, 1993).
• Resource that fosters resistance to distress
– Resistance to postpartum depression
– Recovering from coronary bypass
– Dealing with breast cancer
– Caregiver stress
– Adjustment to college
• Ties to SES
 Optimism as an explanatory style
• Seligman: How they explain why
bad things happen
• Originally focused on thinking
patterns of persons with
depression
• Pessimists
– Stable (enduring & unlikely to change)
– Global (affect’s aspects of their lives)
– Internal (stems from self rather than
external)
• Optimists: unstable, specific,
external
 Explanatory Style Assessments
• Attributional Style Questionnaire (Peterson et
al., 1982)
– Brief descriptions of pos’t & neg’t events &
describe major cause & rate on internal-external,
stable-unstable, global-specific

• Content Analysis of Verbatim Explanations

(Peterson et al., 1985)
– Code explanations in written documents (naturally
occurring)
 Mechanisms
• Source of motivation
• Active coping aimed at problem solving
• Flexibility in coping (problem -> emotion focused)
• Broaden and build
 Too much?
• Unrealistic optimism
– “slaves to tyrannies of
optimism as pessimists are to
the tyrannies of pessimism”.
• Realistic/flexible optimism
– “flexible optimism- optimism
with its eyes open. We must
be able to use pessimism’s
keen sense of reality when we
need it, but without having to
dwell in its dark shadows”
 Defensive Pessimists (Cantor)
• coping strategy to prepare for anxiety-
provoking events
• set low expectations for performance,
regardless of how well they have done in the
past
• think through the possible negative outcomes
 Defensive Pessimism
• Positive functions
– Soften blow of failure; success a
pleasant surprise
– Prepare in advance to avoid failure
– “harness” anxiety into a productive
purpose
Example
 Defensive Pessimism

• As successful as optimists, but

diff strategy
• Need to follow to be
successful; if blocked, then
poor outcomes
• Emotional price – lower SE;
interpersonal costs
 Positive illusions
• Some optimism built into human nature?
• Suffer if view is “too close” to reality
• 4 positive illusions we share
– Better than average
– Rosy future
– Exaggerate control over our lives
– Attribute failures to external factors
• absence linked with mild depression
(depressive realism)
 Self-esteem
• Self-worth that results when the self judges
itself
• High SE: favourable view of self (competent,
likeable, attractive, successful)
• Low SE: uncertain or conflicted view of the self
• Trait-level: strong evidence for stability
• Strong predictor of PA & SWL (r = .6)
 Why self-esteem?
• Buffer & cope with
life experiences
• Sociometer theory –
self-esteem monitors
social inclusion &
exclusion
 Global Self-Esteem
• “I feel I have a number of good qualities”
• “I take a positive attitude toward myself”
• “I feel I am a person of worth, at least on an
equal plane with others”
 Contingencies of worth
• Global measures, too oversimplified
• Domain or category of outcome on which a
person staked his or her self-esteem
• Sources of self-esteem measure (Crocker et
al., 2003): Approval of others, Appearance.
Competition, Academic Competence, Virtue,
God’s love
• Powerful predictors of behaviour
 Self-esteem: The Dark Side
1) Wrong contingencies - area/domain of life
that is being continually frustrated and not
affirmed (e.g., school achievement)
2) Contingent (meeting standards) vs non-
contingent (unconditional worth)
3) Pursuit of SE may undermine PWB
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvtZBUSpl
r4
(go until 10:20)
 Self-compassion
• Getting research attention due to its strong
link to psychological health
• Relevant to all personal experiences of
suffering (inadequacies, failures, painful life
situations, etc.)
• 3 components
– Self-kindness (vs. self-judgement)
– Common humanity (vs. isolation)
– Mindfulness (vs. over-identification)
 Self-kindness
• Caring and understanding
with oneself (rather than
being harshly critical)
• Tone is kind and supportive
(rather than attacking and
berating)
• When life is stressful, may
pause and comfort, soothe
the self, before “fixing”
 Common humanity
• Recognizing that all
humans are imperfect
• Connects own flawed
condition to the shared
human condition
• As opposed to feeling
isolated from others
who are living “normal
happy lives”
 Mindfulness
• Being aware of painful
experiences so we can add
compassion
• Prevent being carried away
by the “story” (over-
identification), which can
lead to more suffering

• MBSR -> self—compassion

• MBSR -> self-compassion
(mediator) -> stress
reduction
 Self-compassion interventions
• Mindful Self-Compassion (MSC)
– 8 weeks, 2.5 hours/week; half-day
retreat
– Most self-compassion, 1 session to
mindfulness
– Formal and informal practices
– Experiential exercises, discussions,
homework
– Goal: variety of tools to increase SC
– “motivate themselves as they would a
caring friend”
 Self-compassion & WB
• Lower levels of anxiety & depression (Neff,
2012)
• Less rumination, perfectionism, and fear of
failure (Rockliff et al., 2008)
• Less likely to suppress unwanted thoughts
(Leary et al., 2007)
• Cope effectively with life stressors (academic
failure, childhood maltreatment, chronic pain)
 Self-compassion & WB
• More subjective well being (happiness)
• More psychological strengths (optimism,
wisdom, curiosity, exploration, initiative,
emotional intelligence)
• Improved relationship functioning (empathy,
altruism, perspective taking, forgiveness)
• Health behaviours: sticking to diet, reducing
smoking, seeing medical treatment, exercising
 Construal theory of happiness
• No truly objective life
events/circumstances
• Construal theory of
happiness: multiple cognitive
and motivational processes
moderate the impact of the
objective environment on
well-being
 Chronically happy people
• Lyubomirsky et al. (2001)
• Happy people: 4 item Subjective Happiness
Scale
• Presented happy/unhappy people with a
variety of judgement tasks:
– Social comparisons
– Event construal
– Self-reflection
 Social comparisons: Study
• Confederate performed better or worse on a task
(e.g., solving anagrams (fried-fired))
• When superior ….
– Happy & unhappy people: boost in moods, self-
confidence, evaluation of personal ability
– But happy people less impacted than unhappy
• When inferior:
– Unhappy people were happier & more self-confident
when doing poorly (but still better than peer), than when
did very well (but still worse than peer)
– Happy, less reactive to these comparisons
Social comparisons: Study
 Event Construal: Study
• “Very happy” report experiencing similar
types of positive & negative life events as
unhappy students
• But several weeks later…happy recall and
think about both events more favourably and
adaptively (e.g., humour, emphasizing
improvement)
Self-reflection
 Self-reflection
• Happy people are less likely to self-reflect and
dwell about themselves, their outcomes, and
their moods
• Unhappy – dwell & ruminate, further
reinforcing unhappiness
• Example:
– Outperformed by fellow students
– Then given a reading passage and questions
– Unhappy individuals spent longer reading a passage,
and poorer memory & comprehension
 Chronically happy people
• Findings: Live in two different subjective worlds!!
• Different ways of looking at life that reflects &
sustains characteristic emotional state