It’s all in the attitude

Preventative care and aggressive follow-up treatment may not be the only things one needs to combat maladies like heart disease and cancer. Optimism could also be critical for recovery and general well-being. This week the BBC highlighted a study in which optimistic women had lower risks of suffering from heart disease and death over an eight year period (Tindle & Steinbaum, 2009).  While this study links optimism and longevity, positive outlook is also associated with better health (Kamen & Seligman, 1987), greater achievement (Seligman, Nolen-Hoeksema, Thornton, and Thornton, 1990), persistence in achieving high-priority goals (Geers, Wellman, & Lassiter, 2009), lower levels of stress (Crosno, Rinaldo, Black, & Kelley (2009), and better emotional health (Matthews & Cook, 2008). What is it about optimism that provides such a wide variety of positive health and psychological outcomes?  It could be that optimists are more likely to engage in healthy behaviors and take better care of themselves. However, the research above suggests that above and beyond lifestyle differences the distinct outcomes associated with optimism could be attributed to optimists ability to recover from adversity better, view negative events as isolated and specific, as well as anticipate and respond proactively to stressors.

BBC: Optimistic women ‘live longer’

Optimism and Breast Cancer

Because I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and doggone it, people like me.

It has long been assumed that positive affirmations are the key to happiness. In fact, there are countless books, websites, and resources dedicated to encouraging people to engage in positive thinking by repeating favorable statements about the self. Oprah Winfrey, one of the most iconic social figures in the United States, often encourages her viewers to engage in self-affirmation. However, recent work has found that these practices may actually undermine self-esteem for certain people.

Joanne Wood and colleagues found that when compared to high self-esteem individuals, people with low self-esteem who repeated positive affirmations (e.g., “I am a lovable person”) actually experienced a worse mood and expressed feeling less lovable. Moreover, when low self-esteem individuals were asked to focus on the ways in which positive affirmations were true of them (positive focus), they actually experienced worse mood, lower state self-esteem, and lower happiness than individuals who were instructed to think about how the affirmation may or may not be true of them (neutral focus).

These findings indicate that while positive thinking may be somewhat effective for people high in self-esteem, it is likely to be detrimental for low self-esteem individuals, the group these affirmations are supposed to help. One can hope that with further research, the next wave of self-help products will be beneficial for the ones who need it most.

The Oprah Winfrey Show: The Secret and Positive Affirmation

Wood, J. V., Perunovic, W. Q., & Lee, J. W. (2009). Positive Self-Statements: Power for Some, Peril for Others.

Cubicle-phobia in the 21st century

There is nothing new about a concern for losing touch with nature. “When we get piled upon one another in large cities,” wrote Thomas Jefferson to Uriah Forest, “we shall become corrupt as in Europe, and go to eating one another as they do there” (p. 479 in J.P. Boyd (Ed.) The papers of Thomas Jefferson). Cannibalism or not, Europe seems to be doing just fine.

Yet New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof recently took a break from Darfur and wrote two get-back-to-nature pieces. The first is a report on Richard Louv’s book detailing “nature-deficit disorder,” which along with obesity and autism is what Louv suggests will happen to kids who are stuck indoors. Kristof’s second piece describes “how to pry yourself and your family off the keyboard and venture into the wild.”

The implications of needing access to nature are rather unpleasant. Namely, those who recreate the most are white and middle- to upper-class – the same people who can both afford to hike and camp (“Try the ‘ultralight’ gear,” suggests Kristof), and who have the means and leisure to leave the city.

Nevertheless, some wilderness lovers both praise the essentialness of their experiences, and account for why they sleep under a tent while a guy in Philadelphia sleeps under an overpass. Attribution theory explains how people link the outcome of having access to nature (and others’ lack of access) to internal rather than external attributes. Kristof’s how-to guide is meant to give people the extra motivation for that trip to nature. And rather than because of structural conditions, Louv suggests a major reason children stay away from nature is fear.

Kristof’s how-to guide is said to be for readers who responded to the first article, “Camping in the woods sounds gloriously refreshing! But I wouldn’t know where to begin, and, ugh, what if I get eaten by a bear?”

Heroes and Villains

According to Alsford, M. (2006) both heroes and villains come from situations of having experienced parental loss at an early age, which instils fear. In the hero the fear of loss results in a drive for social acceptance from benevolent achievement(s), whereas in the villain this fear leads to an absence of compassion and conscience, which results in the manipulation and control of others.

This kind of theory may well be plausible in explaining the origins of Ronnie Biggs’ criminal life, yet it is less satisfactory when transferred to Harry Patch. Although Harry Patch is undoubtedly a hero, his heroic achievements during World War 1 and 11 are as much about situational factors and current social values as they are about internal drive and the self. Psychological theories therefore, would prove more plausible if they incorporated broader social influences rather than limiting their scope to the individual and their immediate environment.

Harry Patch: last survivor of the trenches is laid to rest

Great Train Robber Ronnie Biggs released from jail to die

Sports Heroes and Celebrities

Want to find out your mood? Look it up online.

Consider the culture of today after an event is given importance—we discuss our feelings and opinions on facebook, twitter or a blog. An article reported in Scientific American: 60 Second Science the new methods researchers are implementing to investigate group emotions in cyberspace. According to Scientific American: 60 Second Science, Michael Jackson’s death elicited sadness on the web, while a joyful and proud moment was experienced during the U.S. Presidential election on November 2008.

The website titled “We Feel Fine”, reported in Scientific American: 60 Second Science, breaks down feelings based on gender, nationality and age and many other demographics.

You don’t facebook, blog or twitter you say. No need. Identifying yourself with a social group is sufficient to arouse emotions about “group-relevant objects and events” writes Diane Mackie and colleagues.

Scientific American: 60 Second Science story

‘We feel fine’ website

Mackie, D., Smith, E.R., & Ray, D.G. (2008) Intergroup Emotions and  Intergroup Relations

Hogg, Michael A. and R. Scott Tindale (eds). Blackwell Handbook of Social  Psychology: Group Process. Blackwell Publishing, 2002.

Serious games

The latest instalment of the popular America’s Army (AA3) video-game series has recently been released to widespread acclaim. Whilst there are many similar ‘first-person shooters’ currently available, AA3 is unusual in that it is downloadable at no cost since it was developed by the United States (US) military as a recruitment tool.

This reflects an increasing use of combat video-games with ulterior motives, both by the world’s military as well as by those politically opposed to conflict. Indeed, the US army now has a dedicated hi-tech public-relations centre where the wider general public can experience such games for themselves. Since the use of video-games can be seen as specifically targeting children, however, this recruitment strategy has been fiercely criticised as unethical.

Such condemnation raises a number of important questions as to the social role of video-games. For example, the fundamental morality of trivialising an issue as serious as war by treating it as mere entertainment is highly debatable. This is particularly the case as such games rarely attempt to depict the suffering and human cost that is an inevitable consequence of military action, thereby sanitising the true horrors of war. The social consequences of such portrayals of violence within video-games have previously been the subject of much discussion.

Furthermore, a growing number of these games are based on ‘real’ rather than fantasy scenarios, and so can often be seen as rewriting history by presenting a simple dichotomy between ‘good’ and ‘evil’, rather than accurately portraying the complex uncertainties faced by combatants during the actual fighting they claim to represent.

Alternatively, such games could be viewed as useful educational simulations that question the morality of war itself by giving a player the opportunity to experience a historical conflict from the perspectives of all the different parties involved.

Such issues have been the topic of recent heated debate surrounding the announcement and subsequent abrupt cancellation of a video-game based on the controversial battle for Fallujah.

‘America’s Army’ official website

‘US Army Experience Center’ official website

‘Six Days in Fallujah’ press release from Konami

Cancellation of ‘Six Days in Fallujah’ from the Guardian

Li, Z. (2003).The Potential of America’s Army the Video Game as Civilian-Military Public Sphere

Baldwin, M. W. & Dandeneau, S. D. (2009). Putting Social Psychology into Serious Games