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I've been thinking about one of Christopher Peterson's recent blog postings for days. In it, he "outed" himself as worrying ruminator. He's not the first positive psychologist to reveal this type of thing about himself. Martin Seligman, originator of learned helplessness and key figure in positive psychology, did this publicly too. There's an important message in here about the route to happiness.
Although I've spent the last 15 years studying procrastination, I didn't begin my research on the topic. My focus was on subjective well-being (aka "happiness") in relation to our goal pursuit. My research revealed to me that procrastination on our goal pursuit really undermines happiness, so I took an interest in procrastination more formally. More importantly, what I learned about happiness is that personality trumps our goal pursuit when it comes to predicting happiness.
I guess this is what got me thinking in terms of Christopher Peterson's blog posting as well. So often, positive psychology implicitly (sometimes explicitly) presents a very optimistic perspective on our pursuit of happiness and "the good life." The thing is, for many of us (including me, as I add myself to the "outed" psychologists here), we can be our own worst enemy in the pursuit of happiness. In terms of personality, it's an uphill battle daily to be happy.
A selective excerpt from Dr. Peterson's blog entry, Days are Long - Life is Short makes this point clearly. It's what got me thinking and writing. He wrote,
"I bet I could trounce most of you who read my entries on formal measures of neuroticism and rumination. . . . . As much as anyone and maybe more than most, I get mired down in the minutiae and hassles of everyday life. . . . I know it, but sometimes I can't help myself. [emphasis added]And, as I have noted, a little later in the posting, my colleague makes it clear that this is a confession of sorts, writing, "I have just outed myself as needing further work.
"Before I go any further, I should add more detail to the other "outing" of a positive psychologist, that of Martin Seligman. In a special issue of the American Psychologist (Vol 55[1], Jan 2000, pp. 5-14) where a number of authors created what might be called a position paper or call to action for Positive Psychology (including our PT Blogger, Dr. Christopher Peterson), Dr. Seligman recalled a story about gardening with his daughter. The punch line was that he had an epiphany of sorts when his daughter told him that he was a "grouch" and that he could choose to be otherwise.
Reflecting on his daughter's insight, Dr. Seligman wrote, "I had spent 50 years mostly enduring wet weather in my soul, and the past 10 years being a nimbus cloud in a household full of sunshine. Any good fortune I had was probably not due to my grumpiness, but in spite of it. In that moment, I resolved to change" (2000, p. 6)
I like this optimism about people, both in terms of the perception of human agency as well as the potential for change. I don't, however, think that it's quite so simple. At least we have to be more specific about what we mean by "change."
I do believe that we can choose to act otherwise, but I'm not convinced we can "be" otherwise. I think, based on what I know from the research on personality, that this may always be an issue of learning to act "out of character" in order to pursue a desired goal. In this case, the goal is happiness, whereas the personality trait or disposition is quite anti-happiness. That is, a highly neurotic personality prone to anxiety, worry, depression and rumination, or as Seligman wrote a soul defined by its "wet weather," must act in a way that is opposite to this basic tendency of personality in order to be happy.
What this means, I think, is that happiness doesn't come naturally to many of us who dispositionally can be described as "neurotic." We're more naturally "nimbus clouds" on what otherwise would be sunny days for others.
Neuroticism has a great deal of definitional baggage, and I'm using the term rather specifically here as one of the five basic personality traits that have been defined in a trait-based personality psychology. The other traits include: Extraversion, Conscientiousness, Agreeableness and Openness to Experience (the details of each is beyond this blog posting, but you can learn more at a previous post).
Interestingly, higher scores on the trait of extraversion are related to higher scores on measures of happiness. In this case, personality works in favor of happiness. And given that these traits are independent in our overall personality, we can be highly neurotic while also being highly extraverted. I can "out myself" among this group of neurotic extraverts.
The emotional life of neurotic extraverts is quite a roller coaster. Intense happiness and negative emotions can come and go daily, and they do. Again, the point is that personality is playing a very big role, perhaps the most formative, in our reported happiness.
So, what does all this mean? Dr. Peterson makes his own point at the end his blog entry by saying:
"Don't sweat the small stuff; and most of it is small stuff. Days are long. Life is short. Life it well.
"My point is that personality is evident here. First, Dr. Peterson has to remind himself about not "sweating the small stuff" because that's what we who are dispositionally neurotic do - we're prone to sweat the small stuff, even ruminate about it in fact. Yet, as he wrote earlier, "I know it, but sometimes I can't help myself." Yes, he can't help himself, because it's part of this thing we define as personality. The change that we might make is to act out of character, a truly Sisyphean task at times. This is a change that requires a great deal of self-regulation, and that is one of the key reasons I focus on self-regulation in my own research.
Second, I had to smile when I read his final statement. Only someone who is dispositionally prone to worry, anxiety and what we might call "unhappiness" would write, "days are long, life is short." People with low neuroticism and high extraversion scores would probably see days as much too short and life as long and wonderful. Oh, how personality colors our lives and the perception of life itself.Of course, I agree completely with his final few words "Life it well." It just takes a lot more strategic effort and energy for some of us to act out of character to really do this well.
Although I've spent the last 15 years studying procrastination, I didn't begin my research on the topic. My focus was on subjective well-being (aka "happiness") in relation to our goal pursuit. My research revealed to me that procrastination on our goal pursuit really undermines happiness, so I took an interest in procrastination more formally. More importantly, what I learned about happiness is that personality trumps our goal pursuit when it comes to predicting happiness.
I guess this is what got me thinking in terms of Christopher Peterson's blog posting as well. So often, positive psychology implicitly (sometimes explicitly) presents a very optimistic perspective on our pursuit of happiness and "the good life." The thing is, for many of us (including me, as I add myself to the "outed" psychologists here), we can be our own worst enemy in the pursuit of happiness. In terms of personality, it's an uphill battle daily to be happy.
A selective excerpt from Dr. Peterson's blog entry, Days are Long - Life is Short makes this point clearly. It's what got me thinking and writing. He wrote,
"I bet I could trounce most of you who read my entries on formal measures of neuroticism and rumination. . . . . As much as anyone and maybe more than most, I get mired down in the minutiae and hassles of everyday life. . . . I know it, but sometimes I can't help myself. [emphasis added]And, as I have noted, a little later in the posting, my colleague makes it clear that this is a confession of sorts, writing, "I have just outed myself as needing further work.
"Before I go any further, I should add more detail to the other "outing" of a positive psychologist, that of Martin Seligman. In a special issue of the American Psychologist (Vol 55[1], Jan 2000, pp. 5-14) where a number of authors created what might be called a position paper or call to action for Positive Psychology (including our PT Blogger, Dr. Christopher Peterson), Dr. Seligman recalled a story about gardening with his daughter. The punch line was that he had an epiphany of sorts when his daughter told him that he was a "grouch" and that he could choose to be otherwise.
Reflecting on his daughter's insight, Dr. Seligman wrote, "I had spent 50 years mostly enduring wet weather in my soul, and the past 10 years being a nimbus cloud in a household full of sunshine. Any good fortune I had was probably not due to my grumpiness, but in spite of it. In that moment, I resolved to change" (2000, p. 6)
I like this optimism about people, both in terms of the perception of human agency as well as the potential for change. I don't, however, think that it's quite so simple. At least we have to be more specific about what we mean by "change."
I do believe that we can choose to act otherwise, but I'm not convinced we can "be" otherwise. I think, based on what I know from the research on personality, that this may always be an issue of learning to act "out of character" in order to pursue a desired goal. In this case, the goal is happiness, whereas the personality trait or disposition is quite anti-happiness. That is, a highly neurotic personality prone to anxiety, worry, depression and rumination, or as Seligman wrote a soul defined by its "wet weather," must act in a way that is opposite to this basic tendency of personality in order to be happy.
What this means, I think, is that happiness doesn't come naturally to many of us who dispositionally can be described as "neurotic." We're more naturally "nimbus clouds" on what otherwise would be sunny days for others.
Neuroticism has a great deal of definitional baggage, and I'm using the term rather specifically here as one of the five basic personality traits that have been defined in a trait-based personality psychology. The other traits include: Extraversion, Conscientiousness, Agreeableness and Openness to Experience (the details of each is beyond this blog posting, but you can learn more at a previous post).
Interestingly, higher scores on the trait of extraversion are related to higher scores on measures of happiness. In this case, personality works in favor of happiness. And given that these traits are independent in our overall personality, we can be highly neurotic while also being highly extraverted. I can "out myself" among this group of neurotic extraverts.
The emotional life of neurotic extraverts is quite a roller coaster. Intense happiness and negative emotions can come and go daily, and they do. Again, the point is that personality is playing a very big role, perhaps the most formative, in our reported happiness.
So, what does all this mean? Dr. Peterson makes his own point at the end his blog entry by saying:
"Don't sweat the small stuff; and most of it is small stuff. Days are long. Life is short. Life it well.
"My point is that personality is evident here. First, Dr. Peterson has to remind himself about not "sweating the small stuff" because that's what we who are dispositionally neurotic do - we're prone to sweat the small stuff, even ruminate about it in fact. Yet, as he wrote earlier, "I know it, but sometimes I can't help myself." Yes, he can't help himself, because it's part of this thing we define as personality. The change that we might make is to act out of character, a truly Sisyphean task at times. This is a change that requires a great deal of self-regulation, and that is one of the key reasons I focus on self-regulation in my own research.
Second, I had to smile when I read his final statement. Only someone who is dispositionally prone to worry, anxiety and what we might call "unhappiness" would write, "days are long, life is short." People with low neuroticism and high extraversion scores would probably see days as much too short and life as long and wonderful. Oh, how personality colors our lives and the perception of life itself.Of course, I agree completely with his final few words "Life it well." It just takes a lot more strategic effort and energy for some of us to act out of character to really do this well.
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