Difference between revisions of "Tem"

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==3/15/2011==
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===Savoring===
  
===Gilbert, 7, Time Bombs===
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====Bryant & Veroff, Chapters 1 & 8, and other notes====
  
====Space, Time and Future Preferences====
+
Chapter 1
  
:*We spatialize time because it's an abstract thing and thinking of its spatially helps make it concrete.
+
:*Savoring: capacity to attend to, appreciate and enhance positive experiences.
:*Hedonic adaptation -- factors affecting the habituation rate -- (start list)
+
:*Distinguishing savoring from pleasure -- reflective dimension to savoring.
:*False prediction of future pleasure -- p. 130 study on snack predictions.
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:*Need to suppress "social and esteem needs" for savoring.
:*Gilberts partial point -- variety has a cost… [But it doesn't follow that it's not in your happiness-interest to pay it sometimes.]
 
:*Slogan of the night:  "Pleasure isn't linear."
 
:*Spagetti satisfaction predictions under condition of multi-tasking, p. 136.
 
  
====Parade of Biases====
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:*Savoring distinguished from other processes.  In relation to:
 +
::*Mindfulness -- savoring narrower
 +
::*Meditation
 +
::*Flow
  
:*Anchoring Bias (135), Sensitivity to changes, (accounts for preferences for steady income increases, even it net payout is lower).
+
From Chapter 3
:*Preference for the marked down vacation, even if more costly than a marked up one.
 
:*Famous Khaneman and Tversky "mental accounting" study -- (140)
 
:*We compare the present to the past instead of to the possible.  (coffee example)
 
:*But we also make mistakes when we compare the present to the possible.  (tv purchase example, wine example, dictionary comparison, chips/chocolate vs. chips/sardines)
 
:*Loss aversion (145) 
 
  
===Csiksentmihalyi, Chapters 1-3===
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:*Factors affecting the intensity of enjoyment experienced.
 +
::*Duration -- case of two positive events simultaneously vs. over time.
 +
::*Reduction of Stress --
 +
::*Complexity -- in the pleasures themselves vs. in web of relationships
 +
::*Attentional Focus --
 +
::*Balanced Self-Monitoring
 +
::*Interactive Consequences
  
====Structures of Everyday Life====
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Types of Savoring -- see handout  from Chapter 5
:*Focus on how we spend our time and the state of mind/affect we experience from diff. activities in daily life
 
:*Experience Sampling Method -- p. 14ff
 
  
====The Content of Experience====
+
Chapter 8
:*Theoretical position, p. 21:  Wants to ask less for self-reports of happiness and more about the moods and affect that might be functionally related to happiness. 
 
:*Discussion of emotions, goals, and thoughts in terms of the organization of "psychic energy", roughly, the cognitive / emotive state of my mind at a particular moment or during an activity.
 
:*FLOW, p. 29ff.
 
::"It is the fall involvement of flow, rather than happiness, that makes for excellence in life. When we are in flow, we are not happy, because to experience happiness we must focus on our inner states, and that would take away attention from the task at hand."
 
  
====How We Feel When Doing Different Things====
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:*Factors connecting Coping and Savoring:  Social Support, Writing about life experiences, Downward hedonic contrast, Humor, Spirituality & Religion
:*Table 2: Quality of Experience in Everyday Activities
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:*Schizophrenic patient and ESM
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:*Essential Pre-conditions for Savoring
:*Implicit hypothesis:  People have different strategies and degrees of awareness of how to manage their affect (a form of self-care).   Happiness might be improved by developing these capacities for self-care.
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::*Freedom from Social and Esteem Concerns
 +
::*Present Focus
 +
::*Attentional Focus
 +
:*Exercises
 +
::*Vacation in Daily Life
 +
::*Life Review -- "chaining"
 +
::*Camera Exercise
 +
 
 +
Additional Suggested Exercises for Happiness Practicum on Savoring:
 +
 
 +
1. Simple Savoring Exercise --  You and an orange. 
 +
2. Complex Savoring Exercise -- Cooking dinner for a friend. 
 +
 
 +
===Gratitude===
 +
 
 +
Watkins, "Gratitude and Subjective Well-Being"
 +
 
 +
:*Focus on emotional benefits of expressing gratitude.
 +
:*Distinguishes gratitude as a practice vs. trait.  Latter is habituated.
 +
:*Researching the direction of causation -- p. 172ff: if it's possible to manipulate gratitude conditions and see a quasi-functional relationship on mood.  Seems to have been weakly confirmed.  Still possible to have bidirectional causation.
 +
:*Series of studies on emotional benefits, p. 174ff -- "Participants in the grateful condition felt better about their lives as a whole and were more optimistic about the future than students in both of the other comparison conditions."  174.  Second study tested specific technique of downward comparison and compared it to control and "hassles" condition.
 +
 
 +
:*How does gratitude contribute to happiness? 
 +
::*1:  emotional boost from "gift" character of gratitude experiences.
 +
::*2: counteracting hedonic habituation
 +
::*3:  focusing attention away from upward comparisons toward downward comparisons.
 +
::*4:  coping  -- evidence from p. 178ff.
 +
::*5:  increasing accessibility and recollection of pleasant life events -- note, this follows from memory bias studies (p. 179)
 +
 
 +
Emmons, "Gratitude, SWB, and the Brain"
 +
 
 +
:*Broad range of gratitude:  from specific feeling about a particular event or circumstance to a general attitude toward life.  Life as a gift.
 +
:*Definitions:  pleasant feeling from received benefit.  "undeserved merit"  From Fitzgerald (470):  appreciation, goodwill, disposition that follows from appreciation and goodwill.
 +
:*Gratitude can be a "virtue" if understood as a cultivated disposition to recognize undeserved merit.
 +
:*Gratitude response is stronger if the beneficiary intends the benefit.
 +
 
 +
:*Evolutionary Perspective
 +
::*"as a cognitive—emotional supplement serving to sustain reciprocal obligations.  -Simmel (471)  "Thus, during exchange of benefits, gratitude  prompts one person (a beneficiary) to be bound to another (a benefactor) during "exchange of benefits, thereby reminding beneficiaries of their reciprocity obligations."
 +
::*"Trivers viewed gratitude as an evolutionary adaptation that regulates people's responses to altruistic acts. Gratitude for altruistic acts is a reward for adherence to the universal norm of reciprocity and is a mediating mechanism that links the receipt of a favor to the giving of a return favor."
 +
 
 +
:*Gratitude and SWB
 +
::*Strong claim for long term effects of gratitude as a trait:  p. 476 -- participants show SWB boost 6 months later.
 +
 
 +
:*Gratitude and the Brain
 +
::*Cognitive-affective neuroscience construct (What's happening to your brain when you experience gratitude?)
 +
::*General hypothesis:  we have structures for both perceiving gratitude in others and expressing it. 
 +
::*Specific hypothesis:  Limbic prefontal networks involved:  "; (1) the fusiform face-processing areas near the temporal—occipital junctions, (2) the amygdala and Limbic emotional processing systems that support emotional states, and (3) interactions between these two subcortical centers with the prefrontal regions that control executive and evaluative processes." 483.  Like other prosocial emotions.
 +
::Specific hypothesis tested with studies of gratitude and mood induction in Parkinson's Disease patients.
 +
 
 +
 
 +
:*Psychological attitudes at odds with gratitude:  "' A number of personal burdens and external obstacles block grateful thoughts. A number of attitudes are incompatible with a grateful outlook on Hfe, including perceptions of victimhood, an in ability to admit one's shortcomings, a sense of entitlement, and an inability to admit that one is not self-sufficient. InIn a culture that celebrates self-aggrandizement and perceptions of deservingness, gratitude can be crowded out.

Revision as of 23:36, 22 March 2011

Savoring

Bryant & Veroff, Chapters 1 & 8, and other notes

Chapter 1

  • Savoring: capacity to attend to, appreciate and enhance positive experiences.
  • Distinguishing savoring from pleasure -- reflective dimension to savoring.
  • Need to suppress "social and esteem needs" for savoring.
  • Savoring distinguished from other processes. In relation to:
  • Mindfulness -- savoring narrower
  • Meditation
  • Flow

From Chapter 3

  • Factors affecting the intensity of enjoyment experienced.
  • Duration -- case of two positive events simultaneously vs. over time.
  • Reduction of Stress --
  • Complexity -- in the pleasures themselves vs. in web of relationships
  • Attentional Focus --
  • Balanced Self-Monitoring
  • Interactive Consequences

Types of Savoring -- see handout from Chapter 5

Chapter 8

  • Factors connecting Coping and Savoring: Social Support, Writing about life experiences, Downward hedonic contrast, Humor, Spirituality & Religion
  • Essential Pre-conditions for Savoring
  • Freedom from Social and Esteem Concerns
  • Present Focus
  • Attentional Focus
  • Exercises
  • Vacation in Daily Life
  • Life Review -- "chaining"
  • Camera Exercise

Additional Suggested Exercises for Happiness Practicum on Savoring:

1. Simple Savoring Exercise -- You and an orange. 2. Complex Savoring Exercise -- Cooking dinner for a friend.

Gratitude

Watkins, "Gratitude and Subjective Well-Being"

  • Focus on emotional benefits of expressing gratitude.
  • Distinguishes gratitude as a practice vs. trait. Latter is habituated.
  • Researching the direction of causation -- p. 172ff: if it's possible to manipulate gratitude conditions and see a quasi-functional relationship on mood. Seems to have been weakly confirmed. Still possible to have bidirectional causation.
  • Series of studies on emotional benefits, p. 174ff -- "Participants in the grateful condition felt better about their lives as a whole and were more optimistic about the future than students in both of the other comparison conditions." 174. Second study tested specific technique of downward comparison and compared it to control and "hassles" condition.
  • How does gratitude contribute to happiness?
  • 1: emotional boost from "gift" character of gratitude experiences.
  • 2: counteracting hedonic habituation
  • 3: focusing attention away from upward comparisons toward downward comparisons.
  • 4: coping -- evidence from p. 178ff.
  • 5: increasing accessibility and recollection of pleasant life events -- note, this follows from memory bias studies (p. 179)

Emmons, "Gratitude, SWB, and the Brain"

  • Broad range of gratitude: from specific feeling about a particular event or circumstance to a general attitude toward life. Life as a gift.
  • Definitions: pleasant feeling from received benefit. "undeserved merit" From Fitzgerald (470): appreciation, goodwill, disposition that follows from appreciation and goodwill.
  • Gratitude can be a "virtue" if understood as a cultivated disposition to recognize undeserved merit.
  • Gratitude response is stronger if the beneficiary intends the benefit.
  • Evolutionary Perspective
  • "as a cognitive—emotional supplement serving to sustain reciprocal obligations. -Simmel (471) "Thus, during exchange of benefits, gratitude prompts one person (a beneficiary) to be bound to another (a benefactor) during "exchange of benefits, thereby reminding beneficiaries of their reciprocity obligations."
  • "Trivers viewed gratitude as an evolutionary adaptation that regulates people's responses to altruistic acts. Gratitude for altruistic acts is a reward for adherence to the universal norm of reciprocity and is a mediating mechanism that links the receipt of a favor to the giving of a return favor."
  • Gratitude and SWB
  • Strong claim for long term effects of gratitude as a trait: p. 476 -- participants show SWB boost 6 months later.
  • Gratitude and the Brain
  • Cognitive-affective neuroscience construct (What's happening to your brain when you experience gratitude?)
  • General hypothesis: we have structures for both perceiving gratitude in others and expressing it.
  • Specific hypothesis: Limbic prefontal networks involved: "; (1) the fusiform face-processing areas near the temporal—occipital junctions, (2) the amygdala and Limbic emotional processing systems that support emotional states, and (3) interactions between these two subcortical centers with the prefrontal regions that control executive and evaluative processes." 483. Like other prosocial emotions.
Specific hypothesis tested with studies of gratitude and mood induction in Parkinson's Disease patients.


  • Psychological attitudes at odds with gratitude: "' A number of personal burdens and external obstacles block grateful thoughts. A number of attitudes are incompatible with a grateful outlook on Hfe, including perceptions of victimhood, an in ability to admit one's shortcomings, a sense of entitlement, and an inability to admit that one is not self-sufficient. InIn a culture that celebrates self-aggrandizement and perceptions of deservingness, gratitude can be crowded out.