Blog Posts Tagged "Positive Psychology".

Almost all of you reading this will have had an experience of having been in a romantic relationship that got less happy as time went on.

What goes wrong?

“When marriages fail, it is not increasing conflict that is the cause. It is decreasing affection and emotional responsiveness, according to a landmark study by Ted Huston of the University of Texas. Indeed the lack of emotional responsiveness, rather than the level of conflict, is the best predictor of how solid a marriage will be 5 years into it. The demise of marriages begins with a growing absence of responsive intimate interactions. The conflict comes later.” This quote comes from the book Hold Me Tight by Professor Sue Johnson, who co-created one of the most successful forms of couple’s therapy.

There’s a study I particularly like that provides further insight into how to keep the lovin’ feeling.

The researchers studied “approach” and “avoidance” motivations in couples.

Approach motivations were measured using questions like:

Over the course of the next semester

- “I will be trying to deepen my relationship with my
romantic partner”
- “I will be trying to move toward growth and
development in my romantic relationship”.

Avoidance motivations were measured by questions like

- “I will be trying to avoid disagreements
and conflicts with my romantic partner”
- “I will be trying to make sure that nothing bad happens in my romantic
relationship”

Questions were asked using 7-point scales ranging from 1
strongly disagree to 7
strongly agree.

The reseachers found that relationship quality improved over time when both partners were high in approach motivations, but people got less happy over time if they were in a relationship with a partner who was mostly motivated by avoidance goals.

Not only were approach goals associated with higher relationship satisfaction, they were also associated with the people in the relationship experiencing more positive emotions, and greater relationship responsiveness (understanding, validating, and caring). It wasn’t just the people in the relationship that rated their relationship better. The resarchers also had couples come into the lab and have a videotaped discussion, and had independent observers code how satisfied and responsive the couple behaved. Couples in which the partners had approach goals were rated by these outsiders as more satisfied and responsive.

Take Home Message

When you have interactions with your partner, even if you’re talking about a difficult conversation topic, focus on “approach goals” like trying to deepen your relationship with your partner or trying to move toward growth and development in your romantic relationship, rather than your main motivation being trying to avoid disagreement.

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Now that is this blog is starting to have a nice, wee community of readers (through the subscriptions and the Facebook page), I thought I’d experiment with doing a community project.

Pleasure and sense of accomplishment / mastery are key components of positive mood.

I thought it might be helpful to crowdsource a list of readers’ favorite pleasure and mastery activities.

When someone’s mood is low, or their anxiety is high, they often find it hard to think of appealing, doable options for pleasure and mastery/accomplishment activities. [This is related to reduced flexbility of thinking in the presence of high negative emotions. We're wired so that when we're feeling negative emotions we tend to focus on potential threat cues, and our brains make it hard for us to shift our attention away to other thoughts. This is a generally adaptive mechanism but sometimes goes into overdrive in unhelpful ways].

I’ve set up a publicly editable document, so anyone can go and add their favorite activities to the list.

IMPORTANT: Privacy

No log in is required to view or edit.

If you’re privacy conscious and have a Google account for gmail etc, log out of your Google account before viewing the document. Otherwise, your Google username may show up as currently viewing the document or in the revision history list of edits.

Here’s the link

Go Here for – Dr Alice Boyes’ Community Project. Mood Boosting Activities.

Since this is a new thing I’m trying, let me know if you encounter any problems
admin (at) aliceboyes (dot) com

I’ve started off the lists with a few examples.

Disclaimer

At this point, I’m not planning of curating or moderating what people write.
And, the usual legal disclaimer that I can’t provide personal advice, and none of my blogging or social networking activities constitutes the establishment of a psychologist-client relationship between you and I.

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I forgot to announce this here earlier but over on the Blog’s Facebook Page, I’m doing the 3rd “30 Day Project.”

This month, I’m posting one thing a day I feel grateful for.

Cultivating gratitude is one of the easiest strategies you can use for attempting to increase your resting happiness rate.

If “gratitude” is too corny for you, you could alternatively identify “something that went right for you” each day. Thereby, helping keep balance in your positive vs. negative thoughts.

It doesn’t matter how small. For example, you got home from work easily without getting stuck in traffic. You can mix and match between small and big things you’re grateful for.

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