Hope –Antidote for Human Suffering or Pipe Dream?

6. January 2009 by John Schinnerer.

John Schinnerer, Ph.D.

To what extent is hope necessary or relevant for these difficult times? The world is besieged by economic, military, educational, and healthcare problems which seem to be insurmountable. In such a world, of what possible use is hope?

It feels as if Pandora opened her box only recently, allowing a wave of good and evil to descend upon humankind. And yet, in the Greek myth, Pandora closed the box while one thing remained inside – hope.  

Is hope a powerful psychological asset, an antidote to human shortcomings? Or is hope simply a pipe dream for Pollyanna-ish optimists who can’t see the brutal, harsh nature of reality?

Hope Is Helpful In A Variety of Areas

Hope has been studied in psychology labs throughout the world for dozens of years. Research studies have shown that greater hope is associated with:

·        Freedom from anxiety

·        Less depression

·        More positive mood

·        Increased popularity among peers

·        Higher achievement in a number of areas (academic, athletic, military, political and professional)

·        Greater quality of social relationships

·        Improved physical health

·        Increased accomplishment of goals

·        Increased tolerance of pain

·        Reduced cardiovascular risk

If hope is a pipe dream for those who do not see reality accurately, then the rose-colored pipe dream comes with a slew of physical, emotional, social and vocational benefits. Given the broad range of positive advantages that hope confers upon its users, it might be more simply stated that hope helps. Hope is, in fact, a powerful psychological asset.

Hope Defined

Hope is a belief or wish that in the future good events and positive feelings will come more frequently than bad events and negative feelings.  Rick Snyder, a researcher at Kansas University, sees hope as having three distinct parts:

1.      Goals – Goals can be large or small, short- or long-term, formal or informal. Goals can be set in any area of life. However, without goals, there is no future-oriented thinking, and thus no hope.

2.      Pathways – A workable plan to get around potential challenges to enable one to get to the goal.

3.      Agency - The energy, motivation, or will to act. Agency is the degree of determination one has to achieve a goal.

Hope Is More About The Future Than The Present

To the extent that one has these three elements, one has hope. Hope comes from the excitement one feels about the future possibility of accomplishing goals. Hope is not as much about the present moment as it is about realizing future potential. Hope is a perception whereby one sees the future as filled with possibilities. Hope helps to create the future as it motivates people to strive towards creating new constructive realities.

Hopeful People Don’t Play The Blame Game

One of the appealing aspects of hope is that hopeful people do not get into blaming themselves or the world for falling short of a goal. Instead, when they fail, hopeful people ask ‘What now?’ They come up with alternative ways to achieve their goal. They excel at discovering multiple pathways to attain goals.

Hope has been shown to enhance problem-solving abilities and thus makes people better at brainstorming potential solutions to challenges.

Learning To Be More Hopeful

Instead of creating New Year’s resolutions that will be broken by nightfall, you may want to resolve to become more hopeful. If that’s the case, here are some suggestions to help strengthen your hope.

Dare to Hope – Most are taught growing up ‘Don’t get your hopes up!’ Hope is a human strength which makes the accomplishment of goals more likely. Be brave enough to have hope.

Set Goals That Are Personally Meaningful – There is little point to attempting to fulfill goals that someone else has for you. Goals are effective when they have meaning to you.

State Your Goals in the Positive – Rather than ‘I’m going to lose 10 pounds’ tell yourself ‘I will get healthy’. The human mind does not respond well to negative statements and goals are no exception. State your goals using positive language.

Be Mindful of Where Hope Falls Apart – Does your hope break down at the pathways stage? Perhaps you need better planning, or help in creating your plan. If your hope falters at the motivation or determination stage, share your goal with loved ones to give you extra accountability.

Check In With Your Self – Whenever you are distracted from the task you are working on, ask yourself ‘What am I doing?’ and ‘What are my goals for this task?’ These simple questions will help you to stay focused on the task at hand, remind you of your goals and perform well in the moment.

Listen to Uplifting Music – Recent research has shown that listening to music (as well as playing and composing) involves nearly every neural network in the human brain. Music lights up the brain. The power of music is the power to evoke emotions. If you want to feel hope, listen to hopeful music. Some of my favorite songs that evoke hope are…

·        Imagine by John Lennon

·        Lovely, Love My Family by The Roots (off the Yo, Gabba Gabba album)

·        Uwritten by Natasha Bedingfield

·        You’ll Be Blessed by Elton John

·        Three Little Birds by Bob Marley

·        I Don’t Ever Give Up by Patty Griffin

·        Joy by Mick Jagger

·        The Middle by Jimmy Eats World

·        Fall Back Down by Rancid

Watch an Elevating Clip On YouTube  

Studies have shown that the brain is a very literal organ and doesn’t differentiate much between what is real, what is imagined and what we watch on a screen. In some meaningful way, hope can be injected into the mind by watching clips or movies that inspire you.

·        One uplifting clip on YouTube is actually an ad from MBF, a health care company in Australia, featuring the song ‘Accentuate the Positive’ (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDRQbrBhoWg).

·        Or check out the short film ‘Validated’ with Hugh Newman in which a parking garage attendant ‘validates’ the existence of others by offering words of kindness and encouragement (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cbk980jV7Ao ).

·        One of my favorites on YouTube is ‘Free Hugs’ with music by the Sick Puppies (‘All the same’) at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vr3x_RRJdd4.  This clip has been viewed over 40 million times and won YouTube’s video of the year for 2007. This social experiment, giving away free hugs, has been replicated in dozens of countries with similar hopeful results.

When Pandora did close her infamous box, it’s fortunate that hope was left inside. Hope is a powerful internal asset which can be used to offset many of the hardships life brings. Bolster your own sense of hope using the suggestions above. Please share with me songs or videos that inspire your sense of hope.  Everyone can use a shot of hope now and then.

About the Author
Dr. John Schinnerer (DrJohn AT GuideToSelf.com)

Dr. John Schinnerer is in private practice helping people learn anger management, stress management and the latest ways to deal with destructive negative emotions. His practice is located in the Danville-San Ramon Medical Center at 913 San Ramon Valley Blvd., #280, Danville, California 94526. He graduated summa cum laude from U.C. Berkeley with a Ph.D. in psychology. Dr. Schinnerer has been an executive and psychologist for over 10 years. Dr. John Schinnerer is President and Founder of Guide To Self, a company that coaches clients to their potential using the latest in positive psychology, mindfulness and attentional control. Dr. John Schinnerer hosted over 200 episodes of Guide To Self Radio, a prime time radio show, in the San Francisco Bay Area.  Dr. Schinnerer’s areas of expertise range from positive psychology, to emotional awareness, to moral development, to sports psychology. Dr. Schinnerer wrote the award-winning, “Guide To Self: The Beginner’s Guide To Managing Emotion and Thought,” which is available at Amazon.com, BarnesAndNoble.com and AuthorHouse.com.  

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The Key to Surviving the Holidays – Self-Compassion

12. December 2008 by John Schinnerer.

The Key to Surviving the Holidays – Self-Compassion

John Schinnerer, Ph.D.

As we enter the holiday season, it makes good sense to talk about survival tools. How do we survive the coming onslaught of family and friends and the accompanying mistakes, failings, and misunderstandings that will inevitably follow in the next three weeks?

Self-Esteem Isn’t the Answer

Ten years ago, the answer might have been to boost everyone’s self-esteem before they come together. For decades, we have been obsessed with self-esteem.  For so long, we thought if we could just make people feel good about themselves, it would solve family problems, societal problems and psychological problems.  We’ve created programs to instill high self-esteem in our children, our students and our families.

Self-Esteem Alone Can Be Dangerous

Self-esteem involves how one feels about him- or herself. There are two types of self-esteem – state and trait. State self-esteem is how positively one evaluates himself in the moment. Trait self-esteem has to do with how positively one sees himself overall. Recent research has shown that increasing self-esteem is not as effective as once thought. Many people with high self-esteem feel so good about themselves that they feel comfortable abusing and taking advantage of other people (e.g., higher degrees of narcissism). At some point, individuals with high self-esteem seem to be able to rationalize destructive behaviors towards others using the idea that they are superior.

Obviously, this was not an intended outcome of self-esteem programs. So how do we get people to feel good about themselves without adding to their sense of superiority?

Self-Compassion – An Inner Critic with LovingKindness

While self-esteem had to do with how one feels about himself, self-compassion involves how one treats himself when things go badly. The goal is to treat oneself with the same type of kindness and compassion that most people extend to loved ones when they fail. When other people fall short of a goal or err, most people will react with kindness and compassion. On the other hand, studies show that most people are harsh with themselves when they screw up. Most people are self-punitive, disparaging and hypercritical of their own shortcomings and mistakes. Unfortunately, this degrades the quality of our emotional lives. It upsets the emotional apple cart, as it were. Even people with high self-esteem are prone to this sort of self-punishing internal beat down. We are truly our own worst critics.

Self-Compassion Leads to Greater Resiliency

People with self-compassion are more resilient. They roll with the punches. Self-compassionate people bounce back more quickly from setbacks because they treat themselves more kindly when they fail or make a mistake.

Can We Have Too Much Self-Compassion?

This all sounds good so far. What’s the catch? Is it possible to be overly self-compassionate to the point where one is self-indulgent? Is it possible, or even probable, that a compassionate person might take no responsibility for their mistakes?

Research at Duke University suggests that is not the case. Self-compassionate people take responsibility for failures and own up to mistakes. They do feel badly when things go awry. According to Mark Leary at Duke, self-compassionate people simply lack that extra layer of self-flagellation and internal criticism. In other words, their internal critic has learned to speak less often and more kindly.   

How To Build More Self-Compassion

Kristin Neff, a researcher at University of Texas (and fellow Berkeley grad), has the following suggestions for ways to foster more self-compassion…

“Self-Kindness – ‘What would a caring friend say to you in this situation?’  ‘What is a kind and constructive way to think about how I can rectify this mistake or do better next time?’  Try putting your hand over your heart or gently stroking your arm when feeling a lot of pain as a gesture of kindness and compassion.

Self-judgment – ‘Who ever said human beings are supposed to be perfect?’  ‘Would a caring mother say this to her child if she wanted the child to grow and develop?’  ‘How will I learn if it’s not okay to make mistakes?’

Common Humanity - Think about all the other people who have made similar mistakes, gone through similar situations, and so on.  ‘This is the human condition - all humans are vulnerable, flawed, make mistakes, have things happen that are difficult and painful’  ‘How does this situation give me more insight into and compassion for the human experience?’

Isolation – ‘I am not the only one going through such difficult times, all people experience things like this at some point in their lives.’  ‘Although I take full responsibilities for my mistakes and failings, I also recognize and understand that my actions and behaviors are connected to other people’s actions and behaviors - nothing happens in a vacuum.’

Mindfulness - Take several deep slow breaths and try to be with your pain exactly as it is. Let yourself feel the pain without suppressing, resisting, or avoiding it.  Take a moment to stop and say to yourself, this is really hard right now.  Let yourself be moved and touched by your own pain.  Try to see the situation clearly with calm, clarity and a balanced perspective.  ‘I fully accept this moment and these emotions as they are.’”

So as you enter the holidays and family tensions rise, remember to be more self-compassionate. If you make a mistake, fall short of a goal, or fail to act a certain way, respond with loving kindness towards yourself, just as you would to a small child. You’ll be glad you did.

About the Author

Dr. John Schinnerer is in private practice helping individuals learn happiness by mitigating destructive emotions and fostering constructive emotions. His practice is located in the Danville-San Ramon Medical Center at 913 San Ramon Valley Blvd., #280, Danville, California 94526. He graduated summa cum laude from U.C. Berkeley with a Ph.D. in psychology. Dr. Schinnerer has been an executive and psychologist for over 10 years. Dr. John Schinnerer is President and Founder of Guide To Self, a company that coaches clients to their potential using the latest in positive psychology, mindfulness and attentional control. Dr. John Schinnerer hosted over 200 episodes of Guide To Self Radio, a prime time radio show, in the San Francisco Bay Area.  Dr. Schinnerer is President of Infinet Assessment, a psychological testing company to help firms select the best applicants. Dr. Schinnerer’s areas of expertise range from positive psychology, to emotional awareness, to moral development, to sports psychology. Dr. Schinnerer wrote the award-winning, “Guide To Self: The Beginner’s Guide To Managing Emotion and Thought,” which is available at Amazon.com, BarnesAndNoble.com and AuthorHouse.com.  

You can follow Dr. John Schinnerer on Twitter at http://twitter.com/johnschin.

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Harvard Study Shows Happiness is Transmittable As In A Wireless Network

6. December 2008 by John Schinnerer.

Happiness is catching. Happiness spreads through friends, spouses, siblings and neighbors. There is a ripple effect whereby happiness extends widely through social networks, even between people who may not know one another. One’s happiness depends on the degree of happiness of those surrounding her.

A study performed at Harvard University, by Nicholas Christakis, is the first of its kind to demonstrate the existence of clusters of happy and sad individuals. Happiness depends upon the happiness of those around them. What’s more, individuals who surround themselves with happy people are more likely to be happy in the future. One’s future happiness can actually be predicted by the number of happy people surrounding them and the degree to which the social network as a whole experiences constructive emotions, such as happiness.  These findings come from an analysis of the Framingham Heart Study social network, a longitudinal study that has followed nearly 5,000 people for over 20 years.

Study findings suggest that happiness results from the spread of happiness throughout social networks and not merely from individuals choosing to surround themselves with like-minded individuals. For example, if your next door neighbor becomes happier due to a job promotion, your likelihood of becoming happier increases by 34%. And this happiness effect can linger for up to one year.

This relationship between individual’s happiness holds true for the first three degrees of separation. For example, when John becomes happier, it buoys the happiness of John’s friends as well as the friends of John’s friends. So there is a ripple effect of happiness within social circles where happiness is contagious and spreads similar to the waves of a wireless network. And we are consciously aware of little, if any, of it.

In the past five to ten years, more and more studies have looked at happiness and what determines it (e.g., genetics, money, elections, marital status and emotional management). However, no study has looked at human happiness as it relates to the happiness of others. While the study is the first of its kind and needs to be replicated to ensure the accuracy of these findings, the findings are remarkable and exhilarating.

Emotional contagion, the process by which one person picks up the feelings of another, has been scientifically documented since 1994. Emotions may be ‘caught’ from others for a length of time ranging from seconds to weeks.  This is particularly true of destructive emotions - anger, fear and sadness. In fact, the hard part is not ‘catching’ the emotions but in protecting oneself from them, keeping them at bay. Until this study, emotional contagion had not been documented for any of the positive, constructive emotions such as joy, contentment, peacefulness or happiness.  

The difficulty is that most people primarily feel destructive emotions. Most people experience more destructive emotions than constructive emotions.  

On the other hand, roughly 10% of adults in the United States feel three times as much positive emotion as negative. This 3:1 ratio is the measuring stick for a thriving happy life as set by Barbara Fredrickson at UNC Chapel Hill. It appears that this top 10% is raising the level of happiness of many others. Imagine if it were possible to raise this thriving, happy portion of the population to 15% or 20%.

Assuming the percentage of the populace experiencing happiness could be improved, here are just a few of the possible societal benefits:

·        The economy would improve (e.g., higher ratios of positive, open-ended inquiries are present in executive teams in highly successful firms)

·        Creativity would increase (e.g., happiness is linked to greater innovation)

·        Productivity would soar (e.g., a happy employee is a productive employee; optimistic salespeople outsell pessimistic ones by approximately 38%)

·        The burden on the health care system would be eased (e.g., happiness improves immune system functioning).

·        People would live longer (e.g., happy, optimistic people live 7 – 10 years longer than those who are pessimistic and unhappy)

·        The educational system would show significant academic gains (e.g., students taught to be more happy and optimistic showed significant gains on achievement testing and received better grades)

The exciting part is that happiness can be taught. It can be learned. People can learn to feel positive emotions more frequently and more intensely. Emotional management is a learnable skill. Just as one practices a sport and improves over time so it is with emotions.   As individuals learn to string together more and more happy moments, the ripple effect spills over and one person’s happiness positively influences others.  It even influences the happiness of other people they don’t know.

The goal is emotional management. The goal is happiness. The goal is to learn to mitigate destructive emotions and encourage positive emotions. Happiness is social phenomena. The more individuals experience positive emotions, the more society as a whole is happier, healthier, and more productive and that is no small feat.

About the Author

Dr. John Schinnerer is in private practice helping individuals learn happiness by mitigating destructive emotions and fostering constructive emotions. His practice is located in the Danville-San Ramon Medical Center at 913 San Ramon Valley Blvd., #280, Danville, California 94526. He graduated summa cum laude from U.C. Berkeley with a Ph.D. in psychology. Dr. Schinnerer has been an executive and psychologist for over 10 years. Dr. John Schinnerer is President and Founder of Guide To Self, a company that coaches clients to their potential using the latest in positive psychology, mindfulness and attentional control. Dr. John Schinnerer hosted over 200 episodes of Guide To Self Radio, a prime time radio show, in the San Francisco Bay Area.  Dr. Schinnerer is President of Infinet Assessment, a psychological testing company to help firms select the best applicants. Dr. Schinnerer’s areas of expertise range from positive psychology, to emotional awareness, to moral development, to sports psychology. Dr. Schinnerer wrote the award-winning, “Guide To Self: The Beginner’s Guide To Managing Emotion and Thought,” which is available at Amazon.com, BarnesAndNoble.com and AuthorHouse.com.  

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If You Want To Get Some Lovin’, Give Some Lovin’

16. October 2008 by John Schinnerer.

Another intriguing study. This one found that altruistic behavior may be considered sexually attractive by both sexes in potential mates…

Being Altruistic May Make You Attractive

Oct. 15, 2008

Displays of altruism or selflessness towards others can be sexually attractive in a mate. This is one of the findings of a study carried out by biologists and a psychologist at The University of Nottingham. 

In three studies of more than 1,000 people, Dr Tim Phillips and his fellow researchers discovered that women place significantly greater importance on altruistic traits than anything else. Their findings have been published in the British Journal of Psychology. 

Dr Phillips said:  “Evolutionary theory predicts competition between individuals and yet we see many examples in nature of individuals disadvantaging themselves to help others. In humans, particularly, we see individuals prepared to put themselves at considerable risk to help individuals they do not know for no obvious reward.” 

Participants in the studies were questioned about a range of qualities they look for in a mate, including examples of altruistic behaviour such as ‘donates blood regularly’ and ‘volunteered to help out in a local hospital’. Women placed significantly greater importance on altruistic traits in all three studies.

 Yet both sexes may consider altruistic traits when choosing a partner. One hundred and seventy couples were asked to rate how much they preferred altruistic traits in a mate and report their own level of altruistic behaviour. The strength of preference in one partner was found to correlate with the extent of altruistic behaviour typically displayed in the other, suggesting that altruistic traits may well be a factor both men and women take into account when choosing a partner. 

Dr Phillips said: “For many years the standard explanation for altruistic behaviour towards non-relatives has been based on reciprocity and reputation — a version of ‘you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours’. I believe we need to look elsewhere to understand the roots of human altruism. The expansion of the human brain would have greatly increased the cost of raising children so it would have been important for our ancestors to choose mates both willing and able to be good, long-term parents. Displays of altruism could well have provided accurate clues to this and genes linked to altruism would have been favoured as a result.” 

Dr Phillips concluded: “Sexual selection could well come to be seen as exerting a major influence on what made humans human.” 

Dr Tom Reader in the School of Biology said: “Sexual preferences have enormous potential to shape the evolution of animal behaviour. Humans are clearly not an exception: sex may have a crucial role in explaining what are our most biologically interesting and unusual habits.” 

From Science Daily. University of Nottingham (2008, October 15). Being Altruistic May Make You Attractive. ScienceDaily. Retrieved October 16, 2008, from http://www.sciencedaily.com­ /releases/2008/10/081014134027.htm

 

 Cheers,

Dr. John Schinnerer

Guide To Self, Inc.

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