Positive Psychology or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

This week’s readings situate two very different theoretical positions against each other. At first glance, it seems that hedonics and pleasure would be related to the idea of positive psychology, but I soon discovered that they could not be further separated.

Positive psychology seeks to ameliorate the human condition. It is outward-looking, philanthropic in nature, and in my opinion is a refreshing breath of fresh air. When I last studied psychology, in the 1970s, much of the body of work that we are reading in this class had yet to be created. A great deal of it has been rather difficult for me to assimilate, coming as I do from a viewpoint that tends more to the humanistic and traditional.

Even so, much of the work we have read in this class is instructive and fascinating. My most salient criticism of some of the newer work I have encountered in this class, however, is that the studies and papers I find most problematic seem, if not exclusively, then disturbingly, self-referential. Some researchers appear to treat the theory at hand as the most important element of the equation, and the humans and animals involved in the research are but puzzles to be taken apart and fitted back together in the image of the researcher’s ideology. Often the clinical trials and studies appear biased and to have been designed to prove the researchers’ ideas, and are written up less than clearly, without adequate details.

Worse, the logic involved often seems convoluted and not really based on . . . well . . . logic.

Take, for example, Gilbert et al. on The Peculiar Longevity of Things Not So Bad. Their main premise is based on a so-called paradox in which the authors ponder how odd it is that a person using a faster mode of transportation will arrive at his or her destination, though it is further from their origin, than another person using a slower mode of transport but traveling a shorter distance.

They attempt to associate this “paradox” with the rebound effect they describe whereby some more severe harms or illnesses are healed more quickly by more intense medical attention and treatment than some less severe ailments. From here, they jump to the thought that this effect can be reproduced psychologically, again trying to associate this idea with the more rapid healing of illnesses by more intense treatment. The thing that isn’t lining up for me is that I don’t think you can just use any old paradox (which this isn't, by the way) to illustrate or prove another. It's an entirely different situation, and may be ironic to some degree but none of these are really a paradox, if the mechanisms work as the authors say they do. It is not counter-intuitive or even difficult to believe that certain illnesses, treated aggressively, could respond more quickly than less intense illness or injury left untreated. This model also leaves out the many severe illnesses and injuries that no treatment can heal.

As to the travel "paradox", a commuter may choose different modes of transport for reasons other than travel time. The walk or bike ride may be good exercise, and the individual may be able to spare the half hour or whatever the shorter trip may take by the slower method, but not be able to spare an entire day to travel to a neighboring city by the same slow mode of travel. As for degree of counter-intuitiveness, neither intuition nor counter-intuition are needed to know that it could take much longer for a much shorter trip using a slower mode of travel, and that you may easily be able to get to the next town quicker by car than you could walk to your local market. I just might not have all day to go to the next town, but could spare half an hour to walk to the market, and perhaps even save time as I might not have to go to the gym that day.

The New York to London trip vs. traveling to Boston is similar in content and intuitiveness. Plane rides to London do not offer an opportunity to interact with the scenery along the way as slower modes of travel might. Thus, had one the time, one might choose to drive from New York to Boston in order to enjoy the scenery and stop in one's favorite seaside towns along the way, rather than taking the Metroliner, which is faster and cheaper but not as rewarding in both tangible and intangible ways. Likewise the same individual might choose not to take a cruise to London, although that also offers rewarding interaction with interesting scenery but may take much longer than the time one has available. I see no real paradox here, unless every contrasting choice one could make in life constitutes a paradox.

If you want a paradox, you need to look at either a duck-billed platytpus, or something apparently based on logic but actually not possible, or at quantum mechanics where measuring one particle changes properties in another at some distance but where the first can not possibly communicate with the second in any traditional way. What these people are calling a paradox is actually a kind of situational irony.

Additionally, the authors use an example of a wife rationalizing her husband’s infidelity but not getting over leaving dirty dishes in the sink. This is yet another bad example, and causes me to further question the thinking of these researchers. They completely ignore one obvious facet of their premise; the fact that one relationship causes more pain than another when serious problems arise implies that there is more at stake in that relationship, and more serious transgressions may go unchallenged for a number of reasons. A person might accept his or her partner's having an affair rather than lose that person for any number of reasons. The reason the affair has taken place must have included at least some element of the dynamic of the relationship. The cuckolded partner might actively drive the other away, either consciously or unconsciously, yet be unwilling to let them go entirely. Or the philandering partner may be more dominant and know that their more submissive other will put up with their behavior from fear of being alone (or any of many possible psychic hurts.) Whatever the reason for the affair, it may be less threatening to either or both partners to squabble over the dishes in the sink than to deal with the myriad implications and consequences of an affair, even in the best possible relationship (under the circumstances.)

Furthermore, and more to the point that I am trying to make, these authors have set everything up around a negative, dysfunctional model, seemingly to make the point that people are better off managing their expectations by choosing the very worst of several unappealing options, on the theory that in the end they will feel better about (for example) losing an entire office than a file cabinet. The disease model here seems itself diseased!

On the other hand, Positive Psychology has a purpose outside itself. It seeks, in a lovely and utopian way, to improve the entire world. This might seem unrealistic, but why? Perhaps because of the disease model that has dominated psychology since the end of the second world war, a time when paranoia ruled the world and children were told to hide under their desks in case of a nuclear attack.

Several years ago, I read a book entitled Goodbye To All That by Robert Graves, about how the world was changed forever by the first world war – how an innocence was lost and men on battlefields attacked each other not with swords and “glory” but with cowardice and poison gas. I found it depressing, raised as I was by a father who was born the year the war ended, who was himself raised by parents who grew up before this terrible war that changed the entire world. He was taught, and taught me, that there is something sublime about life and about the world, even when things are really, really rough. When it becomes hard to see any transcendent quality to alleviate the harsher side of things, life becomes more onerous.

Graves’ book seemed to explain a great deal; it all seemed to fit together with the overwhelmingly prevalent disease model in medicine coupled with increasing poor health of most citizens of developed nations, the crumbling social systems of our own country and much of the world, pollution and global warming increasing out of control, an observable decline in all sorts of social standards, and so much more that adds up to an apparent emptiness in so much of modern life.

This is why I am so elated to have read the articles on Positive Psychology. That a group of psychological authorities has created such a body of work emphasizing the best of the human spirit comes as a delightful surprise. That they see the value of prevention in mental illness is stunningly wonderful. These scientists seek not to gloss over reality with platitudes and pretty ideas lacking substance, but to build a new psychology based on what is best in the creatures it studies. These people are not “new age” dreamers, but experienced and seasoned researchers who know the difference between reality and ideological dreams, even when those dreams are nightmares. Their work gives me new hope, which I believe is an essential element in a healthy psyche. It was a pleasure to read these articles, and I will definitely seek out more information on Positive Psychology.