1. International Society for Performance Improvement
Flourishing vs Languishing Understanding Some Dynamics Underlying Individual, Couples, Group, and Business Team Behavior
Presented to the
San Antonio Chapter
International Society for Performance Improvement
October 27th, 2005
Randall C. Agee

2. My story begins... ...and reaches an abrupt end.
“Positive Affect and the Complex Dynamics of Human Flourishing”
Barbara Fredrickson
Dept of Psychology, University of Michigan
Marcial F. Losada
Department of Information Technology & Knowledge Management, Universidade de Católica de Brazília

3. Language of Psychology
Positive Psychology
Language of Psychology
Affect = Emotion
Maslow
Personality derived from needs
A hierarchy exists among needs
Growth occurs as individuals climb hierarchy from basic Physiological and Safety needs toward Belonging and Esteem needs, culminating in Self-Actualization
Growth to higher stages blocked when needs at a given level are frustrated

4. Other Positive Psychology Theorists
Carl Rogers
Client-centered Therapy
Individual is inherently good
Maturity is a continuous process of discovering innate capacity for positive affective experiences
individually
socially
Martin Seligman
Evolutionary purpose of positive affect
broaden and build cognitive and social resources for resiliance
Good life comes from kindness, not “pleasure”
Learned optimism can overcome learned helplessness

5. Chaos Theory Edward Lorenz (early 1960s meteorologist) Chaos Theory
Developed 12 equations to predict what the weather might be
Set measurement sensitivity low (6 decimals) but reporting sensitivity higher (3 decimals)
Result: successive iterations generated radically different predictions
Butterfly Effect
“Butterfly flapping wings in Brazil, echoing for a month through dynamic systems governing weather, can cause a cyclone in Indonesia – or not!”
Chaos Theory
Explains complex system behavior as a series of mathematical patterns follow closely, but do not exactly replicate themselves in different scales through time
Meg Wheatley: fractals are created by non-linear equations generating repeated iterations of ever-smaller levels of scale.

6. Chaos Theory (continued)
Gladwell – The Tipping Point
Three Rules of Epidemics
Law of the Few – a handful of exceptional people can make a difference
Stickiness Factor – simple changes may give an idea great impact
Power of Context – people are more sensitive to environment than you think
describe social phenomenon as diverse as
flu and syphilis outbreaks,
successful advertising campaigns, and
crime waves
a system remain in equilibrium until a very tiny event tips it out of balance
resulting in a new equilibrium brought on by Innovators and Early Adopters
followed by recruitment of the Early and Late Majorities,
with Laggards dragging their feet and Recalcitrants never getting on board!

7. Origin of Chaos Theory (continued)
Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg – Quantum Mechanics
Particles may behave like waves and vice versa, depending on how you measure them
Electron position and spin are not simultaneously knowable
Uncertainty and Complementarity gave headaches to proponents of an orderly world of Physics
Orne (1962) – Demand Characteristics
Showed that subjects in an psychology experiments strive to guess the purposes of the experiments, and then may inject what they know or think they know into reaction to the experimental conditions
In Industrial Psychology, the classic Hawthorne experiments at Western Electric showed that workers may respond to any experimental conditions, even contradictory changes, with increased productivity!

8. Benefits of Positive Psychology
Fredrickson cites biological research for benefits from positive affect
Broadening scope of attention
Expanding behavioral répertoire
Increasing intuition & creativity
Speeding recovery from cardiovascular distress
Altering frontal lobe asymmetry
Increasing immune function
Salubrious mental & physical outcomes
Increased resilience to adversity
Increased happiness
Psychological growth
Lower levels of cortisol
Reduced inflammatory responses to stress
Reduction in subsequent-day physical pain
Resistance to rhinoviruses
Reduction in stroke

9. Broaden and Build Theory of Positive Psychology
They assert that chaotic patterns that provide flexibility and resilience for physical and neurological systems also extends benefits to emotional life
“People in positive affect states are less predictable than when they are in negative states, and that positivity allows them to be more resilient and adaptable when the inevitable crisis erupts.
They conclude a clear link exists between frequent positive affect and longevity.
“... human ability to experience positive affect is an “evolved psychological adaptation that increased our ancestors’ odds of survival and reproduction” (Fredrickson and Losada, 2005)
In Randy’s words
“those unhappy souls that can’t play well with others and think poorly of themselves aren’t likely to contribute to the gene pool.”

10. Application of Positivity to Analyzing Marriage
John Gottman (University of Washington Love Lab)
Videotaped conversations sliced into 15-second intervals along with physiological data & jiggle-meters
Analyzed verbal and non-verbal behavior on a 20-category taxonomy of emotional states
Produced 1,800 variable record for each couple (900 each X 2)
Criterion; identify marriages surviving 15 yrs
With 1 hr observation, successful 95%
With only 15 min observation, successful 90%

11. Application of Positivity to Analyzing Marriage (continued)
Examples of Emotional States Rated
Disgust
Contempt
Anger
Sadness
Stonewalling
Gratitude
Interest
Compassion
Support
Affection

12. Search for the Losada Line
Is there a Critical Positivity Ratio?
Moderately positive affect equips individuals with adaptive bias to approach and explore novel objects, people or situations
Bad is stronger than good
Overcoming toxicity of negative affective environment is not one-for-one
Research suggests the balance to keep people in a “good mental health zone” ranges from
~ 2.5:1 for individuals
~5.1:1 for business teams

13. Losada on Business teams
Conducted observational research with 60 teams engaged Strategic Planning
One-way mirror
Rated three variables
Positive speech vs Negative speech
Inquiry vs Advocacy
Self-oriented vs Other-oriented
Positive speech
encouragement
support
appreciation
Negative speech
disapproval
cynicism
sarcasm

14. Losada on Business teams (continued)
Of the 60 teams:
15 had a much more positive emotional team emotional climate
16 had a mixed team emotional climate
19 had negative emotional climate
Losada derived a set of coupled differential equations to describe the within-team interactions
Please see the Fredrickson and Losada paper for a more complete description of the math.
Employed Fourier transformations of cross-spectral density function to generate a model
Plotting the model produces a graphic that looks like a butterfly, with three distinct geographical areas
Losada Line: the ratio of 2.9 to 1 bifuricates flourishing from languishing teams

15. Losada on Business teams (continued)
The 15 teams with most positive emotional climate
Wider range of ideas and initiatives
Most successful as measured by
profitability,
customer satisfaction, and
360°evaluations by superiors, peers and subordinates
The 16 teams with mixed emotional climate
Mixed success
Have insufficient resilience; in moments of extreme adversity, lose their behavioral flexibility and capacity to question assumptions, resulting in endless languishing
The 19 teams with negative emotional climate
Unsuccessful
Tightly bounded, uncreative and generally negative in outlook
“stuck in self-absorbed advocacy resulting in an endless loop”

16. Fredrickson’s Experiments Testing Losada Line
Two samples
One screened to exclude members with expressing depression
Second randomly drawn and not screened
Students rated 20 variables describing emotional state daily for 28 days (2 variables were neutral)
Positive emotions
awe
compassion
contentment
gratitude
hope
interest
joy
love
pride
sexual desire
Negative emotions
anger
contempt
disgust
embarrassment
fear
guilt
sadness
shame

17. Fredrickson’s Experiments Testing Losada Line (continued)
Results
Sample 1
Sample 2
Flourishing Individuals
3.2 to 1
3.4 to 1
Languishing Individuals
2.3 to 1
2.1 to 1
Take-home message: Flourishing and Languishing members of both samples bracket the Losada Line

18. Upper Limits The logical journey nears a conclusion.
Can we have too much of a good thing?
After all, how much Mary Poppins can a guy take?
Using Lorentz’ math, Losada calculated that the benefits of positive affect will begin to decay at or above 11.6 to 1
Fredrickson & Losada suggest that appropriate negativity will help ground relationships in reality

19. Appropriate Negativity
Looking to Gottman’s data on predicting successful marriages, Fredrickson and Losada observe that some degree of appropriate negativity promotes flourishing
Gottman identifies disgust and contempt as the most corrosive emotions in a marital relationship
However, an atmosphere where needs can be communicated honestly promote marital success
For example, guilt derived from viewing actions as improper or immoral is more tolerable than shame derived from a sense of diminished self-worth
Fredrickson and Losada cite examples where insincere verbal and non-verbal expressions of emotion (false smiles, patronizing) have detrimental consequences generally recognized as negativity

20. General Theory of Positivity
Human flourishing and languishing can be represented by mathematical equations based the Lorentz’ efforts to predict weather systems
The positivity ratio bifuricating phase space between flourishing and languishing is 2.9.
Positivity ratios above 2.9 are associated with flourishing.
Human flourishing in large scales (couples, groups, teams) emulate structure and process observed at lower scales (individuals).
Appropriate negativity is a critical ingredient for flourishing.
Complex dynamics of flourishing decay above positivity ratios of 11.6:1 and higher.
Human flourishing is characterized by four components:
goodness
generativity
growth
resilience

21. What’s In It For You? Individually? Are you a Spouse?
Thriving comes from positive affect – spend time in environments promoting 3:1 ratio
Put yourself in places that make you feel good; minimize toxic places
Are you a Spouse?
Thriving marriages may require even more positive exhanges
Expect to give 5:1; hope to get 5:1
Keep negativity appropriate: focus on behavior
Stay Away from the most corrosive expressions: Contempt! & Disgust!
Are you a Parent? – “Teach your children well!” – David Crosby
Toiling in the Vineyard of the Working World?
Help co-workers and clients focus on what is right! Cast your recommendations in terms of what can be done to make it better!
Keep Losada Line in focus: Help coworkers & clients find a range of 2.9 to 11.6 positive emotional experiences – give them something good to take home!
Help coworkers & client avoid toxic experiences of Shame, Contempt & Disgust

22. References
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Fredrickson, Barbara L. and Losada, Marcial F. (2005). Positive Affect and the Complex Dynamics of Human Flourishing. American Psychologist, 60,
Gladwell, Malcolm. ((2005). Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking. (New York: Little, Brown and Company), pp
Gladwell, Malcolm. (2000). The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference. (New York: Little, Brown and Company), pp 13-39,

23. References (continued)
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24. References (continued)
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