Broaden and Build

In 1998, Barbara L. Fredrickson of the University of Michigan wrote an article entitled, “What Good are Positive Emotions?”  The full article is available at

http://www.unc.edu/peplab/publications/Fredrickson%201998.pdf.  

Up to that point in history, most psychologists had found human experiences such as joy, interest, contentment and love rather uninteresting.  We may all wish for an abundance of such positive emotions, but they didn’t do much to stir the blood of researchers and psychotherapists in the twentieth century.

Negative emotions—fear, anger, panic, anxiety, hatred, depression, shame, and the like—were far more interesting and thus far more heavily studied, analyzed and treated.  Fredrickson noted that the positive emotions were harder to characterize and quantify.  Second, these positive emotions aren’t necessarily attached to specific situations in the way that fear, for example, can be linked to the fight/flight/freeze response.  Negative emotions signify the presence, in many cases, of problems.  And, as the author noted, “problems demand attention.” 

Third, theorists had assumed that all emotions—negative and positive—functioned according to the same models.  Perhaps, however, positive emotions worked in a different way.  If that were the case, then it wouldn’t be surprising that studying them like their negative cousins would be neither successful or productive.

Fredrickson proposed a new model for understanding positive emotions—what she called the “broaden and build” approach to the study of such emotions.  She suggested first “that many positive emotions broaden a person’s momentary thought-action repertoire.”  

Think about those times when you are fearful, panicked, anxious or angry.  Your mental focus narrows.  Your physiology prepares you for action.  You are not considering a variety of options for response.  You are prepared to strike like a coiled snake.  In the presence of a real threat, this is a useful position.  Of course, in the presence of most of our life experiences, that sort of hyper-priming for reaction just makes things worse. 

Negative emotions tend to narrow “a person’s momentary thought-action repertoire.”  Positive emotions make us more flexible, creative and open to input.  Positive emotions make us less reactive, judgmental and rigid.  This is the “broaden” part of her model. 

“Whereas negative emotional traits such as anxiety and depression predict a local bias consistent with a narrowed attentional focus, positive emotional traits such as subjective well-being and optimism predict a global bias consistent with broadened attentional focus.”

Do you want to be better at problem-solving, test-taking, compassion, team-building, selling, and a raft of other creative endeavors?  Work on your positive affect and broaden your psychological focus.

In addition to these “in the moment” advantages, Fredrickson pointed out that positive emotions build physical, intellectual and social skills and resources which can be accessed later under stress.  This is the “build” part of her model.

“Importantly, these resources are more durable than the transient emotional states that led to their acquisition.  By consequence, then, the often incidental effects of experiencing a positive emotion is an increment in durable personal resources that can be drawn on later in other contexts and in other emotional states.”

Do you want to have additional resources available for those times of stress, fear, anger and depression that land periodically on each of us and all of us?  When things are good, practice the disciplines of love, gratitude, play, imagination, physical exercise, and friendship.  You can justify those time expenditures to yourself (if you’re one of those folks who needs to do that) as making deposits in your psychosocial bank account in preparation for later crisis withdrawals.

“By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things.” (Galatians 5:22).  If you know where and how to look, the Christian Bible has its share of insights into positive psychology.