The Lit-Review Section of my Research Project:
To get a better understanding as to how practicing gratitude does not necessarily improve a person’s wellbeing let’s look at some key terms that are relevant to this investigation, the first of which being “positive psychology.” Christopher Peterson, a University of Michigan psychology professor, defines positive psychology as “the scientific study of what makes life most worth living.” Putting this into perspective, it is highly likely that Peterson possibly refers to this “scientific study” as taking a survey of a certain group of people and gather their personal beliefs or opinions as to what they think makes their lives worth living, to which some might say their families, their friends, financial security and stability, etc. However, given that certain things have a different level of importance to different people, it’s important to know that positive psychology for one class of people may differ from that of another. The next term we will examine is “gratitude.” Interestingly, when we think of the word “gratitude” our minds generally tend to veer toward the act of saying “thank you” to someone when they pay us a compliment or to someone who has allowed you to borrow her cell phone charger when you are without yours. However, psychologists would argue that the term “gratitude” has a far deeper, much more intuitive meaning behind it while agreeing with the overall “thank you” ideology. Dr. R. Sansone, MD, a Director of Psychiatry Education at Kettering Medical Center in Kettering, Ohio, defines that gratitude “has been conceptualized as a moral virtue, an attitude, an emotion, a habit, a personality trait, and a coping response. 1. A number of researchers have defined gratitude as a positive emotional reaction in response to the receipt of a gift or benefit from someone.” This said, even in feeling this type of an emotional response to something positive, it will not be enough to improve someone’s wellbeing because after the satisfaction of positive event, gift, or circumstance has shortly-subsided, my wellbeing remains unchanged, thus, emotional wellbeing lasts longer than gratitude. Let’s now take a look at what wellbeing is. This is University of Cambridge Psychology Professor Felicia A. Huppert’s description of psychological wellbeing: Psychological well‐being is about lives going well. It is the combination of feeling good and functioning effectively. Sustainable well‐being does not require individuals to feel good all the time; the experience of painful emotions (e.g. disappointment, failure, grief) is a normal part of life, and being able to manage these negative or painful emotions is essential for long‐term well‐being. Psychological well‐being is, however, compromised when negative emotions are extreme or very long lasting and interfere with a person's ability to function in his or her daily life. This stated, assuming Huppert’s definition of wellbeing is accurate, wellbeing is essentially how well everything is going in our day-to-day lives and how well we can function as a person. A research study done at ncbi.nlm.nih.gov conflicts the opinion of the aforementioned research. In the section of this article entitled “Conflicting Empirical Data” there is no correlation or connection between gratitude and wellbeing, or at least not much. Here are their findings: Gurel Kirgiz compared a gratitude condition (i.e., composing a letter to someone who made a positive difference in the life of the participant) with a neutral emotional condition, but present levels of gratitude did not evidence a relationship with well-being. Among divorced middle-aged women, Henrie compared those who journaled gratitude experiences with those who read educational materials and those on a wait-list group; the treatment groups showed no improvement in their satisfaction with life. Finally, Mallen Ozimkowski examined the effect of a ‘gratitude visit’ (i.e., the writing and delivering of a letter of gratitude to someone in their lives who was never properly thanked) in children and adolescents. In this study, the gratitude exercise was not associated with enhanced well-being. Despite this one portion of the article makes the claim that gratitude does not improve a person's overall well-being, I'm inclined to agree, as the “Three Good Things” process did not improve mine as the week went on, the process felt more and more like a chore.
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For this week's blog assignments (final two in one week!) I will be posting a sample from my research project, my Introduction that I have thus far and here it is. Go Team EMMA!
Intro to My Take on Gratitude: Terms like "gratitude" and "well-being" each have their own separate ideal definition, there are a class of people who have their own scholarly opinion on what each means. For example, when we think of the word "gratitude" our minds generally think of appreciating something or giving someone a wholehearted "thank you" when she gives you a compliment or gives you her cell phone charger to borrow. However, psychologists would argue that "gratitude" has a far deeper, much more intuitive meaning behind it while agreeing with the overall "thank you" ideology. Having said all this, some may say that the "Three Good Things" gratitude process is ineffective in improving a person's well-being if some unfortunate events happened during someone's week that may cause her mind to focus more on the unfavorable events rather than the favorable ones, in which case the "Three Good Things" gratitude process may become a rote, chore-like routine. As children, when we were growing up, we—more times than not—are instilled with the lesson that we should be “grateful for the things that we already have” whether something isn’t going the way we want it to or if we desire something that is seemingly out of reach. Then there are the self-help gurus who argue that being grateful for what we already have energetically opens us up to receiving more of that which we are grateful for, more of the things we want, or possibly both. But does it really? For some, the answer is yes; but for others such as me the answer is often no. There is an exercise called the “Three Good Things” gratitude process that entails keeping a journal in which you list at least three good things that has happened that day that you are grateful for (i.g. an attractive person sitting next to you on the train ride home, finding a $20 bill in the middle of the sidewalk during the walk home, receiving an unexpected phone call or e-mail from a long-time friend or relative you’ve not seen in a long time, etc.), and repeat this process every day for at least a week, and this supposedly is supposed to improve your wellbeing, which it has failed to do for me personally. For me, personally, the “Three Good Things” gratitude process failed to have a positive impact on my emotional wellbeing because I do not find that my emotional wellbeing is up to par for gratitude to have a good effect on me (what I mean by this is explained below). So for this week's Blog Post, on this Thanksgiving week, I took what is known as the "Happiness Quiz." Here are my results: I've scored 57 out of a possible 115 points. It also tells me I am practicing a few life skills that are contributing to my happiness. The great news is, that by learning new skills (and a little work can go a long way), I can make myself even happier. Then there's the text that said "find out how" which included a link to this webpage. I did not thoroughly read the page at the time I was writing this blog post, but I plan to do so at a later time. Also, I anticipate using this data to possibly help me write current (or possibly later) drafts of my Research Project.
Personally, I find this to be an interesting way to assess a person's current state of emotional well-being, namely how happy (or unhappy) they are in their life based on their responses to a series of 13 questions. It could also help someone struggling through depression, which I have. If there is anything I found to be difficult, it's having to respond to the questions with possible answers such as "Once or Twice a Month," "Once or Twice a Week," etc. whereas even though whatever the question maybe asking might happy occasionally, frequently, it may happen more than three times a week and then only one the next over the course of one month. But that did pose quite a challenge as I wanted to answer as honestly as possible. Write about your research project. Consider posting sections of the project, updates on research, annotating sources, questions you are struggling/succeeding in answering, comparisons to other research writing you have completed, impact on your life, overall reflections, writing goals, intrinsic goals, etc.
This week I am working on the second draft of my Research Project; this after having already done Draft 1 a week ahead of its deadline. What an accomplishment! I'm hoping to have Draft 2 done extra early this week because I do have a dentist appointment this Thursday afternoon and will require a lot of rest afterward. Thus, I anticipate I'll be in no condition to work on a research assignment, or even comment on other users' work! So EMMA Squad Members, if you ladies are reading this, please, I encourage the three of y'all to please not be lazy this week and get those Draft 1s done! Here's the thing though, not only do I want to get it done early, I also would like to get it done right! This is the thing I'm feeling anxious about... when I do Draft 2 will it be an A-quality paper? I always aim to make my assignments, especially essay assignments, the best they can be. But sometimes, there are imperfections with my work that I hand in and I wind up getting a lower grade (though a good one) than what I had set for. I would like for this assignment to not be one of them. UPDATE (11/14/2018): Didn't get as much done as I had hoped. I had a lot to do and it was busy day. Not only that but I ended up falling asleep too early today. But thankfully, in the first draft of my Research Project I've already done a lot more than I thought so all that I need to do is make some necessary changes and tweaks and then there's a stronger possibility the second draft will be up on this site by the end of the week (Friday)! More to come later... UPDATE (11/15/20108): Here's my introduction for my Research Project: "It is a Friday evening. I am excited merely about the fact that tomorrow is Saturday, my favorite day of the week. Not only am I one of the very few who actually like the early darkness the fall-winter seasons bring but I am also liking the rainy weather accompanying the night. The sounds of rainfall at any time of day or night is so peaceful and therapeutic to listen to, but at night, it sounds that much more beautiful. The reason being is that I’m more of a night person. The night rain is not only beautiful to listen to but it makes for excellent sleeping weather, as it will rain well into Saturday morning. In a way, I really do not want this night to end but I am more than certain there will come another Friday and/or Saturday night with overnight rain. But for now, this experience is something I am grateful for! I am grateful for such beautiful weather. Do I feel good right now? Yes! Does this weather improve my well-being? YES! What if something negative happened earlier this day, would that situation have an effect on how I feel on this night of the type of weather I speak of? Yes, it would. I would not feel as good. The question is, can doing the "Three Good Things" gratitude process really have a positive effect on a person's overall well-being? Well, it depends on who you ask, to say the least. The reason for this is because despite that terms like "gratitude" and "well-being" each have their own separate ideal definition, there are a class of people who have their own scholarly opinion on what each means. For example, when we think of the word "gratitude" our minds generally think of appreciating something or giving someone a wholehearted "thank you" when she gives you a compliment or gives you her cell phone charger to borrow. However, psychologists would argue that "gratitude" has a far deeper, much more intuitive meaning behind it while agreeing with the overall "thank you" ideology. Having said all this, some may say that the "Three Good Things" gratitude process is ineffective in improving a person's well-being if some unfortunate events happened during someone's week that may cause her mind to focus more on the unfavorable events rather than the favorable ones, in which case the "Three Good Things" gratitude process may become a rote, chore-like routine." Other Notes: Today is the day of my dental appointment later this afternoon. I'm kind of feeling nervous about it but I'll just go in with a confident "this will be quick and I'll be out of here in no time" attitude. What does this have to do with my research assignment? Well, that's kind of the thing, this was the week I really wanted to get everything done as fast as possible because of the appointment. But I just honestly haven't feeling that much up to it. But I still wanted to get it done early, so I came to Marple Campus early on 11/15 because I've noticed I work a lot more diligently when I'm on campus than when I'm at home. I do want to be honest about one other thing: I don't want this to just be an assignment just for a class. I want this assignment to have some kind of an impact on me as a person, to get something out of this. I'd like for this to help me along my journey of becoming a master at the Law of Attraction and to help others find their path to creating the life of their dreams, even if my way isn't the best way for them. Hey, we're all different, right? I feel this assignment is having an impact on me as a person. What I like is when somebody sees I'm not happy about something that has happy in my life and/or not receiving something I desire, and that same person tells me "you should be grateful for what you already have now!" The thing about it is, my response of defensiveness is always "how does this get me in a better place in life?!" Well, here's the thing: when we're grateful for what we're already having now, that puts us in a position to receive more of what we're grateful for! However, based on my experiences, feeling negative emotions and grateful don't coincide all that well. Actually, you can be upset and grateful but the attitude of gratitude don't do much to make you feel better if you're in a place of negativity, based on my experience. I feel this will help with later drafts of my research project! FINAL UPDATE (11/18/20108): On Thursday it snowed, and no, I did not get the extraction. It was too much and my dentist decided it'd be best if I had it done at the oral surgeon. But anyway, onto the Research Project: I've decided the best thing for me to do now is to rewrite this sucker! It's the only way I'll know for sure if I'm doing it correctly along the way! But at least this way, I know the direction my paper is going in and it shouldn't be as complicated as the first time. However, the good news in all this is we had that game show competition thing on Thursday and the three of four teams that played it won! That means we have an extension on the Research Project! YAY! Unfortunately, I do tend to slack. Yes, even Amir slacks with assignments! But I will still attempt to have the Research Project webpage and the assignment itself done ideally by 11/19 but long before its new due date of 11/26. Wish me luck, EMMA Squad Members! So this week, I will be working on a research project on whether or not gratitude has any effect on a person's well-being. During the weekend of November 2 up through November 5, I've completed the first draft of my Research Project, an assignment that isn't/wasn't due until Monday, November 12. However, having the first draft done a week early affords me the luxury of making an necessary changes, be is essay structure, as well as fixing any grammatical errors or anything of the kind. The most difficult portion of this assignment was answering the "What research suggests gratitude doesn't improve well-being?" question, which is ironic in the sense that last week's "Three Good Things" assignment didn't do much to improve my personal well-being. However, the one portion of this assignment that I did enjoy doing was answering the research question as to whether or not gratitude improves well-being (because it allowed me to speak based on my personal experiences), as well as the definition questions, "What is positive psychology, well-being, gratitude, etc.?" I've had experience with these types of assignments because on projects like this that involves citing sources, collecting research data, etc. I don't ever seem to have much of a problem collecting the sources for the research essay. What's interesting is that when doing these assignments, I'd rather collect my info from book sources, rather than Internet sources, and that's only because people can basically say and publish whatever propaganda they want online. Book writing is believed to have more formal data. However, it's much easier to find Internet sources, which brings me to give my readers this tip: if you must go for Internet sources, ascertain that the site sources are credible (not sites like Wikipedia, etc.). As I continue work on this assignment and writing different drafts of this assignment, I plan to continue researching and gathering more data, sharing it with my group members, etc., particularly the dreaded "What research suggests gratitude doesn't improve well-being?" question. I'm giving more attention to the more challenging portions of it because I intend to make this assignment the best it can be! This is not just to get an A on the assignment and in the class but also to hone my art of writing and to enhance my craft, including essay writing. Despite that the "Three Good Things" process didn't do much for me personally, I find last week's blog and this assignment to be interesting because they allowed me to the self-realization of what feels good to me and what doesn't, as well as me communicating with my Higher Self regarding my well-being via meditation.
My two other favorite parts of this process was being brutally honest with myself in this assignment. Here is what I wrote in the Conclusion section of this assignment: "Will I continue with the 'Three Good Things' process? Most likely not with my current emotional status. Why? Because my emotional outlook isn't at a high-enough state for me commit to doing a 'Three Good Things' process. Once I begin looking at things in my life from a more positive perspective and outlook, I highly anticipate the 'Three Good Things' process to feel good for me to commit to." Lastly another favorable part of this assignment was reading an article at happierhuman.com where the blogger at that site writes: "This exercise, called 'Three Good Things', fights that loss and counteracts adaption. By taking the time to consciously express gratitude, we remember that we already have in our lives things we should be grateful and happy for. Doing this exercise actually feels good." I challenge this because whether we're feeling grateful for something or not, I strongly feel that if we have that intuitive lack for something we need or desire our well-being will not be at a favorable level, and that is all based on my personal experience. However, I also feel that the blogger at that article was most-likely writing it from their personal experience. I will work further on this project and review more of my sources in the coming weeks. |
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