POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY &

COMMUNICATION SKILLS
2. Interpersonal Aspects of Positive
Psychology
Dr. Maryam Farzand
 Interpersonal Relations and Positive Psychology
• Psychologists have long identified the desire to feel connected to others as a basic human
need, and interpersonal relationships have a significant impact on our mental health,
behavior, physical health, and mortality risk (Umberson & Montez, 2010).
• Our physiological systems are highly responsive to positive social interactions.
• Gable and Gosnell (2011) summarized that humans are endowed with separate reflexive
brain networks for social thinking.
• Close relationships are linked to health as they build certain biological systems that may
protect against the adverse effects of stress.
• Their research found that in response to social contact, the brain releases oxytocin, a
powerful hormone linked to trustworthiness and motivation to help others.
• Dunbar and Dunbar (1998) suggested that when individuals experience social pain from feeling
isolated, for instance, the region of the brain that is activated is the same as if physical pain had
been experienced.
• Conversely, when relationships are characterized by cooperation, trust, and fairness, the reward
center of the brain is activated, which encourages future interactions that promote trust,
respect, and confidence, with individuals believing the best in each other and inspiring each
other in their performance (Geue, 2017).
• Positive social interactions at work directly affect the body’s physiological processes.
• According to Heaphy and Dutton (2008), positive social interactions serve to bolster
physiological resourcefulness by fortifying the cardiovascular, immune, and neuroendocrine
systems through immediate and enduring decreases in cardiovascular reactivity, strengthened
immune responses, and healthier hormonal patterns.
• Social interactions play an essential role in wellbeing, which, in turn, has a positive
impact on the quality of life of an individual.
• According to Medical News Today, “direct person-to-person contact triggers parts of our
nervous system that releases a ‘cocktail’ of neurotransmitters tasked with regulating our
response to stress and anxiety.”
• These findings and suggestions corroborate the research done in a study that concludes
romantic partners can help each other relieve physical pain just through interaction and
touch.
• Additionally, if you or someone you know is living with cancer and is going through
treatments, positive social interactions could also impact the success of their treatment.
When people feel loved and valued, they are more likely to respond well to a taxing
experience such as chemotherapy.
• Furthermore, social interactions can help our brains improve memory functions, which
helps us recall events and protect our brains from neurodegenerative diseases such as
dementia or Alzheimer’s.
• Positive social interactions are good for our mental health, as well as our cognition.
When we can let off steam or vent to a loved one, he or she can help us work through
the problem.
• Furthermore, taking part in group activities can also help our mental health, reducing
our depression and anxiety. These activities do not have to be rigorous. In fact, a simple
dinner out or a Saturday afternoon playing games is a great way to stimulate our mind,
lower our stress level, and help re-shift our focus back to things that matter to us.
• Social interactions also keep mind sharp and spirits high, no matter the age.
Resiliency Factors in Positive Parenting
What Is Resilience?
• Resilience is the process of handling different types of stress and recovering from
trauma or adversity in tough times.
• From early life hardship or abuse, to loss of a parent, fractured relationships, loss of a
loved one, job loss, health problems, or natural disasters – trauma can come in any
number of packages. A resilient person can keep functioning and even thrive afterward.
• Psychologists have long been fascinated by the fact that some children who have faced
trauma can come out mostly unharmed, while others crumble. They wanted to know
why.
• At first, researchers focused on identifying individual characteristics that are
potential risks such as personality traits and vulnerabilities that could contribute to
negative outcomes in children​​. But later researchers turned this approach and
started looking into factors that contributed to positive outcomes in at-risk children
instead.
• They call these factors “resilience factors” or “protective factors.”
• These are the variables that, when present in a child’s life, correspond to being more
resilient and better health outcomes.
• Not only that, but they also seem to add up: The more protective factors are
present, the better the chance a child can adapt positively to difficult circumstances.
• However, the risk factors add up, too.
• Children exposed to six or more risk factors are 2.5 times more likely to develop
externalizing disorders, such as conduct disorder, violent crime, and substance abuse.
• They are also 1.8 times more likely to develop internalizing disorders that affect
children’s mental health, such as depression and anxiety disorders.
• The concept of resilience is essentially the accumulation of protective factors vs. risk
factors.
• Think of it like a scale: Stack the protective factors on one side and the risk factors on
the other.
• Children become resilient when the effect of the protective factors outweighs the risk
factors. This means that children with a history of significant adversity may require a lot
more positives to tip the scale and become resilient.
• Resiliency or Protective factors can be grouped into three general categories:
i) Family
ii) Community
iii) Individual
• They touch on various issues, but there’s a recurrent theme that runs
through many of the protective factors: connection with supportive people.
• Six decades of research indicate that a child’s resilience mostly depends on
their connections to other people, rather than their own inherent qualities​.
• Examples of resilience factors that can help kids adapt are:​

1. FAMILY FACTORS 2. COMMUNITY FACTORS:

Good parenting Support and engagement from extended
family members
Low family stress A supportive relationship with a mentor
Sound parental mental health Positive school experiences

Absence of alcoholism, drug abuse, etc. Safe neighborhood

Sense of safety Close community
Social support
Part of religious or faith community
Extracurricular activities
 3. INDIVIDUAL FACTORS
Adaptive emotional skills Higher intellectual capacity and cognitive
competencies.

Perception of control and the child’s ability to Gender (Girls tend to be more resilient than boys)
impact one’s own life

Self-esteem and self-efficacy Easy temperament

Having the ability to dream and a sense of purpose Favorable genes

in life
Social skills and communication skills Advantaged socioeconomic status.

Empathy

Sense of humor

Physical health
Resiliency Factors for Parents
Four proven strategies for parents to raise resilient kids are:
1. WARM, RESPONSIVE, SUPPORTIVE PARENTING IS THE BEST WAY
• The single most common factor in resilient children is having at least one close,
positive relationship with a warm, responsive, and supportive parent or adult
caretaker.
• When parents build a positive parent-child relationship, they can further teach or
instill in them other protective factors.
• Parents can build strong relationships through what child development experts call
authoritative parenting. This parenting style is characterized by high responsiveness
coupled with high expectations.
• Authoritative parents are warm and responsive to their children’s emotions.
They facilitate the development of emotional regulation which is a key
protective factor.
• They also allow autonomy and encourage independence, helping their children
gain a sense of control of their own lives – another significant resilient factor.
• Authoritative parenting is also associated with other valuable factors like self-
esteem, social competence, and communication skills.
• Tough love parenting, in contrast, does not support these protective factors. This
style of parenting is less likely to produce strongly resilient kids.
2. TEACH PROBLEM-SOLVING AND COPING SKILLS
• Directly teaching coping skills can help raise resilient children.
• Coping mechanisms are not only useful for dealing with severe hardship but they’re also helpful
for handling everyday challenges and transitions. So parents can treat changes or difficult times
as opportunities to instill these skills.
• Through learning to cope with changes in their everyday lives positively, children build a sense
of self-efficacy and perceived control that will carry them through future challenges.
• Positive coping skills include:
 Problem-solving skills
 Ability to make realistic plans
 Positive reappraisal of stressful situations
 Volunteering
 Regular exercise
 Extracurricular activities and group activities
3. WORK TOWARDS A HEALTHY, STABLE ENVIRONMENT
• Parents can also help their children become resilient by working to ensure they have
positive home, school, and social environments.
• Seeking help for any mental health or marital issues, finding ways to become more
resilient themselves, and modeling coping strategies are all ways parents can improve
their home environment.
• At the same time, parents can get involved in their children’s schooling and work with
teachers to ensure a positive school experience.
• That way they can support their children in developing positive social networks, as well
as keep them away from peers who may have a harmful influence.
4. DON’T SWEAT THE SMALL STUFF
• Strive to create a positive and healthy environment for our children, but do not keep
them in a bubble.
• We cannot maintain a perfect home or protect our children from all possible school and
social stressors.
• And the good news is that we do not need to. That is because not all stress is harmful to
children.
• Children need stress to build up a tolerance. Gradual exposure to stressful times at
manageable levels can actually help them develop coping strategies to become
resilient. Psychologists call this eustress or positive stress because it can promote
growth in coping skills.
• But there is one key caveat: The help of a supportive adult is critical in managing stress
and turning stress exposure into a resilience builder.
Cognitive and Emotional Processes in Positive Psychology
Positive Illusion
• Positive illusions refers to a set of three related beliefs that characterize the way
people think about
(1) Themselves
(2) their ability to control environmental events
(3) their future
• Instead of being evenhanded or balanced between the good and the bad, people
are unrealistically positive. They believe they have many more positive than
negative personal qualities, they exaggerate their abilities to bring about desired
outcomes, and they are overly optimistic about their futures.
• If not too extreme, these positive illusions promote psychological well-being and
psychological functioning.
• Accurate self-views were once thought to be an essential feature of psychological
well-being. It is easy to see why.
• People who harbor delusions of grandeur or believe they control the moon and
stars are not paragons of mental health. It is entirely possible that excessively
positive self-views are detrimental, but mildly positive ones are beneficial.
• Suppose we randomly sample a group of people and ask, “Compared with most
other people, how intelligent are you?” Logically, most of the people in our sample
should say they are as intelligent as most other people, with the rest equally split
between saying they are less intelligent and more intelligent than most other
people. This does not occur.
• Instead, most people say they are more intelligent than most other people.
• Furthermore, this effect occurs for a wide variety of personality traits and
abilities.
• People believe they are more competent, flexible, and intelligent than others;
drive better than others; are more caring, adaptive, and fairer than others; are
happier and have better interpersonal relationships than others; and are more
deserving of good fortune and good health.
• They also believe their judgments are less distorted by greed or personal gain
than are other people’s judgments and that their opinions are grounded in facts,
but other people’s opinions are driven by ideology.
• The bias even extends to friends, family, loved ones, and fellow group members,
and is characteristic of people from a variety of cultures.
• People also exaggerate their abilities to bring about desired outcomes. They readily
credit themselves when things go well, but deny responsibility when things go awry.
• Together, these beliefs give rise to unrealistic optimism.
• Believing they are “good” and “powerful,” leads people to believe their futures will
be brighter than base rate data justify.
• For example, even though the current divorce rate in industrialized countries is
approximately 50%, roughly three-quarters of newlyweds believe they will never
divorce.
• The prevalence of illusions does not mean that people are wildly inaccurate. In
most cases, the degree of distortion is modest, resulting in a self-portrait that is just
a bit too good to be true.
• Moreover, positive illusions do take reality into account. For example, although
smokers think they are less likely to get cancer than are most other smokers, they
readily acknowledge they are at greater risk than are nonsmokers.
Benefits of Positive Emotions
If not too excessive, positive illusions can be beneficial. These benefits fall into
four areas.
1. Positive illusions are linked with subjective well-being. People who hold positive
self-views are happier and more content than are those who are more realistic.
2. Under some circumstances, positive self-views can also bring about success.
• People who are confident in their abilities often perform better at achievement-
related activities (e.g., exams, sporting contests) than do those who are more
modest, even when their confidence is not entirely warranted.
• These effects are most apparent at tasks of moderate difficulty.
3. They promote interpersonal relationships.
• People who view their romantic partners through rose-colored glasses are more
satisfied with their relationship and more committed to it than are those who
have a more realistic view of their partners’ actual strengths and weaknesses.
4. Positive illusions help people cope with life’s challenges.
• For example, cancer patients who believe they can prevent the recurrence of
cancer enjoy greater health than do those who are realistic.
• Preoperative patients who are unduly optimistic about their operation’s success
fare better than those who more accurately perceive the procedure’s dangers
and risks.
Costs of Positive Illusions and Emotions
• The many benefits of positive illusions and emotions should not blind us to their
potential costs.
• First, positive illusions can lead people to undertake activities for which they are ill-
suited. For example, an aspiring dancer may invest years pursuing a career in the arts
without having the requisite talent.
• Positive illusions can also lead people to make poor economic decisions or engage in
behaviors that are detrimental to their well-being. Gamblers, for example, often
exaggerate their ability to control events that are heavily influenced by chance.
• Finally, positive illusions can have interpersonal costs. Although people generally
prefer the company of optimistic people, they are not drawn to people who are
boastful.
 Explanatory Styles
• Our explanatory style affects our life in ways we may not realize. It can minimize your stress
response or exacerbate it.
• It can keep us feeling safe in socially dangerous situations, or endangered in relatively safe
ones. It can motivate us when we are faced with challenges or leave us feeling vulnerable to
them.
• Explanatory style is defined by psychologists Gregory McClell Buchanan and Martin EP
Seligman as “our tendency to offer similar explanations for different events.”
• Psychologists use the term "explanatory style" today to describe how people explain the
events of their lives.
• When something happens, our explanatory style is part of how we process it, attach
meaning to it, and assess it as a threat or a challenge in our lives.
• It is part self-talk and part self-perception, and it affects stress levels in multiple ways.
Aspects of Explanatory Style
• There are three parameters (internality, stability, and globality) of how people can
explain a situation to themselves.
• Each one can lean toward optimism or pessimism.
1. Stable vs. Unstable
• This has to do with how we perceive the permanence of a situation. Is it changing
across time or unchanging? Do we expect things to get better or worse, or stay
exactly as they are for a long time? This can make a difference in how stressful
something seems.
• If we are taking a stressful class in school, we at least know that the class will be
over in a few months.
Global vs. Local
• Is a stressor universal throughout your life (that is, pervasive)? Or is it specific to a
part of your life?
• A good example of this is the feeling of having good or bad luck. If you feel yourself
to be unlucky (bad luck pervades throughout your life), one negative experience
may seem like an omen that more bad things are to come.
• Likewise, if you attribute a poor performance at work as being due to something
global like a perceived inability to do the job well, one failure may seem like a sign
of more failures to come.
• Someone who views one poor performance as being a sign of a bad day or lack of
sleep—something more local and less global—will have an easier time shaking off
one failure.
Internal vs. External
• Do you see the cause of an event as within yourself (personalization) or outside
yourself? If you are having a difficult day and you see it as being "your fault," you
will feel more stressed than if you see it as due to factors other than you.
• Likewise, when we are facing conflict with others, seeing the problem as being
rooted in something that is "their problem" rather than "our fault" can help us to
take things less personally and feel less hurt.
• If many people have the same complaints about us, it helps to look at what they are
saying to assess whether there is something we may want to change.
• But generally, it helps to know that many of people's complaints can have more to
do with them than with us.
Explanatory Styles and their Role in Stress
• Explanatory styles affect how we perceive the world, which can affect our experience of
stress as well as our reactions to our stressors.
• If we have a positive explanatory style, we may feel less stressed by challenging
experiences because a positive explanatory style can minimize the perceived severity of
stressors—they seem like they are not such a big deal, will be over soon, are not our
fault, and will not necessarily recur.
• Negative explanatory styles tend to create more stress in life and can make our
stressors feel more threatening.
• Optimists tend to have more positive explanatory styles, ones that minimize stressful
situations as unstable, local, and external and take credit for positive experiences as
being more stable, global, and internal.
• Pessimists tend to see things in the opposite way, which can make stress
seem like a bigger deal than it may need to be, and expands stressful
feelings and even, research shows, symptoms of depression.

• Studies also show that people with negative explanatory styles may have
more trouble recovering from heart transplants and other stressful life
events.
Self-esteem and Positive Psychology
• Self-esteem is our subjective sense of overall personal worth or value.
• William James (1890) defined self-esteem as self-confidence resulting from the ratio of
our actual achievements to our aspirations.
• By aspirations, he meant predicting the potential successes informed by our goals,
values and objectives.
• Building self-esteem needs to take into consideration all kinds of judgement based on
environments such as school, peers, workplace, or family.
• How we estimate our self-esteem greatly depends on how we operate in areas of life
that are important to us.
• In order to define our own self-esteem, we may use the following questions to guide us:
- What is my value?
- What makes me who I am?
- How important am I to myself?
- What does it say about me?
- What am I like?
- What do I deserve?
- What is important to me?
• Many researchers believe that high self-esteem goes hand in hand with a prosperous
lifestyle. We take care of our self-esteem by investing in intellectual development and in
growing as a person.
• We attend training, sign up for language courses, and increase our qualifications more
often. Attending the gym and being mindful of our diet also impacts our self-esteem.
• Physical health and fitness play a huge role in the process. We also want to look better,
which is why we invest in cosmetic treatments.
• We try to nurture our interpersonal relations by meeting with friends and exchanging points
of view. We take care to read a meaningful book or go out to the cinema or the theatre
from time to time. Our worth is expressed in what we have invested in ourselves.
• According to experts, this kind of development and investing in high self-esteem is essential
which leads to more meaningful and happy life.
Altruism and Pro-social Behavior
• Prosocial behavior was defined as behavior through which people benefit others (Eisenberg,
1982), including helping, cooperating, comforting, sharing, and donating, etc.
• Prosocial behavior becomes altruistic when the motivation behind helping the other is
without any thoughts of what you might get in return.
• Altruism and prosocial behavior is in part driven by feelings of empathy and a concern for the
welfare of others (Eisenberg and Miller, 1987; Carlo et al., 1996).
• Engaging in altruism and prosocial behavior may be a protective factor during periods of
global adversity, as it can be linked to benefits on the individual and to society as a whole;
acts that focus on benefitting others are particularly important in the face of widespread
suffering such as COVID-19 pandemic, in which many individuals were confronted with
financial hardship, social isolation, and the loss of loved ones.
• Furthermore, altruism and prosocial behavior is associated with personal benefits
for the individual provider of help.
• This is supported by mounting evidence of different types of prosocial behavior
being related to greater physical and mental health with studies showing that
volunteering, family caregiving, and the provision of tangible help to close others
are associated with greater longevity (Harris and Thoresen, 2005; Poulin et al.,
2013; Roth et al., 2013)
• Spending money on others augments emotional well-being (Aknin et al., 2013).
• Past research has shown that altruism and prosocial behavior buffers against the
negative effects of daily stress on emotional well-being (Raposa et al., 2016).
• Furthermore, it was found that time spent volunteering after a natural disaster is
associated with increased feelings of belongingness (Gordon et al., 2011).