The Science of a Positive Ripple Effect

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The Science of a Positive Ripple Effect

• Shawn Achor
• Harvard University
• June 2009
• www.shawnachor.com

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Introducing the Outlier

• Studying the Identified Positive Outliers (IPOs)

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Ripple Effects and Mirror Neurons

• Positive individual changes ripple to culture
  change

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Case study Studying Outliers
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Harvard University
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The Great Divide

• 80 report work debilitating depression
• GPA not correlate with happiness
• 35 Highest ranking officer
• Average of romantic relationships lt 1
• 24 are unaware if they are currently in a
  romantic relationship

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Self-Belief

• Learn to Fail or Fail to Learn (Tal Ben-Shahar,
  2006)
• Punished by Praise (Dweck, 2003)

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Positive Brains and Success

• The Silent 75
• Positivity and Performance
• (Hom and Arbuckle, 1988)
• Happiness and Intelligence
• (Estrada, Isen and Young, 1997)

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Strategy 1Training Your Brain

• The Tetris Effect
• Gratitude training

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Strategy 2 Managing Activation Energy

• Long email addresses and guitars
• Activation energy
• Flow
• (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990)

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Happiness, Meaning and Potential

• Shawn Achor
• Harvard University
• www.shawnachor.com
• shawnachor_at_gmail.com

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Practicing Happiness

• Creating lasting positive change
• 3 Gratitudes (Emmons McCullough, 2003)
• Journaling (Slatcher Pennebaker, 2006)
• Exercise (Babyak et al., 2000)
• Meditation (Allen, 2003 Pettinger, 2007)
• Random Acts of Kindness (Lyubomirsky, 2005)

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Positive Relativity Theory (Achor, 2008)

• To what are we motivated to attend?
• How we engage affects perception (Achor, 2007)
• Perception predicts performance and resilience
  (Proffit and Clore, 2008)

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Engaged Brains and Relativity Theory
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Our Brains During Stress
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The 3 Million Brain Hijack
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Eustress vs. Distress
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The Soprano Effect (Achor, 2007)

• Reflexive brain on high alert
• Chronic activation of the sympathetic nervous
  system

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How to Prevent a Hijack

• Locus of control predicts response to stress
  (Rahim Psenicka, 1996)
• Gaining control
• 1. Self-awareness
• 2. Use your words
• 3. Separate internal from external control

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The Pygmalion Effect (Rosenthal, 1968)
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Emotional Contagion

• Stuart Smalley
• Florida
• Gray
• Orange
• Bingo

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Conclusion Group Engagement