Psychology of thriving: Mental health is not just expelling illness. Now, science explores what it takes to flourish

Jul. 6--Back in 1971, Philip Zimbardo locked students in basements beneath Stanford University to see what would happen.

It's not difficult to imagine his doing this. Zimbardo, with his slicked-back, black hair, sharp nose, and devil T-shirt, looks remarkably like a cartoon villain. And the outcome of his Stanford Prison Experiment was truly dark -- in less than a week, ordinary college students assigned to the role of prison guard had turned viciously sadistic, while those designated as prisoners cowered in terror.

But now, Zimbardo says, he's changed. In his opening lecture last month at the First World Congress on Positive Psychology in Philadelphia, he emphasized this point by blasting Santana's "Evil Ways" through the speakers of the Center City Philadelphia Sheraton. And 1,600 positive psychologists stood up and danced.

For too long, says Zimbardo, psychologists -- including himself -- have spent most of their time trying to understand how and why things go wrong. This work has produced, among other benefits, effective therapies for mental illnesses. But mental health, like physical health, means more than just eliminating sickness. It means actively thriving.

Can science shed light on what it takes to flourish? Zimbardo thinks it can. "We ask big questions and come up with solid answers based on the best experimental data," he explained. Below, we offer a few snapshots from talks presented at the congress, featuring positive psychologists quantifying some of the most personal aspects of the human experience -- things such as passion, love, and our perception of time.

Time out of mind

Facts. Emotions. Logic. If you ask most people what they base their decisions on, this is the type of answer you're likely to get. But Zimbardo thinks it's not the whole story -- or even most of it.

"The main thing that determines your decisions," he said, "is something you're unaware of -- your perspective on time."

Imagine going out to lunch with co-workers and deciding whether to have that second martini. You could approach the decision by considering what happened last time you drank too much at lunch, or by envisioning how it would affect your work performance later in the day. You could focus on how much fun it would be right now. Or you might figure that you never get much done in the afternoon anyway, so why not?

These four responses are typical of distinct time perspectives: past, future, present-hedonistic, and present-fatalistic.

Zimbardo and his colleagues created a time-perspective survey and gave it to thousands of people. Many had a single, strong time orientation, but some were more mixed.

Not surprising, college students scoring high in the present-hedonistic category were more likely to drink, smoke, use drugs, and drive dangerously.

But in older people recovering from heart trouble, a present-hedonistic orientation had the opposite effect. Elderly people who lived for the moment were more likely to take responsibility for their health.

That's because older people can't take good health for granted, the Canadian researchers who conducted the study said. Many simple daily pleasures are only possible if seniors take care of their bodies. And some activities that give immediate gratification -- such as socializing with friends and being physically active -- also have long-term health benefits.

The first step to making better decisions, Zimbardo says, is to understand how your own time perspective biases your thinking. Then you can start nudging it a little closer to the ideal: feeling positive about the past, planning for the future, and savoring the occasional splash of present hedonism. Take the test and see how you measure up at www.thetimeparadox.com.

Talk about the passion

Whether it's a dream set far in the future or a momentary pleasure, most of us are passionate about something. But University of Quebec professor Robert Vallerand is passionate about, well, passion.

He and his research group developed a survey to measure people's passion for their favorite activities. People rate how strongly, on a scale of one to seven, they agree with statements such as, "If I could, I would only do this activity," or "This activity reflects qualities I like about myself." Strong agreement with either statement is a sign of passion.

Not just the intensity, but also the type of passion matters. Vallerand and his colleagues identified two main kinds of passion: obsessive and harmonious. A person who is obsessively passionate about his favorite activity would agree more with the first statement, while someone whose passion is harmonious would agree more with the second.

When things are going well, it's hard to distinguish between these two types of passion. But when obstacles arise, they can lead to very different behavior.

Obsessively passionate cyclists braved Quebec's frigid winter weather to complete their daily bike rides, while those who were more harmonious spun at home or at the gym. Similarly, obsessively passionate dancers had more trouble taking enough time off to fully heal after an injury, sometimes leading to chronic damage.

Passion matters not only to individuals, but also to society, Vallerand said.

When he compared high-achieving professionals profiled by the Montreal newspaper La Presse with a random sample of people from an evening commuter train, he found that the high achievers were more passionate. They also worked an average of nine hours more per week.

What can you do to cultivate harmonious passion? Vallerand suggests three steps. First, select an activity you like, and set aside enough time to do it regularly. Second, internalize the activity -- make it part of how you see yourself. Finally, focus on enjoying the activity and improving your own performance -- not avoiding failure or doing better than others.

For better or for worse?

Passion can ignite romantic attraction, but the fate of relationships may depend on surprising details -- such as how one spouse responds to the other sharing some good news.

Shelly Gable, a psychologist at the University of California at Santa Barbara, studies how couples respond to positive events, which could range from winning a casual Frisbee game to getting that long-awaited promotion at work.

Psychologists already knew that if one partner in a relationship provided support after a negative event, this helped the other partner and strengthened the relationship. But no one had looked at positive events.

When Gable did, the results surprised her. Enthusiasm after a positive event strengthened the relationship more than support after a negative event.

"I thought it would be important, but not as important as it was," she said, adding that needing help can make people feel incompetent or indebted.

Another unexpected result was that a passive, supportive response -- like saying, "That's nice, honey," and then turning back to the computer -- was almost as damaging as actually putting down the good event.

Luckily, giving active, constructive responses is a skill anyone can develop. "You don't have to be effervescent," Gable said. All you really have to do is show you care.