Consider for a moment why you are reading this textbook. Are you doing it because you think you have to, and it’s a necessary step to completing this course? Or perhaps you would feel guilty if you didn’t? Or maybe you are doing it because you truly enjoy reading and mastering this material?

The idea that people function best when they feel that their actions stem from their own desires rather than from external forces.

The extent to which a person believes that either internal or external factors determine life outcomes.

Around the globe, millions of people believe that significant outcomes in their lives, including the courses of their careers and romantic relationships, are determined by the movements of celestial bodies. You may have found yourself consulting a horoscope for clues to your fate. Recalling what you have learned about self-determination theory and locus of control, how do you think belief in astrology might influence a person’s motivation and ability to grow? What is the appeal of yielding control over one’s life to the stars?

The tendency for salient rewards or threats to lead people to attribute the reason, or justification, for engaging in an activity to an external factor, which thereby undermines their intrinsic motivation for and enjoyment of the activity.

Self-determination theory provides a framework for understanding the individual’s motivation for self-growth. Research has also uncovered more specific types of experiences and goals that help individuals expand their capacities and enrich their enjoyment of life.

Pursue Goals That Support Core Needs

We’ve just seen that why we pursue a goal is an important factor in our growth; what goals we pursue also matters. Some goals strengthen a meaningful relationship or exercise a talent, helping to satisfy personal core needs (Sheldon & Elliott, 1999). Other goals, such as striving to be popular, do so less well. Indeed, people who pursue materialistic goals of fame and fortune tend to have lower levels of life satisfaction, creativity, and self-actualization than those who pursue more intrinsic goals such as good social relationships and personal growth (Kasser & Ryan, 1993; Sheldon et al., 2004). The “American dream” may not be so dreamy.

Get in the Zone

Have you ever participated in some activity where your sense of time seems to evaporate, you lose all sense of your self, and you are totally focused on the activity at hand? Maslow referred to such instances as “peak experiences,” and he felt that they contribute to self-actualization. More recently, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1990) labeled this experience flow. From his interviews with surgeons, mountain climbers, and others about their optimal performances, Csikszentmihalyi defines flow as a complete focus of attention on an activity and away from one’s self and the passage of time. And, he argues, achieving flow can improve performance and enrich our sense of self.

Flow is achieved when the challenge of a situation, person, or task is just above our typical skill level, requiring a full engagement of all our concentration and focus. As you see depicted in FIGURE 6.7, when the challenge is too high, we experience anxiety, and when the challenge is too low, we experience boredom. But when skills and challenges match, intrinsic motivation and flow can emerge. This idea helps explain why video games are so popular: They are designed so that once you master a given level, there’s another, higher level to challenge you, so you always have a good match for your skill level (Keller & Bless, 2008). Although people cannot be in flow all the time, research suggests that even recalling past peak experiences can be beneficial and actually contributes to better physical health (Burton & King, 2004).

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Act Mindfully

The study of mindfulness, attentiveness to the present moment in which one is actively involved with one’s actions and their meaning (Brown et al., 2007; Langer & Moldoveanu, 2000), grows out of traditions of contemplative thought such as Buddhism and Stoicism. According to Ellen Langer (1989), mindfulness can be understood by contrasting it with its opposite, mindlessness. When we act mindlessly, we habitually engage with our actions and the external world, and we rarely consider novel and creative approaches to life. The self becomes stagnant. But when we’re mindful, we open ourselves up to consider the world and ourselves in new, more multidimensional ways. People trained in mindfulness show less anxiety and fewer symptoms when coping with medical issues (Kabat-Zinn, 1990; Shapiro et al., 1998), and in one study, were more likely than a control group to develop helpful antibodies in response to an influenza vaccine (Davidson et al., 2003). Although we still have much to learn about mindfulness, it appears that taking time out of our busy schedules to stop and smell the roses, or just be fully in the moment, might improve our creativity, concentration, and overall well-being (Brown et al., 2007).

Expand Your Mind: Explore the World

Sometimes simply exposing the self to unfamiliar environments can help a person to view the world more creatively and openly. Have you ever had a creative idea—such as a different way to approach a term paper or interpersonal dilemma—pop into your head while hiking in the woods or watching a strange foreign movie? You’re not alone. Many physicists, composers, and other creative individuals have hatched their most innovative ideas while climbing mountains, looking at the stars, and taking part in other novel experiences (Csikszentmihalyi, 1996).

The idea that exposure to new environments can stimulate creativity is also one reason your university or college encourages you to study abroad, and why employers often seek to increase cultural diversity in the workplace. In fact, research shows that even brief exposure to a foreign culture can improve creativity. In one study (Leung & Chiu, 2010), Euro-American students first watched a 45-minute slide show. Some participants viewed aspects of either Chinese culture (e.g., food and architecture) or American culture. Others were shown aspects of both cultures intermixed, such as fashion that blends American and Chinese influences. Afterward, participants were asked to interpret the story of Cinderella for Turkish children, and the researchers measured how creative these interpretations were. They found that compared with participants who viewed either Chinese or American culture, those exposed to a mingling of both cultures subsequently wrote more creative Cinderella interpretations. Interestingly, exposure to only Chinese culture did not boost creativity. This suggests that people gain in creativity when they juxtapose and integrate seemingly incompatible aspects of different cultures.

Foster a Positive Mood

Positive emotions such as happiness and excitement can stimulate creative thought, in part because they tell the person that things are safe in the world and it’s okay to explore novel experiences (Fredrickson, 2001; Lyubomirsky et al., 2005). One way that positive mood stimulates growth is by making it more likely that the person will think in new ways and find creative solutions to problems. In an illustrative study (Isen et al., 1987), some participants were put in a positive mood by watching five minutes of a funny movie, whereas participants in the control condition watched a neutral movie. Participants were then given the objects in FIGURE 6.8—a box of tacks, a candle, and a book of matches—and were told to come up with a way, using only those objects, to attach the candle to a corkboard on the wall so that it would burn without dripping wax on the floor. After about 10 minutes, only 20% of the participants in the neutral film condition found the correct answer, but participants who had just watched a mere five minutes of funny bloopers found the correct solution 75% of the time (for the answer, please see FIGURE 6.9).

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Challenge Versus Threat

Generally, negative experiences, such as feeling inadequate, unfulfilled, or threatened, motivate people to seek out security, driving them to cling to the safe and familiar parts of life and to cut off growth. Many studies show that people faced with threatening thoughts, such as their mortality or others’ disapproval of them, respond with less interest in exploring new experiences (Green & Campbell, 2000; Mikulincer, 1997) and are narrower and more rigid in their thinking (e.g., Derryberry & Tucker, 1994; Fredrickson & Branigan, 2005; Landau et al., 2004; Zillman & Cantor, 1976).

Yet a popular cliché is philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche’s famous line: “What doesn’t kill me, makes me stronger.” Indeed, Nietzsche was a strong proponent of the idea that to achieve a more freely determined and satisfying life, the person must face distressing truths and endure hardships. But given how stress and anxiety often stifles growth, how can this be? It depends on how people interpret stressful situations. According to James Blascovich and colleagues (Blascovich & Tomaka, 1996; Blascovich & Mendes, 2000), when people face stressful situations such as taking a test or giving a speech, they assess whether they have the resources to meet the demands of the situation. When they conclude that their resources are inadequate, they feel threatened, but when they view their resources as meeting or surpassing the demands, they feel challenged. This feeling of challenge provides an opportunity for growth.

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In fact, whether people respond to a stressor with feelings of threat or challenge is reflected in their bodies’ physiological response. When people feel threatened, their heart rate increases but their veins and arteries don’t expand to allow blood to flow easily through the body. People’s heart rate similarly increases when they feel challenged, but here the veins and arteries dilate to improve blood flow. And feeling challenged as opposed to threatened can make a difference in performance. Blascovich and colleagues (2004) had college baseball and softball players imagine a stressful game situation at the beginning of the season while their physiological responses were being monitored. Those whose bodies signaled a challenge response actually performed better over the course of the season than those who showed a threat reaction.

Even Traumatic Experiences Can Promote Growth

When are thoughts of mortality likely to lead to defensiveness? When might they stimulate growth? Thinkers such as Seneca and Martin Heidegger argued that when people think about death in a superficial way, they are more likely to avoid their fear by clinging to conventional sources of meaning and self-esteem—just as most research on mortality salience has shown. But for people very open to new experiences and who view life holistically, brief thoughts of death can lead to appreciation of life and growth (Ma-Kellams & Blascovich, 2012; Vail et al., 2012). In addition, thinking more deeply about death can also catalyze authenticity and growth. Why? Recognition of mortality might serve as a reminder that our life spans are limited, and change what we think of as meaningful so we avoid getting mired in trivial tasks and focus on more intrinsically satisfying goals, such as lasting relationships and enjoyable activities (e.g., Carstensen et al., 1999; Kosloff & Greenberg, 2009). Indeed, research on survivors of severe traumas and near-death experiences finds that many people report growing from the experience, becoming more balanced, more accepting, and better able to appreciate life and all it has to offer (Tedeschi & Calhoun, 2004).

Elderly folks are particularly likely to think about death a great deal, in part because they have generally known more people who have died and are closer to their own end. Research shows that being close to the end has some positive consequences for the elderly (Carstensen et al., 1999). It leads them to want to maximize their enjoyment of life. Elderly people are especially interested in being with those they really care about, and they focus on the positive, how the glass of life is half full rather than half empty. Indeed, they are wise in another important way: they are consistently happier than younger people (Carstensen, 2009; Yang, 2008).

Why are older people better able to appreciate life and connect to their authentic goals? Perhaps as one approaches the loss of everything, it becomes easier to appreciate those things before one loses them. The poet W. S. Merwin (1970, p. 136) put it this way:

and what is wisdom if it is not

now

in the loss that has not left this place