The Greater Good Blog

Thinking Way Outside the Box

Those of you considering a stint in the Peace Corps, or just a big move overseas, take note: A recent study has documented a link between living abroad and creativity.

In the study, published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, researchers William Maddux and Adam Galinsky had people participate in a variety of tasks meant to measure their creativity, including a word association task, a drawing exercise, a test of their “insight creativity”—their ability to see problems from different perspectives and find hidden solutions—and a measure of their “interpersonal creativity,” meaning their ability to negotiate a deal with someone else in which both parties come away with some gain.

More than half of the participants were American students; the rest were students from foreign countries like Bangladesh, Mexico, and Switzerland. In addition to the creativity exercises, each person filled out a questionnaire that asked whether the person had lived and/or traveled abroad and for how long.

© Rob Millenaar

Maddux and Galinsky found that people who had resided in a foreign country scored significantly higher on the creativity tasks than the other participants. More specifically, though, it was the extent to which a person reported having assimilated into the new culture, more than the actual time spent living abroad, which was linked to creativity. Simply traveling abroad was not associated with creative thinking.

Maddux and Galinsky admit that it is hard to determine whether living abroad actually causes creativity. They note that many studies on creative personality types reveal that creative people share traits such as openness to experience, self-confidence, and cognitive flexibility—characteristics that may make someone want not only to travel, but to live in and adapt to foreign places. In other words, living abroad may not boost creativity; instead, it is possible that creative people are more likely than others to live abroad and assimilate into their new culture.

Still, the researchers consider that people who spend portions of their lives in a foreign country, and allow themselves to be absorbed into the host culture, may become practiced at seeing other perspectives and comparing different possible solutions to life’s challenges, thus boosting their skills at creative thinking. In that light, Maddux and Galinsky argue, their study underlines the importance of having diverse experiences and of understanding cultures very different from our own, especially as the world becomes more interconnected.

“It may be that those critical months or years of turning cultural bewilderment into concrete understanding may instill not only the ability to ‘think outside the box,’” they write, “but also the capacity to realize that the box is more than a simple square, more than its simple form, but also a repository of many creative possibilities.”

Can Emotional Intelligence Be Taught?

Since Daniel Goleman popularized the term “emotional intelligence” (EI), studies have found that high EI is associated with lots of good things, including academic and occupational success, resistance to stress, and better relationships. But is EI something we can learn, or is it something we’ve got to be born with?

© Mido Photography

Cognitive scientist Delphine Nelis and colleagues recently tried to figure this out. In their study, published in Personality and Individual Differences, they divided roughly 40 college students into two groups. One attended four two-and-a-half hour training sessions over a four-week period in order to learn techniques for improving their emotional intelligence; the other didn’t take the training.

The goal of these EI sessions was to increase the participants’ skills in understanding, analyzing, expressing, and regulating their emotions. Each session included short lectures, role playing exercises, discussions, and readings. For example, in a role playing exercise, two participants pretended to be co-workers in the thick of a disagreement; after their interaction, the group discussed how well they handled the disagreement, then the participants ran through the exercise again to find more positive ways of expressing their emotions.

All participants were also given a diary in which they wrote about their daily emotional experiences. They then had to analyze these experiences in class in light of what they had been learning in the training.

The participants in both groups were tested before, directly after, and six months after the training to see if their emotional intelligence had improved.

Delphine and her colleagues found that members of the group that received the training showed a significant improvement in their ability to identify their feelings and the feelings of others, as well as to manage and control their emotions. What’s more, these improvements were apparent not only right after the training but also six months later.

So while this study was a small pilot with a somewhat homogenous group of participants, the findings suggest that it is possible to increase emotional intelligence in the short and long term. “Overall, the results are promising,” write the researchers, “as they suggest that, with a proper methodology relying on the latest scientific knowledge about emotion and emotional processing, some facets of EI can be enhanced, but not all.”

The Happiness of Pursuit: A Review of Curious?

In Curious?, George Mason University psychologist Todd Kashdan provides self-help backed by science, toting curiosity as the means to a fulfilling life. Kashdan asks his readers: Is life really all about achieving happiness, or is it actually the pursuit of happiness that gives our lives purpose and meaning?

Assisted by experimental data, stories from his therapy practice, and his own life experiences, Kashdan argues that it is the drive for knowledge, fulfillment, and happiness, motivated by one’s curiosity, that allows for meaningful personal growth. “Two simple processes—triggering intrigue and sustaining interest—are at the heart of a fulfilling life,” he writes.

The book includes strategies to boost one’s curiosity and explanations as to why curiosity is so important to so many different situations, from romance to parenting to achieving our goals. Kashdan describes his ideal person, who he dubs the “curious explorer,” as one who frequently experiences intense feelings of curiosity and acts on them daily. Curious explorers, evidently, are well-liked, personable, and achieve greater success in their careers. Based on multiple studies, Kashdan concludes, “Very curious people are viewed by strangers and close friends as comfortable, animated, interesting, and fun.” This all makes sense: If you deny your feelings of curiosity and avoid new directions, odds are your life is going to be relatively dull and unrewarding. 

Kashdan also asks his readers to adjust their perspective on anxiety, depicting it as a necessary byproduct of a life guided by curiosity. “If you view something as new and challenging,” writes Kashdan, “you are going to be more engaged and feel more joy and pleasure than if you were in a situation that didn’t make you anxious.”

Kashdan argues convincingly for the need to remain in active pursuit of our goals, urging readers to embrace the new and unfamiliar instead of fearing them. At times, though, his examples of therapeutic sessions with patients begin to feel redundant, reading just like testimonials as to how and why curiosity works.

Still, it’s hard not to feel inspired by Kashdan’s notion of curiosity as a key to fulfillment. Curious? offers important insight to anyone trying to live a more meaningful, active life.

The Horse Boy

Please give your heart and soul a treat and see the documentary film The Horse Boy, now opening in theaters nationwide. (See http://www.horseboymovie.com for a list of upcoming screenings.) I recently saw the film at the Mill Valley Film Festival and can’t recommend it highly enough.

The film documents a family’s journey to Mongolia in search of a way to heal their son, Rowan, who has been diagnosed with autism. They travel to Mongolia to ride horses–because even sitting on a horse calms Rowan’s tantrums, which can last up to four hours–and to visit remote shamans, whose healing rituals actually do open up Rowan’s capacities to connect with other human beings again. The film mostly chronicles the family’s journey, but it also includes interviews with leading scientists studying autism, and these interviews help transform our view of autism from a disease to a different way of perceiving and participating in the world.

What impressed me most about the film was the deep love the parents have for their son, and their unwavering commitment to his healing. Rowan’s father, Rupert Isaacson, is a lifelong lover of horses and a journalist who had researched shamanic healing among the Bushmen in the Kalihari Desert in Botswana. Rowan’s mother, Kristin Neff, is a professor of psychology at the University of Texas who has done pioneering work on the concept of “self-compassion.”

Rupert Isaacson was present for a Q&A at the screening of the film that I saw, and he added many details about their journey. He also discussed how scientists are now thinking that the warmth, touch, and movement of riding a horse releases oxytocin, the “love hormone,” and that the rocking motion of riding on a horse helps re-balance the brain and open the way for quantum leaps in healing.

The Horse Boy is transformative for viewers as well as for its subjects. It opens our hearts to the healing powers of love and compassion; it opens our minds to the importance of different ways of being in the world.

Linda Graham, MFT, publishes an e-newsletter, Healing and Awakening into Aliveness and Wholeness, archived at www.lindagraham-mft.com.

Greed, Games, and Goodness–This Friday!

Time is running out to get your ticket to the first-ever Greater Good Science Center fundraiser, happening this Friday evening on the UC Berkeley campus.

“Greed, Games, and Goodness” will feature a conversation between the GGSC’s Dacher Keltner and best-selling author and journalist (and Bay Area literary celeb) Michael Lewis. They’ll discuss some of Lewis’s areas of expertise–the economic crisis (Liar’s Poker, Panic, and the forthcoming The Big Short), sports (Moneyball, The Blind Side), and parenthood (this year’s very funny Home Game)–and the scientific research that illuminates them.

Lewis is hilarious and always insightful, so it should be a fun evening–not to mention a great way to support the GGSC.

You can still buy tickets here. Hope to see you Friday!

Check Out Oakland Local

Our friend Susan Mernit has just helped launch a news and community site for the Oakland area, Oakland Local. It zeroes in on issues like climate change, air quality, arts & activism, food access, and race. Plus, it features a directory of 320 local nonprofits and a blog directory of 180 active local bloggers as well.

If you live in Oakland or the Bay Area, it should be a stellar resource. And if you don’t, it should provide a great model of something journalists, bloggers, and activists in your community could develop. I’ll definitely be checking it out regularly–if Susan’s attached to it, you know it’s gonna be worth watching.

More on Meditation and Your Brain

The last Greater Good post discussed how years of meditation practice can physically alter the brain in ways that help us manage our emotions and boost our skills of attention. But if you haven’t already been meditating for years, don’t give up hope! Other research suggests that you can see meditation’s effects on your social and emotional skills after just 20 minutes of practice a day for five days.

In the study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences earlier this year, neuroscientist Yi-Yun Tang and his colleagues reported that people who meditate for as little as 20 minutes a day for five days showed fewer signs of stress immediately after their practice, including lower heart rate and respiratory rate—levels even lower than those of a control group that practiced muscle-relaxation.

What’s more, the meditators demonstrated a stronger ability to regulate their behavior and emotions. Specifically, they had higher “heart rate variability,” which is an index of how well one can swing into action when startled or stimulated, and calm down when there is no immediate danger. Most interestingly, mediators also showed increased activation in the area of the brain that coordinates the physiological functions, such as heart-rate, that activate in response to threats, suggesting that their physiological reactions under stress are more controlled and adaptive.

Previous research, including a 2007 study on which Tang was the lead author, has also found that just five days of meditation training can boost participants’ concentration skills and reduce their reactions to stress. But this study took the previous findings a step further and pinpointed the specific brain and physiological mechanisms that help reduce reactivity to stress after meditation.

Can Meditation Make Your Brain Stronger?

If we want to build up strong muscles, we assume we’ve got to hit the gym and lift some weights. But what if we want to strengthen our brains? Try meditation, according to a recent study.

In the study, published in the journal NeuroImage, UCLA neuroscientist Eileen Luders and her colleagues compared the brains of 22 people who had practiced various forms of meditation—for anywhere from five to nearly 50 years—with the brains of 22 people (of similar ages and education levels) who had never practiced any kind of meditation. Using a brain imaging technique that allowed them to view changes across the entire brain, the researchers looked to see if any particular brain regions were bigger in one group or the other.

They found that two brain regions were bigger in the meditators than in the non-meditators, while non-meditators showed no advantage in any brain region. The regions that had greater volume in the meditators have both been linked to our ability to manage our emotions; one of them, the hippocampus, located in the temporal lobes of the brain, near the ears, has also been found to play a role in our skills of attention. Additionally, the authors found evidence that meditation may actually improve the hippocampus’ ability to grow new neurons into adulthood, which may be particularly important to keeping our brains sharp as we age.

Previous studies have shown that an active meditation practice is associated with a stronger ability to regulate one’s behavior and emotions, and with reductions in physical and psychological symptoms of illness. With this study, Luders and her colleagues have found further evidence for these links, down to the neural level. They note that more research in this area is necessary before they can draw any definite conclusions. But they argue that if effects of meditation are linked to the particular brain changes they observed, then meditators are strengthening the brain regions necessary for the “singular abilities and habits to cultivate positive emotions, retain emotional stability, and engage in mindful behavior

For more tips on how to strengthen your brain, check out Jill Suttie’s Greater Good article this month, “How to Keep Your Brain Young (Even as You Grow Old).”

Turn Up the Red

Most people try to hide their blushes when they’re embarrassed. Some have even gone so far as to undergo a surgical procedure that prevents their face from blushing. But new research suggests that rather than being something we should cover up, a blush actually serves an important role in smoothing social interactions.

In a recent study, published in the journal Emotion, researchers from the University of Groningen in the Netherlands had participants read vignettes about various social transgressions—driving away after a car crash or cheating on an exam, for example—and mishaps such as spilling coffee on someone or steering a bike into the bushes.

The vignette was followed by a picture of a face—ostensibly the person from the story—with one of four types of display: a neutral expression with or without a blush, and an expression of shame or embarrassment with or without a blush. Participants were then asked to rate how favorably they felt toward the person in the picture.

The results showed that blushing people were judged more favorably than non-blushers, regardless of the other emotional cues on their face. In addition, compared with non-blushing faces, participants more quickly understood when blushing faces were conveying shame or embarrassment.

The researchers argue that blushing signals a sincere acknowledgement of wrongdoing, and communicates to others that we won’t make the same mistake again. As result, they conclude, blushing might prevent people from being socially excluded after they’ve committed some kind of transgression.

“Although most people consider blushing to be an undesirable response,” they write, “our results showed that in the context of transgressions and mishaps, blushing is a helpful bodily signal with face-saving properties.”

For more on the social importance of blushing and embarrassment, check out Greater Good Executive Editor Dacher Keltner’s May essay, “Born to Blush.”

How to De-Stress

When life gets stressful, many of us tend to dwell on whatever it is that’s causing us stress rather than taking a break to enjoy our favorite hobby or a meal with friends, which can seem like a waste of time. However, a new study suggests that making time for leisure activities actually alleviates stress and helps us function better physically and psychologically.

In the study, published in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine, psychologist Sarah Pressman of the University of Kansas and her colleagues asked 1,400 adults how often they engaged in a variety of different leisure activities, including eating with friends, communing with nature, playing sports, and spending quiet time alone. Then these adults were given surveys measuring their physical and psychological health.

The results showed that people who more frequently engaged in enjoyable leisure activities had lower blood pressure, waist circumference, body mass index, and levels of cortisol, a hormone linked to stress.

These people also reported stronger social networks, greater satisfaction with and engagement in their lives, and lower levels of depression. Plus, they tended to sleep better and exercise more consistently.

So next time you get invited out to eat with friends or go for a jog and you think your stressful life simply doesn’t allow for it, remember that activities like those are much more important than we give them credit for. They may even help you deal with the stresses that life throws your way: The authors speculate that these “breather” activities may lead to “restoration [that] is typically marked by greater feelings of well-being, calm, and vigor.”