Happiness

I am reading a book called Happier ILern the Secrets to Daily Joy and Lasting Fulfillment) by Tal Ben-Shahar. I may have mentioned it before in my blog (?), but it is a positive psychology book and I just got done with part 1 of the book, entitled: "What is Happiness?" It discusses the question of happiness, reconciling present and future, it explains happiness, talks about "the ultimate currency," and finally ends with goal setting--the aspect of the book that I'd like to focus on now.

I have been setting goals from the time I could use a glue stick and stick a magazine cut-out to a posterboard (thank you mom:), I have refined my goal setting techniques throughout years of experience, and a big part of my job now--as a Freshman Mentor--is to help others set goals. As I prepare to go to Italy, I find myself setting goals once more, but this time it's a little more difficult because my ultimate goal is a little illusive, which makes setting short term goals a little less productive. I want to set goals that make me happy in the present and in the future, specifically about my field study. But how do I do that? This book helped me put things in perspective.

David Mayers and Ed Diener claimed that,

Happiness grows less from passive experience of desirable circumstances than from involvement in valued activities and progress toward one's goal.

In a big sense, this means that to be happy, we need to be progressing, and one of the best ways to progress is by setting goals.

Some facts about goals:

• People who set goals are more likely to succeed than people who do not--it's important to have a clear timeline and performance criteria when setting goals
• Goals communicate to ourselves and to others, the belief that we are capable of overcoming obstacles
• Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chances to draw back; always ineffectiveness
• A goal, an explicit commitment, focuses our attention on the target and helps us to find ways to get there

So, clearly, goals are important for us, but one this that people don't expect is that goals--even if we reach them--don't always make us happier. This comes from people viewing goals the wrong way and setting the wrong ones. If we view goals as and end, rather than a means, our increased happiness from accomplishing a goal is likely to be short lived. This book emphasizes that, "it is the process of striving after goals--rather than goal attainment per se--that is crucial for happiness. When I read that, it immediately made me think of my field study to Italy. I want to set goals now that I can enjoy doing, and when I'm in Italy, I want to be able to enjoy the process of getting to my ultimate goal. 

The best goals are "meaningful and the journey they take us on needs to be pleasurable for them to bring about significant increase in our happiness." We can do this by pursing goals that involve growth, connection and contribution, not ones that involve money, beauty, and popularity; and goals that are interesting and important to us, rather than ones that we feel we should or need to do. When I decided to go on a field study, I really felt that I should make sure to do a project that would result in me publishing a paper--so, my goal was to get published. I've come a long way from there. While that is a worthy goal, and I do want to publish in my near future, I feel like my connection to the Italy people and my growth as an individual will make me happier while I'm in the field, and will also lead to me being a better person in my future. As I train to be a therapist, research is important (I've mentioned this before), but my connection with people and ability to help them in their lives is crucial, and more important (in my opinion) in the grad scheme of things. As my favorite quote says,

Never let a problem to be solved become more important that a person to be helped."

-Thomas S. Monson

Enjoy the process and the results!

My ultimate goal: To always be progressing towards becoming a better person and reaching untapped levels of potential

How Italy can help me with this: Broadening my horizons by learning about a different culture--learning their language, their customs, their beliefs, and how they view the world

How I can incorporate this into a field study: Making my first priority to be to know the people, I am more interested in getting to know people as individuals--details about them specifically, rather than to try and gather information on a group to find norms. I think I will definitely be able to pull out similarities among individuals, but I still want to respect the individual above the task, or even the 'group.' I think that will help me progress towards my ultimate goal, and I am quite positive that it will make me happy in both the short or long term because I am enjoying the process of reaching my goal, as much as I will enjoy reaching the actual goal! Ah the beauty and simplicity of setting goals. I know I will have to get more specific, but I think this is a good jumping off point. :)

Passion

What I should have spend the day doing: homework
What I did spend the day doing: watching this:
The sneak peak:

The full version I watched:

Was it what I should have been doing? Obviously not.
Was it the 'right' thing for me to be doing? Absolutely.


While this video has nothing on my project/field study in Italy, it--now--has kind of everything to do with it. I spent an hour and a half watching a video of different people around the world, some only for a minute or two, but I feel like I can understand so much about them through those two minutes. I realize that has a lot to do with the fact that National Geographic and YouTube have amazing employees who can edit film, add music and instill certain feelings in viewers in such a short amount of time. Still, with that said, in an hour and a half, I gained so much insight from watching that video. Then, I think about all of the time I have spent reading articles, and how much less enlightened I feel by them. Not because there is not amazing information in them, but--I think--it's because the raw human element...the simpleness of our nature--is so much harder to adequately capture in a paper.


I'm going off on a tangent now, but I promise to bring it back. 

I was just accepted into the #1 ranked Marriage and Family Therapy program in the nation--Brigham Young University. I spent my undergrad years here and am excited to continue and expand upon my education.  While my ultimate goal is to be a therapist, research is extremely important in the field--it's how we can learn more about, and understand, human nature and human behavior. The things we learn through research can better equip us to help our clients in the future--basically what I'm getting at is that because of things learned through research, I can become so much more effective in learning about people, learning from people and helping people. It sounds cliché, but those are my passions. I definitely want to contribute to that portion of the social science field, and--although I have not started my program--there is definitely pressure to start publishing papers. So, going to Italy seemed kind of perfect--I could go to this amazing country, learn about the people, AND publish a paper. Kind of perfect, right? Well, yes, in a lot of ways, but no in other ways. I feel like somewhere in my desire to 'do it all,' I lost sight of my focus and three things brought it back.

1. I was talking to my future mentor for the Marriage and Family Therapy program, Dr. Butler, about research and how a lot of people have been telling me how much more important quantitative data was (if you'll remember, that's basically hard numbers--surveys with scales where people rate certain things and answer questions without really elaborating). He agreed that it was, but said that there was so much richness in qualitative research (more in-depth interviews) and that I could publish a paper with that, and hey, maybe I will.
2. BUT the second thing that reestablished a bit of my focus was the "Life in a Day" video, which is basically a video (as opposed to a paper) of qualitative research.



I guess I don't speak whale (no ORCA grant)

3. The third, I didn't get my ORCA grant, which would have been $1500 towards my field study to Italy.

I think I was so focused on getting hard/"good" data that I lost track of what it was that I was passionate about studying. I wrote up a proposal for the ORCA grant and have been trying to stay within the parameters of what I proposed even though my interests were constantly evolving. I have been trying so hard to find a project that fits that, fits Italy and fits my capabilities, rather than doing a project that fits, or aligns with, my passions. Obviously, my language barrier will be tough, and interviewing will be hard, but that's what I want to do. I want to learn about people, and the best way I know how to do that is watching them and talking with them. 

I remember dating a guy who said he never talked to people in line at the grocery store or that he sat by randomly because it was probably the only time he would see them and the interaction would be a waste. My response to him made me realize something I wasn't even consciously aware that I believed. I told him I ALWAYS talked to that random stranger on the bus or in the elevator because that might be the ONLY OPPORTUNITY I ever have to talk with them, and I would never want to pass up a once in a life time chance. As I write, I know that it might sound cheesy, but it's true. Just like in the video, the simple moments in life are what makes it beautiful--that's what I want to study. I just read a blog with a post titled, "Why I talk to strangers" I'd recommend reading it: http://www.avisamkaplan.com/2008/08/why-i-talk-to-strangers-and-you-should-too

Now, obviously, I know it's important to have a focus--and the narrower the better, but I want to know why young adults in Italy are the way they are--what's important to them, what motivates them, what scares them. Maybe sticking with research on values and gender roles is a great because it ties so well into daily life, but maybe it's not. I don't want to miss out on something important because I'm so focused on finding something specific. Maybe I'll write a paper (I definitely will for my class), but maybe I want to do more of a documentary. Not that I have film experience, but then again--neither did most of those whose film clips from YouTube made the video...

I feel like I'm always at square one with my project, but maybe I should stop looking at it like a 100m sprint with a sure beginning and sure end. Maybe it's more an open field--I can run 100 meters, or even 10, in any direction I want, and no matter what direction or how far I go, I'm no closer to the start or the finish--I've just learned a little bit more about that specific spot. I think there's a lot of beauty in that. It's all knowledge (or land in this analogy), right? Maybe the hours I've spent doing research on cohabitation, premarital perceptions, values, or gender roles will come in handy when I'm in Italy, maybe they won't. Maybe I'll create an amazing documentary, maybe I'll publish a great paper, and--then again--maybe I won't. All I know is that I have 90 days in Italy and I am going to spend it doing something I am passionate about.  I don't want to spend time stressing over something that I'm not. I'll have plenty of time in the future to do survey research--and I'm excited for that, honestly--but I want to take advantage of being in Italy and focus my time and energy on something that I wouldn't be able to do from home. I'm passionate about watching people, talking with them, and learning to better understand them. So, I'm studying what I'm passionate about by asking them what they're passionate about.

Roles

Just about 2 1/2 months left until I'm in Italy! Am I excited? YES! Is my project set in stone? Definitely Not. That said, I'm figuring it out more and more each day. :)

Riddle of the day:

A boy and his dad, they got in a severe car accident

They were rushed to the hospital where they were separated into separate rooms.

The doctor went into the boys room and said, "I cannot operate on him, he is my son.

How can this be?

Any ideas? Some readers may find the answer to this riddle very obviously, whereas others seem to be quite stumped (I speak from experience, my Adulthood Development teacher recently posed this question to our class). The answer: the doctor was the boy's mother. Obvious enough, but often we have such strong gender role stereotypes that the answer may seem a little illusive at first. Although gender roles are constantly changing and the lines between them are becoming blurred in many scenarios, many individuals still think of certain roles as either masculine or feminine. Like in the riddle, for example, the reason it may stump some is because people prescribe the role of a doctor to be masculine. If it has been a boy and his mother who had gotten in the car crash, and nurse walking in and saying "I cannot treat him, he is my son," the riddle may have been similarly confusing because a nurse is often thought to be a feminine gender role. Even young children have very strong gender role associations or stereotypes:

This has been the focus of my recent readings, gender roles.

Gender Roles: Behaviors or occupations in which a particular gender is expected to engage in. 

Traditional Gender Roles in marriage: typically place a man as the provider and the women as the nurturer who is responsible for raising children and taking care of household tasks.

Words for thought:

• How do you feel about a woman being the provider for a family? Is she neglecting her responsibilities to her husband and children by spending a majority of her time away from home?
• How do you feel about a stay at home dad? Is he a failure because he cannot or is not providing for his family? Is he competent to deal with the main nurturing aspects of raising children?
• Which spouse should be in charge of the majority of housework? Does the answer change depending on who is working? If both partners are working equally, who should take on more housework? Who do you think does more of the housework?

 The importance of a gender role to a person is typically based on three things:

1. Commitment--the emotional attachment to a certain role
2. Participation--spending time and energy in or on the role
3. Knowledge--which is most often gained from experience in a particular role

It is very possible for an individual to feel very committed to a certain role, but not participate in it often. This could be a father who is providing for his family; although he does not spend as much time with his children, his commitment may still be very high--some men view their job of providing as participation, or spending time and energy in the role of raising children. On the other side of the spectrum, an individual may participate in a role frequently, but not feel very committed to it. Maybe a mother works outside of the home, spending 40+ hours a week at a job (high participation), but does not feel like that is her main commitment--she is not emotionally attached to that role. Most people can understand this, however, my examples were using traditional gender role stereotypes. Would it be less settling if a women spent time (participation) with her children, but did not feel much commitment to them? Or if a man felt committed to work, but didn't put any time into it (potentially affecting his ability to provide for his family)? 

Now that I've asked far more questions than answered, I'd like to pose one more: How much of gender roles are biologically based and how much are socially defined. Were women born as nurturing individuals and men as more aggressive providers? If that is the case, how do you account for those women and men who do not abide by those roles. (Reading the last sentence, is it weird to read a sentence that says "women and men" rather than "men and women"?) Or, is it not biology at all, but society that has defined certain gender roles? Probably--like everything else--it is a mixture of both. That said, I think it would be fascinating to dive deeper into the study of gender roles and understand how and why individuals practice them. I think Southern Italy, where traditional family roles are important, would be an interesting population to study. And hey, if I want to study the other end of the spectrum, Northern Italy isn't too far from Rome!

Participant Observation

I just read a really great article by Spradley all about participant observation. I feel like this will be important to my research, and to my immersion into Italian culture this summer. So, how better to get ready for my field study than to start with some participant observation now!?

The first thing one must take into account, and find, in order to do participant observation is a: Social Situation which is made up of 3 parts: a place, actors, and activities (described below). I chose to conduct my Participant Observation at the BYU vs. Stanford Men's Volleyball Game

Place	Actors	Activities
A single specific location OR a single, identifiable kind of place	The individuals present in the location that you will observe	Individual acts that will eventually become recognizable patterns of activity
The Smith Field House	BYU Fans   1. BYU students >>>student section >>>court-side seats   2. Alumni and other adult  BYU Men's Volleyball Team --starters, nonstarters, red-shirts, coaches & statisticians Other actors included Cosmo the mascot, officials, TV crews & workers *I decided to focus on the BYU Student Fans	Social interactions, cheering and reactions to the game While I could have chosen from a variety of activities--like the the actual game--the players in the game (which I did actually pay a lot of attention to), I chose to focus on the surrounding crowd because I thought it would be a better practice experience. *I decided to focus on cheering

The PLACE: Smith Field House

The ACTORS: BYU Volleyball Fans

ACTIVITY: Cheering

ACTIVITY: Social Interaction

There are two main types of social situations

1. Cluster of Social Situations: where you can observe several social situations from one space, because they are all linked by location--This is what I did for the volleyball game, but I chose to focus on specific actors in this place.
2. Network of Social situations: where an individual or a group moves from different locations with different actors and activities, and therefore different--but related--social situations.

Important things to remember when observing participants is to make sure that the social situations that you observe are simple (one social situation), accessible, unobtrusive, permissible, and in a place where a specific activity frequently occurs.

I was a participant observer in this situation, meaning that my purpose was to 1. engage in activities appropriate to the situation AND 2. observe the social situation (whereas an ordinary participant's only goal is to engage in the activity)

I don't want to get too technical, but there are 5 levels of participation that I want to briefly cover before diving into my observations:

Type of Participant	Description
Non participant	No involvement w/ people & activities; strictly an observer
Passive	Present in the scene of action, but basically just a bystander or a spectator
Moderate	Maintains a balance between being an insider and an outsider
Active	Does what others are doing to understand the culture—not just for acceptance
Complete	Knows the rules, understand the culture and participates

My Experience/Findings with Participant Observation

• Huge Differences Between Fans! There were the:
• Stereotypical high-school-boy fans
• types of activities they engaged in included:
• Harassing the opposing team--comments included  mentioning how small a players head was relative to his body, commenting on the short length of players shorts (negatively), and sarcastically telling the team to "watch out for the net!" while serving, or warning them not to get their mustache caught in the net.
• Yelling at the top of their lungs--regardless of whether the point was for the BYU team or Stanford team; when the point was for the BYU team, clapping, smiling, excitedly/happily yelling, hugging and high fives were common behaviors; when the point was for the Stanford team, it was common to hear angry yells accompanied by furrowed eye brows, arms raised in disbelief in the air, and snide comments
• Jumping, Dancing and Singing--This, as yelling, was observed in both negatively and positively perceived situation. Jumping was very common in both situations. Between points, music was often played and BYU fans would sing along with the song and dance. Some dancing was coordinated, while most seemed to be spontaneous--and somewhat awkward.

More observation on other types of BYU Fans and at other games is necessary for conclusive findings.

This was definitely a fun thing to do, as an observer it's important to pay attention to things that you would usually not notice. The job of the Thalamus (in our brain) is primarily to ignore different things that we either don't need, or don't want, to pay attention to. If the average person tried to pay attention to minute details, they would "overload." However, as an observer, it is important to pay attention to those minute details to find trends and regularity in activities. Can't wait to practice some more participant observations and to do them in Italy!

Covenantal or Contractual Marriage?

The best part about researching is when you LOVE what you're learning. Every research article I read gives me a different idea of what exactly I want to study and how exactly to go about studying it. While I really enjoy learning about values, my main interest is marriages and family processes. Which is why I'm excited for the last couple articles I read that addressed that very topic. Martial value research has identified two main types of marriages.

1. Covenantal Marriage--this type of marriage prioritizes values such as
1. the individual sacrificing for the collective good (marital and family) to promote marital health
2. traditional interventions--such as religiosity 
2. Contractual Marriage--this type of marriage prioritizes values such as
1. the individual reaching self-actualization to promote marital health
2. marriage being seen as a contract, where both are expected to fulfill their side of the contract

Contractual marriages are becoming increasingly more common in the United States. The covenantal marriage is much more traditional, and I feel that given the Italian family (at least in Southern Italy) is quite traditional, that more marriages there will focus on covenantal aspects. However, the world is a place of shifting values and it would be interesting to see if young adults in Italy--who are married--expect to enter into a covenantal or contractual marriage. A covenantal marriage is associated with a willingness to sacrifice for the relationship, communalism, and collectivism. I was shocked to read that males has a slightly higher tendency to be more covenantal in their marriage attitudes on values. Basically I am doing a little bit of a full circle--I think I will stick with studying premarital perceptions, but have them somewhat more value based than I originally planned on.

Nonverbal Communication

Nonverbal Communication: the type of communication that women wished their male counterparts would actually pick up on. Also defined--by my good friends at Wikipedia--as the process of communication through sending and receiving wordless (mostly visual) messages between people. This type of communication can include gestures, touch, body language, posture, facial expression, and eye contact. This list, however, is not all inclusive; even things such as the proximity and space within which you communicate, or your hair style and dress are aspects of nonverbal communication.

We talked about this in class today, which I thought was perfect, given that I had just recently made the comment that one of my potential dream-jobs (besides Cinderella at Disneyworld) would be to be a professional people watcher--I guess my future career as a Marriage and Family Therapist (hopefully! 8 hour interview for the program on Monday, wish me luck!) will incorporate picking up on a lot of verbal and nonverbal communication. That was a slight tangent, but I really do think that so much of our communication is nonverbal. Some non-verbal communication is easy to pick up on, like after my Mom asks me to take out a trash (a job meant for my brothers, am I right?), although I respond positive, "Yeah." it's hard to ignore my slouch shoulders and eyes rolled into the back of my head--a clear negative response gesture. Other nonverbal communication is slightly more difficult to pick up on:  shifty eye movements, or little gestures. I immediately think of sarcasm--when you meet someone new and they say something that could be anywhere on the spectrum from deeply serious to wildly sarcastic, and you don't know which it is (awkward turtle); if you knew their personality or little cues to look for, you could probably figure it out. I was once asked out by a random guy in the library, who later told me that I non-verbally communicated to him that I wanted him to ask me out. News to me! While I think it's important to be aware of other's nonverbal communication and how you're interpreting it, it's also important to be aware of your own--I'd like to think the guy was way out in left field on that conclusion, but maybe I did do something to non-verbally communicate that to him (although I do think that is highly unlikely b/c he was sitting across the room and I didn't see him until he was already sitting by me, just FYI;).

Two aspects of non-verbal communication are

1. Proxemics: the physical space in communication, and how individuals perceive the physical space around them. Our messages, from sender to receiver, are interpreted quite differently based on how close or far we are from the other person. I'm sure we all know people with varying 'personal bubbles,' like the girl at my dessert party who spoke with her face about 4 inches from mine--quite uncomfortable for me. Proxemics vary from person to person and by culture. I have a feeling Italians won't have too big of a personal bubble--luckily mine isn't too big either. :) I'll let you know for sure when I get there!
2. Kinesics: How people move, their body language. This is the kind of non-verbal communication that most people think of, it includes physical touch. Think how differently a hug is perceived compared to a high five, slap, or pat on the shoulder!

I thought learning the Italian language was tough by itself, without considering the nonverbal cues that will be unique to the Italian culture. I think this field study will be the best darn learning experience I've ever had!

This video is a little dramatic, but I think it gets the point across of some aspects of non verbal communication.

Adaptability.

Most sure way to succeed in college: hard work and ORGANIZATION. Some people may laugh at my color coded planner, which I fill out at the beginning of every semester with assignments, papers, and test dates for  each class; the hours I will be in class, at work, studying or socializing; I also include important deadlines or due dates, family gatherings, social events and anything else I deem important (important is used loosely--basically meaning anything that will take up any bit of my time). I often go through my upcoming week during the weekend and schedule my days by the hour, according to the top priorities on my checklists (which can be found at the bottom of each page). So, yes, I'm organized AND I work hard to get everything done--sure way to success, right? Well, yes--usually that does, it always would if we lived in a perfect world. But here's the thing--we don't. Hard work and organization are vital foundation characteristics, but I've realized that the most important characteristic to have, in my opinion, is ADAPTABILITY.

Adaptability: The ability to change to fit circumstances

It's like giving a talk in church when the first two speakers decide to only take up 7 minutes each, and you're left with 25 minutes of time to give a 12 minute talk, you adapt--add a story or elaborate on a point, or several points. Or when you plan out your day to the minute, and then run into a friend having an awful day and needs your help. Obviously, you could ignore your friend and tell them you'd catch up later, but that's not my style (Never let a problem to be solved become more important than a person to be helped--quote to live by). You help your friend, and then adapt your new schedule, with less time, to your remaining priorities. There's no need to stress, what's done is done. Plan A doesn't always work out, so you have to be open to plan B, C, or even D. We talked a bit about 2 types of time in class:

1. Monochronic Time: having a laser-sharp, intense, narrow focus on one thing at a time--it's linear, you have set tasks to complete by certain time
2. Polychronic Time: is having an open focus on several aspects of the present moment--it's adaptable!

My plan on the field is to set up a monochronic time schedule, but be polychronic with my adaptability. That may not make perfect sense if read literally, but hopefully you get the point. Life throws you curve balls--I have a feeling Italy will throw me more than I've ever seen.  I'm doing EVERYTHING I can in these months as I prepare to work hard and be organized, but once I get down there, I think adaptability will be most important! Did I mention I was excited!?!? Caio!