A science of positive subjective experience, positive individual traits, and positive institutions promises to improve quality of life and prevent the pathologies that arise when life is barren and meaningless, The exclusive focus on pathology that has dominated so much of our discipline results in a model of the human being lacking the positive features that make life worth living. Hope, wisdom, creativity, future mindedness, courage, spirituality, responsibility, and perseverance are ignored or explained as transformations of more authentic negative impulses. The 15 articles in this millennial issue of the American Psychologist discuss such issues as what enables happiness, the effects of autonomy and self-regulation, how optimism and hope affect health, what constitutes wisdom, and how talent and creativity come to fruition. The authors outline a framework for a science of positive psychology, point to gaps in our knowledge, and predict that the next century will see a science and profession that will come to understand and build the factors that allow individuals, communities, and societies to flourish.

https://psycnet.apa.org/journals/amp/55/1/5.pdf

Positive psychology: An introduction.

So far in this course we have dealt entirely with the evolution of characters that are controlled by simple Mendelian inheritance at a single locus. There are notes on the course website about gametic disequilibrium and how allele frequencies change at two loci simultaneously, but we didn’t discuss them. In every example we’ve considered we’ve imagined that we could understand something about evolution by examining the evolution of a single gene. That’s the domain of classical population genetics. For the next few weeks we’re going to be exploring a field that’s actually older than classical population genetics, although the approach we’ll be taking to it involves the use of population genetic machinery. If you know a little about the history of evolutionary biology, you may know that after the rediscovery of Mendel’s work in 1900 there was a heated debate between the “biometricians” (e.g., Galton and Pearson) and the “Mendelians” (e.g., de Vries, Correns, Bateson, and Morgan). Biometricians asserted that the really important variation in evolution didn’t follow Mendelian rules. Height, weight, skin color, and similar traits seemed to

Human biochemical genetics

because observed behavior is the result of interactions between environmental factors and genes during the extended period of development. Therefore, to better understand expert and exceptional performance, we must require that the account specify the different environmental factors that could selectively promote and facilitate the achievement of such performance. In addition, recent research on expert performance and expertise (Chi, Glaser, & Farr, 1988; Ericsson & Smith, 1991a) has shown that important characteristics of experts' superior performance are acquired through experience and that the effect of practice on performance is larger than earlier believed possible. For this reason, an account of exceptional performance must specify the environmental circumstances, such as the duration and structure of activities, and necessary minimal biological attributes that lead to the acquisition of such characteristics and a corresponding level of performance. An account that explains how a majority of individuals can attain a given level of expert performance might seem inherently unable to explain the exceptional performance of only a small number of individuals. However, if such an empirical account could be empirically supported, then the extreme characteristics of experts could be viewed as having been acquired through learning and adaptation, and studies of expert performance could provide unique insights into the possibilities and limits of change in cognitive capacities and bodily functions. In this article we propose a theoretical framework that explains expert performance in terms of acquired characteristics resulting from extended deliberate practice and that limits the role of innate (inherited) characteristics to general levels of activity and emotionality. We provide empirical support from two new studies and from already published evidence on expert performance in many different domains.

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The role of deliberate practice in the acquisition of expert performance.

Building Leadership Effectiveness This program encourages leaders to develop practices that transform values into action, vision into realities, obstacles into innovations, and risks into rewards. Participants will be introduced to the five practices of exemplary leadership: modeling the way, inspiring a shared vision, challenging the process, enabling others to act, and encouraging the heart Coaching & Communicating for Performance Coaching & Communicating for Performance is a highly interactive program that will give supervisors and managers the opportunity to build skills that will enable them to share expectations and set objectives for employees, provide constructive feedback, more effectively engage in learning conversations, and coaching opportunities. Skillful Conflict Management for Leaders As a leader, it is important to understand conflict and be effective at conflict management because the way conflict is resolved becomes an integral component of our university’s culture. This series of conflict management sessions help leaders learn and put into practice effective strategies for managing conflict.

기독교 사역과 Leadership

The importance of intellectual talent to achievement in all professional domains is well established, but less is known about other individual differences that predict success. The authors tested the importance of 1 noncognitive trait: grit. Defined as perseverance and passion for long-term goals, grit accounted for an average of 4% of the variance in success outcomes, including educational attainment among 2 samples of adults (N=1,545 and N=690), grade point average among Ivy League undergraduates (N=138), retention in 2 classes of United States Military Academy, West Point, cadets (N=1,218 and N=1,308), and ranking in the National Spelling Bee (N=175). Grit did not relate positively to IQ but was highly correlated with Big Five Conscientiousness. Grit nonetheless demonstrated incremental predictive validity of success measures over and beyond IQ and conscientiousness. Collectively, these findings suggest that the achievement of difficult goals entails not only talent but also the sustained and focused application of talent over time.

https://psycnet.apa.org/journals/psp/92/6/1087.pdf

Grit: Perseverance and Passion for Long-Term Goals

Using cross-lagged correlation analyses as the basis for causal inference, the relationship between war and scientific discovery and invention was explored in seven European nations. Measures of war duration and scientific productivity were generated using 14 or 16 quarter-century periods, or "generations," as the unit of analysis within each nation. The analyses indicated statistically significant associations for England and Russia (war encouraging science in the next generation), Spain (war discouraging science in the next generation), Holland (science discouraging war in the next generation), and France (war and science correlating positively in the same generation), whereas Germany and Italy exhibited no significant relationships. Discussion of the causal inconsistencies led to the suggestion that future research separately analyze different scientific disciplines and their respective relations to various categories of war.

The Causal Relation between War and Scientific Discovery An Exploratory Cross-National Analysis

In classical music listening, program announcements both on radio and in concerts will usually introduce the performance of a symphony with the same minimal articles of information, such as the composer, the order of composition, the key, and the name, if any. But how much can a listener infer about the musical attributes of the work from these basic facts? Examination of 99 symphonies by 13 symphonists between Beethoven and Shostakovich showed that such rudimentary programmatic data can predict several subjective and objective features, including aesthetic significance, listener accessibility, repertoire popularity, melodic originality, originality variation, and playing time. Discussion follows about what these empirical relationships may imply about how composers create their symphonies and how appreciators perceive those musical products.

Drawing Inferences from Symphonic Programs: Musical Attributes versus Listener Attributions

This paper reports a quantitative analysis of how Picasso’s, 1935 etching Minotauromachy influenced the creative process observed in the sketches for his 1937 painting Guernica. The experimental stimuli consisted of 39 images obtained from the original set of Guernica sketches. We included only the four figural elements that appear in both the etching and throughout the Guernica sketches (the bull/minotaur head, the horse, the woman holding a lamp, and the ladder climb). Seven independent raters judged the similarity of the sketches to the images extracted from the 1935 etching. The average similarity rating gave us the progress score for each sketch when compared to the etching. Using the data from Simonton (2007a), we also included in our discussion the sketch progress scores toward Guernica. We found evidence for the nonmonotonicity of the creative process (characterized by numerous backtrackings), as opposed to monotonic improvement. This suggests that although Picasso used some of the figural elements found in his earlier work, he did not merely improve them through a monotonic “honing” process, but rather explored a variety of possibilities, as is characteristic of a blind-variation process.

https://psycnet.apa.org/journals/aca/5/4/360.pdf

From past to future art: The creative impact of Picasso's 1935 Minotauromachy on his 1937 Guernica.

Is the Marginality Effect all that Marginal

Major innovations in the arts and sciences can be largely attributed to the output of creative geniuses. But how do such great innovators emerge? And how does their creativity manifest itself? The first question shall be addressed by examining the early experiences that contribute to the development of extraordinary creative potential. The factors include family background, education, and professional training. The response to the second question concentrates on the typical career trajectory of illustrious creators. Features of this trajectory include the ages at which geniuses tend to produce their first great work, their best work, and their last great work.

Dean Keith Simonton

Papers

The Causal Relation between War and Scientific Discovery An Exploratory Cross-National Analysis

Drawing Inferences from Symphonic Programs: Musical Attributes versus Listener Attributions

From past to future art: The creative impact of Picasso's 1935 Minotauromachy on his 1937 Guernica.

Is the Marginality Effect all that Marginal

Exceptional Creativity Across the Life Span: The Emergence and Manifestation of Creative Genius