The Pollyanna Principle Or The Ability To Focus Only On Positive Things
The principle of Pollyanna is taken from the novels of Eleanor H. Porter. The protagonist, a young girl named Pollyanna, is able to focus only on the positive side of things. This iron and determining optimism served as inspiration to define the bias that would allow us to live happier and more connected with others.
Is it really a good thing to turn our gaze to the positivity expressed by this psychological principle? It is very likely that the majority of our readers seriously doubt this and display some skepticism. Sometimes, as we know, these colored glasses can make us lose certain points of our environment, certain very important nuances which take away realism and objectivity from our vision.
The flowering of positive psychology led by Martin Seligman is currently undergoing major reformulations. Organizations like the University of Buckingham (the first world institution to train and train students in the foundations of this perspective) are changing some of their bases. One of them concerns the definition of happiness.
In a way, we can say that the “new” positive psychology has abandoned the pretense of teaching us to be happier. The famous culture of happiness and all these books or personal help works give way to a new format, a new perspective. A perspective that provides us with tools to deal with negative things and adversity. Because in life, we can’t always focus on this bright and optimistic side like Pollyanna did …
The Pollyanna Principle: What Is It?
After being orphaned, little Pollyanna was sent to the house of her aunt Polly, a strict and bitter woman. Instead of sinking into sadness, the young girl did not hesitate to apply, day after day, this philosophy of life that her father had instilled in her when she was very young. A perspective that allowed him to turn his life into a game and see only the positive things. Whatever the difficulty of a situation. Pollyanna was able to resolve and face any circumstance with the strongest optimism and the most joyful determination.
It is also important to emphasize the influence Pollyanna had on others. Sooner or later, the most stingy, apathetic or sad character ended up changing in front of this luminous and sparkling personality. Eleanor H. Porter’s books conveyed, as we see, an absolute sublimation of positivism. Two psychologists were inspired by it in the 70s: Margaret Matlin and David Stang.
How are the people who apply the Pollyanna Principle?
- In a study published in the 1980s, Matlin and Slang were able to see, for example, that people with obvious positivity bias took much longer to identify unpleasant and dangerous stimuli or negative facts that were happening around them. them.
- The Pollyanna Principle tells us that after fully realizing the facts and negative realities of life, a person chooses to focus only on the positive aspects. The rest doesn’t matter. What is more, even being involved in a negative event, the person will strive to change the situation to give it a positive hue.
A biased memory centered on the positive
Dr. Steven Novella, a famous neurophysiologist from Yale University, has done a lot of work and studies on what is known as false memory or these storage errors so common in people. So, a more than curious fact about the Pollyanna Principle or Positivity Bias is that optimistic people don’t remember negative events from their past well.
The quality of their memory is optimal, even perfect, with all the events considered as “positive”. On the other hand, they do not store painful and complex facts in the same way because they do not consider them significant.
Positivity bias and language: we are all Pollyanna
This data is really curious. In 2014, Cornell University, New York, conducted a study to determine whether our language, in general, tended toward aggression or toward the positivity / Pollyanna principle bias. Professor Peter Dodds and his team analyzed more than 100,000 words in 10 different languages, even performing in-depth analyzes of social media interactions.
Thus, our language and the messages we send have a clearly positive emotional weight. These conclusions coincide with those established by psychologists Matlin and Stang in the 1970s, namely that people exhibit “pollyannism”.
Criticisms of the Pollyanna Principle
Some psychologists prefer to talk about Pollyanna syndrome instead of the Pollyanna principle. Through this change of terminology, they seek to draw attention to the limitations or worrying aspects of this psychological dimension taken to the “extreme”.
For example, if we choose to focus only on the more positive side of life, we may be incompetent when it comes to dealing with difficult situations. The Pollyanna Principle does help at times, it’s true. There is no doubt that having a happy and bright view of things helps us to be motivated, but to move forward in life we must also know how to go through negative moments and learn from them.
Our reality includes light and shade, and we can’t always choose the sunniest side.
So which perspective to choose? Is it recommended to follow the Pollyanna Principle Philosophy? The key to all of this, as always, is balance. In this intermediate gaze which focuses on the bright side of life but does not close in the face of difficulties. Positive psychology, at the end of the day, is always inspiring. However, sometimes, succeeding or failing or preventing certain things from happening to us does not depend 100% on our attitude.
All that glitters is not gold. We must therefore be ready to face any situation in the best possible way, knowing how to mix light, dark and all gray scales …
Our thoughts Those who illuminate others with their smiles, their frankness and their joys also need to vent and cry.
