Mental Fitness - Research and Scientific references

  • Sonya Lyubomirsky, Laura King, and Ed Diener, “The Benefits of Frequent Positive Affect: Does Happiness Lead to Success?” Psychological Bulletin 131, no. 6 (2005): 803–55.

  • Martin Seligman, Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life (New York: Vintage, 2006). This is derived from Martin Seligman’s pioneering work with MetLife insurance sales agents. Seligman measured the salespeople on the dimension of optimistic or pessimistic “explanatory style,” which is related to how they interpreted adversity. He showed that the agents with more optimistic styles sold 37 percent more insurance than those with pessimistic styles. In PQ, the pessimistic style is attributed to the Saboteurs and optimistic style to the Sage, meaning the salespeople with the optimistic styles were exhibiting higher PQ. Seligman’s work is described in his groundbreaking book, Learned Optimism.

  • Shirli Kopelman, Ashleigh Shelby Rosette, and Leigh Thompson, “The Three Faces of Eve: Strategic Displays of Positive, Negative, and Neutral Emotions in Negotiations,” Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 99 (2006): 81–101.
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  • Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index (2008). This is an assessment of US residents’ health and well-being, whereby 1,000 U.S. adults are interviewed every day. Given the construct of the PQ model, an “unhappy” employee is a low PQ employee, regardless of the circumstances.

  • Carlos A. Estrada, Alice M. Isen, and Mark J. Young, “Positive Affect Facilitates Integration of Information and Decreases Anchoring in Reasoning Among Physicians,” Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 72 (1997): 117–135.

  • Tanis Bryan and James Bryan, “Positive Mood and Math Performance,” Journal of Learning Disabilities 24, no. 8 (October 1991): 490–94.

  • Shawn Achor, The Happiness Advantage: The Seven Principles of Positive Psychology That Fuel Success and Performance at Work (New York: Crown Business, 2010), 41. Achor points to data about the impact of happy CEOs on their team. This translates directly to high-PQ CEOs.

  • Achor, Happiness Advantage, 58. Achor discusses a study about encouraging managers versus managers who are less positive and less open to praise. This translates to high versus low PQ managers.

  • Barry M. Staw and Sigal G. Barsade. “Affect and Managerial Performance: A Test of Sadder-but-Wiser vs. Happier-and-Smarter Hypotheses,” Administrative Science Quarterly 38, no. 2 (1993): 304–31.

  • Thomas Sy, Stéphane Côté, and Richard Saavedra, “The Contagious Leader: Impact of the Leader’s Mood on the Mood of Group Members, Group Affective Tone, and Group Processes,” Journal of Applied Psychology 90, no.2 (2005): 295–305.

  • Michael A. Campion, Ellen M. Papper, and Gina J. Medsker, “Relations Between Work Team Characteristics and Effectiveness: A Replication and Extension,” Personnel Psychology 49 (1996): 429–452. In this study, researchers studied 357 employees, ninety-three managers, and sixty teams. The greatest predictor of a team’s relative achievement was how the members felt about each other, which is also how team PQ scores are calculated.

  • Marcial Losada, (1999). “The Complex Dynamics of High Performance Teams,” Mathematical and Computer Modeling 30, no. 9–10 (1999): 179–192.

  • Marcial Losada, and Emily Heaphy, “The Role of Positivity and Connectivity in the Performance of Business Teams: A Nonlinear Dynamics Model,” American Behavioral Scientist 47, no. 6 (2004): 740–765. The high PQ characteristic discussed was being openly encouraging versus low PQ characteristics of having controlling, aloof, or negative demeanor.

  • Sarah D. Pressman and Sheldon Cohen, “Does Positive Affect Influence Health?” Psychological Bulletin 131, no. 6 (2005): 925–71.

  • Michael F. Scheier, et al. “Dispositional Optimism and Recovery from Coronary Artery Bypass Surgery: The Beneficial Effects on Physical and Psychological Well-being,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 57, no. 6 (1989): 1024–1040.

  • Glenn V. Ostir et al., “The Association Between Emotional Well-being and the Incidence of Stroke in Older Adults,” Psychosomatic Medicine 63, no. 2 (2001): 210–15.

  • Laura Smart Richman et al., “Positive Emotion and Health: Going Beyond the Negative,” Health Psychology 24, no. 4 (2005): 422–29.

  • Sheldon Cohen et al., “Emotional Style and Susceptibility to the Common Cold,” Psychosomatic Medicine 65, no.4 (2003): 652–57.

  • Andrew Steptoe et al., “Positive Affect and Health-related Neuroendocrine, Cardiovascular, and Inflammatory Responses,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 102, no. 18 (2005): 6508–12.

  • Deborah D. Danner, David A. Snowdon, and Wallace V. Friesen, “Positive Emotions in Early Life and Longevity: Findings from the Nun Study,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 80, no. 5 (2001): 804–13.

  • Judith Rodin and Ellen J. Langer, “Long-term Effects of a Control-relevant Intervention with the Institutionalized Aged,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 35, no. 12 (1977): 897–902.

  • Barbara Fredrickson, Positivity: Top-notch Research Reveals the 3 to 1 Ratio That Will Change Your Life (New York: Three Rivers Press, 2009).

  • Martin Seligman, Flourish: A Visionary New Understanding of Happiness and Well-being (New York: Free Press, 2011).

  • Tal Ben-Shahar, The Pursuit of Perfect: How to Stop Chasing Perfection and Start Living a Richer, Happier Life (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2009).

  • Jonathan Haidt, The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom (New York: Basic Books, 2006).

  • Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose (New York: Penguin, 2008).

  • Daniel Gilbert, Stumbling on Happiness (New York: Vintage, 2007). Gilbert, a Harvard professor of psychology, has done some fascinating work comparing the happiness of lottery winners with quadriplegic victims of accidents.

  • John Milton, Paradise Lost, 3rd rev. ed. (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2004).

  • Jill Bolte Taylor, My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist’s Personal Journey (New York: Viking, 2008). You might also want to watch Dr. Taylor’s inspiring speech at the TED conference. Find it by searching the TED website (www.ted.com) for her name.

  • Sara W. Lazar et al., “Functional Brain Mapping of the Relaxation Response and Meditation,” Neuroreport 11, no. 7 (2000): 1581–5.

  • Bruce R. Dunn et al., “Concentration and Mindfulness Meditations: Unique Forms of Consciousness?” Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback 24, no. 3 (1999): 147–165.

  • Ulrich Kirk, Jonathan Downar, and P. Read Montague (2011). “Interoception Drives Increased Rational Decision-making in Meditators Playing the Ultimatum Game,” Frontiers in Decision Neuroscience 5:49 (April 2011): doi: 10.3389/fnins.2011.00049.

  • H. C. Lou, et al., “A 15O-H2O PET Study of Meditation and the Resting State of Normal Consciousness,” Human Brain Mapping 7, no. 2 (1999): 98–105.

  • J. R. Binder et al., “Conceptual Processing During the Conscious Resting State: A Functional MRI Study,” Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 11, no. 1 (1999): 80–93. Jason P. Mitchell, et al., “Distinct Neural Systems Subserve Person and Object Knowledge,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Science 99, no. 23 (2003): 15,23–43.

  • Debra A. Gusnard and Marcus E. Raichle. “Searching for a Baseline: Functional Imaging and the Resting Human Brain,” Nature Reviews Neuroscience 2, no. 10 (2001): 685–94.

  • John Kounios et al., “The Prepared Mind: Neural Activity Prior to Problem Presentation Predicts Subsequent Solution by Sudden Insight,” Psychological Science 17, no. 10 (October 2006): 882–90.

  • James H. Austin, Zen and the Brain: Toward an Understanding of Meditation and Consciousness (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1998).

  • Maxwell Maltz, The New Psycho-Cybernetics (New York: Penguin Putnam, 2001).

  • Philip Brickman, Dan Coates, and Ronnie Janoff-Bulman, “Lottery Winners and Accident Victims: Is Happiness Relative?” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 36, no. 8 (August 1978): 917–27.

  • Sonya Lyubomirsky, Kennon M. Sheldon, and David Schkade, “Pursuing Happiness: The Architecture of Sustainable Change,” Review of General Psychology 9, no. 2 (2005): 111–131.

  • Losada, “The Complex Dynamics of High Performance Teams,” 179–192.

  • Losada, “The Role of Positivity and Connectivity in the Performance of Business Teams: A Nonlinear Dynamics Model,” 740–765.

  • Barbara Fredrickson and Marcial Losada, “Positive Affect and the Complex Dynamics of Human Flourishing,” American Psychologist 60, no. 7 (2005): 678–86.
  • Malcolm Gladwell, Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking (New York: Little, Brown, 2005).

  • John M. Gottman and Robert W. Levenson, “The Timing of Divorce: Predicting When a Couple Will Divorce Over a 14-Year Period,” Journal of Marriage and the Family, 62 (2000): 737–45.

  • Robert M. Schwartz et al., “Optimal and Normal Affect Balance in Psychotherapy of Major Depression: Evaluation of the Balanced States of Mind Model,” Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapy 30 (2002): 439–450. Schwartz is a clinical psychologist who categorized people into the three groups: pathological, normal, and optimal. His mathematical modeling anticipated their PQ equivalent scores to be 38, 72, and 81 respectively. This was empirically confirmed in his research.

  • Eyal Ophir, Clifford Nass, and Anthony D. Wagner, “Cognitive Control in Media Multitaskers,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 106, no. 37 (August 2009): 15,583–15,587.

  • Adam Gorlick, “Media Multitaskers Pay Mental Price, Stanford Study Shows,” Stanford Report, Stanford University, August 24, 2009.

  • Jim Collins, Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap … and Others Don’t (New York: HarperBusiness, 2001).

  • Arbinger Institute, Leadership and Self-deception: Getting out of the Box (San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2010).

  • Robert Zajonc et al., “Feeling and Facial Efference: Implications of the Vascular Theory of Emotion,” Psychological Review 96, no. 3 (July 1989): 395–416.

  • James H. Fowler and Nicholas A. Christakis, “Dynamic Spread of Happiness in a Large Social Network: Longitudinal Analysis Over 20 Years in the Framingham Heart Study,” British Medical Journal 337, no. a2338 (2008): 1–9.