Write a brief description of the major findings from the paper
The current study examined how much people think and what emotional experience they have about their behavior when they perform habitual actions or actions, behaviors which are not habitual for them. As it was supposed, results of the study demonstrated that when a person performs habitual actions one`s thoughts are less likely to correspond to one`s actions. On the contrary, when a person performs some novelty actions in less stable or variable context this person is more likely to think about one`s actions or, in other words, thoughts and actions correspond to each other.
Identify any strengths or limitations of the research design or methods
One of the limitations of the research was that there were some processes in the study which could induce participants` thoughts about their behavior. For example, the task of participants was to write their thoughts about own actions in diaries. This process could encourage participants to pay more attention to their thoughts than they do it in everyday life. Also, one more limitation is that participants of the study were students. So it can be supposed that students are those groups of people whose life is full of thoughts, study, novelty activities, etc. That is why the time of engaging in non-routine activities can be overestimated.
What are the proposed applications of those findings for everyday life?
The study`s results demonstrated that people tend to spent approximately 50% of their daily time in “thoughtless manner’ without thinking about their actions and behaviors. These results reject previous stereotypes that people behave thoughtlessly during approximately 95% of daily time. Also, the study showed that habitual behavior was associated with lower intensity of emotions. In addition, performing habitual tasks participants indicated thoughts as the source of their emotions and not own (habitual) actions.
Also, it was found that when participants of the study were engaged in habitual activities they tended to experience low pride, negative self-esteem, low feeling of self and less association with personal goals, etc. At the same time, the authors of the study indicate that habits have not only disadvantages but several benefits (lower stress, less energy engaged in behavior, etc.).
Provide an example of how the findings from this study could be applied for everyday life.
I believe that results of the study can help people to understand that performing habitual, familiar activities most of the time can negatively influence their emotional state, their self-perception, etc. and that is why it is necessary to find time and opportunity for novelty activities, for unfamiliar situations, etc.
I suppose that results of the study can be applied for situations when people experience depressive moods, boredom and other negative emotional state. It can be assumed that people who experience depressive moods without significant reasons (for example, loss of something important) are more engaged in habitual behaviors most of time.
So such people can improve their emotional state by trying something new, by engaging in behaviors in unfamiliar contexts, etc. For example, a woman who used to spend every day doing the same job, cleaning the house, cooking will be likely to begin to experience boredom or even psychological problems such as depression, sleep disorders. If this woman finds new hobbies for herself (dancing, traveling, biking) she will be likely to prevent or to overcome negative psychological consequences caused by routine regular activities.
Can you identify any barriers to implementing a life change based on these findings?
The barrier to implement results of the study into practice is personal characteristics of individuals. For example, according to theory of Eyesenk, individuals who have more choleric or sanguine temperamental traits tend to try something new, to engage in unfamiliar activities, to take risks, etc. So we can suppose that it will be easy for this group of people to spend more time of their days engaging in nonhabits. At the same time, people who have more melancholic or phlegmatic traits prefer habitual behaviors, familiar activities because they can control this activities more than nonhabitual one. So this group of people will be less likely to reject routine activities and try something new.
Counting blessings in early adolescents
Write a brief description of the major findings from the paper
The study if gratitude demonstrates both immediate and long-term positive psychological effects. For example, researchers examined participants of the experiment immediately after the intervention and in three week after intervention (post-experimental stage). It was shown that participants of “gratitude” group demonstrated experience life satisfaction even after three post experimental weeks.
Identify any strengths or limitations of the research design or methods
The main strength of the current study is that it was the first study which examined how gratitude influences the life of individuals from 6th and 7th school grades. Before there were studies of gratitude and its influence on adult people but it was not known if gratitude influence younger people as positively as individuals of more mature age.
One of limitations of the study is that, although, the effect of gratitude on long-term satisfaction was shown; it is unclear what factors cause these long-terms effects. Another limitation, as it is supposed by authors, can be associated with the influence of context of different experimental conditions on results of the study.
What are the proposed applications of those findings for everyday life?
Provide an example of how the findings from this study could be applied for everyday life
I believe that these results are very important for everyday life. Results of the current study proved how important “moral behavior” is in our life. I think that every human hear from one`s parents from the first years of one`s life that it is necessary to be thankful, it is polite to tell “thank you”, etc. This study demonstrates that this well-known “rule” is not just a rule of society – it is factor which can significantly influence our well-being, life-satisfaction, prosocial behavior, etc.
I think that knowing how important gratitude is in our life we must apply this knowledge for variety of different goals. For example, teachers, educators can enhance gratitude of children from the young years; psychotherapists can encourage their patients with emotional or other problems to become thankful to other people for all they done for him/her. I think that many psychological problems of a person begins because of his/her selfishness, because of focusing own attention only on own problems.
For example, as we know, Erikson indicated in his theory of psychosocial development that people during middle adulthood can achieve stagnation or generativity. Erikson explained that “stagnated” people experience boredom, life dissatisfaction because they are highly concentrated on own problems, health, diseases. At the same time, people who achieve generativity live not only for themselves and think not only about own goals but demonstrate prosocial behavior toward other people (their children, grandchildren, etc.).
Consequently, I think that people of different age that are not thankful to other people or to events of their life have similar experience as people who achieve stagnation in the middle adulthood.
Can you identify any barriers to implementing a life change based on these findings?
I cannot identify barriers to develop the feeling of gratitude in myself or in other individuals because people learn to be thankfulness from the early years. People just need to be encouraged to become thankful.
Praise for Intelligence Can Undermine Children’s Motivation and Performance
Write a brief description of the major findings from the paper
Also children praised for intelligence after the doing some task tended to demonstrate interest about results of performance of other children, so children from the ability praise group are more prone to compare themselves with other people. At the same time, children from efforts praise group demonstrated higher interests toward different and new strategies of performing some task.
Children from ability praised group also demonstrated negative responses in situation of their failures, because their main goal was to perform good, while children praised for efforts did not react negatively to low performance because their main goal was to learn something new.
Identify any strengths or limitations of the research design or methods
The strength of this study is that it was conducted with using “multi-racial” sample. Children who participated in the experiment were Hispanic, Caucasian and Afro-American. Because the comparison of children from different ethnical group did not show any significant differences it indicated that different types of praise influence children similarly despite their ethnic differences.
One more strength of the study is that the article included 6 studies which examined different effects of ability praise and efforts praise in different conditions. Consequently, every study re-examined previous effects which helped to form more objective and reliable conclusions about how praise for intelligence or praise for efforts influence children.
What are the proposed applications of those findings for everyday life?
Researchers who conducted the study concluded that if adults praise children for their intelligence such praise does not seem to influence significantly children`s high estimation of their smartness. On the contrary such praise may interfere with children believe in the proportion of abilities and hard work.
Authors indicated that it is better to praise children for their hard work. Praise for children`s intelligence, abilities does not influence a child positively. Children who praised for their efforts tend to experience more enjoyment of task performance, more persistence on the problem and attribute their failure to the lack of efforts. Children who believe that they failed not because they are bad, not enough smart but because they did not work enough effectively tend to look for ways of self-development, experience interest towards that strategies which can improve their performance next times.
The study demonstrated that praise for intelligence can be even harmful for children because every failure children perceive as the indication of their personal low intelligence. So every time children who praised for intelligence fail they think that they are bad and stupid.
Provide an example of how the findings from this study could be applied for everyday life
The findings of current studies may be used for psychoeducational trainings of parents and educators, teachers. These findings may help to understand reasons of why some smart and skilful children lose their interest to learning process, to self-development, to learning something new, etc. On the other hand, results of the current study give answers to questions about what parents and other adults can do to encourage children to learn something new, to analyze own mistakes and develop their skills in performing different tasks.
Can you identify any barriers to implementing a life change based on these findings?
I believe that there are no barriers to implement the findings of the study into practice. I think that information how to correctly praise children is enough to help parents and adults to change their stereotypes that children must be praised for their stable traits, etc.
References
Froh, J. J., Sefick, W. J., & Emmons, R. A. (2008). Counting blessings in early adolescents: An experimental study of gratitude and subjective well-being. Journal of School Psychology, 46(2), 213-233.
Mueller, C. M., & Dweck, C. S. (1998). Praise for intelligence can undermine children's motivation and performance. Journal of personality and social psychology, 75(1), 33.
Wood, W., Quinn, J. M., & Kashy, D. A. (2002). Habits in everyday life: thought, emotion, and action. Journal of personality and social psychology, 83(6), 1281.
