Positive Media Psychology

MEDIA THAT CULTIVATES STRENGTHS & VALUES

Positive media psychology uses the theories and constructs of positive psychology as the foundation for thinking about media and technology.  It focuses on the potential of media technologies to support human flourishing and sets a new foundation for how we approach research and development.  Our use and consumption of media play an important role in how we see the world and ourselves.  Using positive psychology to guide how we design and use media can move individuals and society in a direction that enhances well-being, increases a sense of meaning and supports the institutions necessary for a well-functioning, equitable society.

POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY: A PATH TO WELLBEING

Positive psychology is the study of wellbeing and human flourishing.  It shifted attention from psychology’s historically problem-centric medical model to a more balanced and holistic approach to understanding human experiences.  It didn’t just look for what was wrong, to alleviate distress.  Positive psychology identifies what works well and tries to figure out how to make more of it, to support positive development, to encourage hope and to cultivate resilience.

Positive media psychology similarly shifts the questions scholars and practitioners ask. Instead of looking for the problems and dangers in media content, consumption and use, positive media psychology asks:

• “How do people benefit?” 
• “How can we make it better?”  
• “How can we leverage media to make a difference?”

The positive psychology paradigm provides a new lens and empirically validated measure to better evaluate the effect and harness the power of media to impact lives and society for the better.  

Positive Media Psychology approaches media psychology with the end goal of using media technologies to support well-being.  Media psychologists look at the ways in which media and technology impact and enable human experience.  Like the larger field of psychology, media psychology has traditionally reflected the medical model—looking for problems to alleviate distress.  Thus, concerns about the potential negative impact of an increasingly digital world dominated the research and theory development. Positive media psychology takes a different tact, taking a more holistic view of mediated experience.  Positive media psychologists take stock of the full spectrum of experience—both the problems and the benefits–to identify opportunities for positive potential.  

THE EVOLUTION OF POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY

Positive psychology is defined as the scientific study of the circumstances and processes that contribute to positive human growth.  In the 1980s, Martin E. Seligman and Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi, considered the founding fathers of the positive psychology movement, were inspired to formalize a more balanced view of human functioning by addressing the subjective experiences that make life worth living.  

The result is a rapidly growing field with nearly a half-century of research and practice that are summarized into three main areas: 

1. happiness and wellbeing
2. individual traits and virtues
3. positive institutions that create structural support for the development and sustainability of positive emotions and virtues.  

Part of the early work has gone into identifying, categorizing and validating constructs to establish a common language and accepted ways to quantify subjective experiences, such as positive emotions, traits and individual strengths.  

This effort has allowed researchers to explore the relationship among positive psychology variables and the things that increase well-being at individual and societal levels.  Media psychologists now have a clearer idea of ways to cultivate and amplify the experiences and perceptions that determine the feelings of well-being and of satisfaction with life, such as self-efficacy, autonomy, and resiliency.  

At the societal level, positive psychologists identified civic virtues, organizational structures and leadership styles that encourage civic participation and reinforce positive social values.

Positive psychology frameworks provide a new trajectory for how people study, use and develop media content and experience.  They emphasize the benefits and media’s ability to amplify human strengths and facilitate the things that empower and enhance well-being.   

HAPPINESS AND WELL-BEING

Positive psychologists make a distinction between happiness as a fleeting physical pleasure—hedonic happiness—and deeper emotional satisfaction that comes from meaning and creates well-being—eudaimonic happiness.  

Positive emotions of both kinds have physical and mental benefits.  Neuroscience research has demonstrated that cultivating positive emotions such as happiness, gratitude and appreciation can drive brain growth by encouraging new neural connections.   Positive psychology techniques, such as mindfulness meditation and gratitude practices have also been shown to increase happiness and engagement, lessen levels of depression and anxiety and help support the immune system.  

Media plays an important role in how we see and the tools we use to navigate the world.  Media content can model positive behaviors and break down stereotypes.  Technologies and mobile apps can be designed to target the cultivation of positive emotions and mindfulness.  In fact, these are among the most popular downloads on iTunes and Google Play.  A number of wearables, such as the Apple Watch and Fitbit, provide real time haptic feedback to motivate activity, enhance calm and focus the breath.  

STRENGTHS AND VIRTUES

We easily understand the importance of identifying strengths and virtues in a number of situations, from education, relationships, and job placement to therapy.  A positive psychology initiative called The Values in Action (VIA) Classification System was a global collaboration that defined and categorized strengths and virtues so people can better evaluate outcomes, attitudes and environments.  The VIA has encouraged the integration of a strengths-based framework across applications.  Applied to media, it enables the design of technology and media content to target needs and empower growth by cultivating strengths rather than targeting gaps and deficits.   Movies and television programming have successfully targeted strengths and virtues, modeled new behaviors and expanding the audience’s repertoire of thoughts and actions with real world impact.

Strengths can be cultivated through practice.  Media and technology, therefore, have the superpower of reach. They can leverage training opportunities and reinforce behaviors, such as mindset shifting, journaling, and gratitude practices. 

POSITIVE MEDIA IMPACT

Technology-enabled activities impact many positive outcomes.  Starting from a theoretical vantage point, self-determination theory isolates three primary needs that must be met to achieve well-being: agency, self-efficacy and competence and social connection.  Agency is our belief in our ability to take action on our environment, rather than feel helpless and vulnerable.  Self-efficacy and competence are the beliefs we have that when we do take action, we will be able to achieve our desired results. Social connection is the primal human need for love, affiliation and social acceptance.  

Self-determination theory is frequently used as a framework in media development, such as in the design of video games and other media experiences.  Our interaction with and consumption of media can influence individual beliefs about agency, self-efficacy, and self-competence.  If we can navigate a website or are inspired by a story, we internalize these experiences into our sense of self.  Increasing the sense of agency by successfully completing an online purchase or by seeing a behavioral or emotional option in how to respond to a situation increases our sense of competence and efficacy.  This, in turn, enhances critical thinking, prosocial behavior, perceptions of social support, and self-confidence, which increase our willingness to take on new challenges and creates more resilience in the face of struggles. Positive emotional experiences create an upward spiral that fosters empathy, optimism, intrinsic motivation and resilience.  Positive media experiences contribute to that emotional growth – positive begets positive and the experience becomes self-reinforcing.  

Social technologies that enable the sharing text, images, video and sound without regard to the constraints of traditional avenues of communication enhance perceptions of competence and efficacy by enabling individual voice.  Content in traditional media, such as newspapers and broadcast channels, had broad reach but often diminish minority voice.  By contrast, the expansion of traditional channels to service targeted groups and social media accelerates a variety of information flows, innovative ideas and can sustain feelings of connectedness among friends, family and workplace teams.  

Storytelling is at the heart of most media entertainment and using positive psychology to inform narrative choices can enhance the persuasive power of narrative by expanding behavioral options and decreasing cognitive resistance to new ideas. Emerging technologies, such as virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR), are some of the many ways that storytelling can be amplified by technology, inspiring global social change by increasing empathy for others.   

Given the breadth of media channels and technologies, there is no limit to the potential for positive impact, from how people learn, to how they navigate their worlds literally and digitally.  The ability to use positive psychology to inform the research, analysis, and development of technology and the willingness to mindfully apply its tenets can move individuals and society in a direction that enhances well-being, increases a sense of meaning and supports the institutions necessary for a well-functioning, equitable society.

CASE STUDY: SIMPLEMENTE MARIA

The 1969-70s, Peruvian telenovela, Simplemente Maria [Simply Maria], is an earlier example of how psychological dynamics can help propel a narrative for positive impact. One of the longest running and most popular telenovelas in Latin America, it told the story of a young country girl who came to the city to find work and was seduced and abandoned. The audience lived Maria’s story over 448 episodes. They watched her struggle with the social stigma of having a child out of wedlock, overcome economic hardships by learning to read and sew and, ultimately, emerge triumphant in business and love. While the goal of the program was to provide commercially viable entertainment, unintended social consequences included a spike in the sales of Singer sewing machines and young housemaids across Peru emulating Maria’s behavior by enrolling in literacy programs (Singhal, Obregon, and Rogers 1995). 

Simplemente Maria drew on clear archetypal characters and themes. Maria was hardworking and idealistic despite challenges. Her Orphan (or Cinderella) archetype was placed in a culturally relevant story, reflecting the social struggles of the pressures from rural-to-urban migration in Peru at the time. Maria was relatable and aspirational; her success modeled a behavioral path and validated the hopes and efforts of many, reflecting, ultimately, the “just world” cognitive bias that good things should happen to good people (Dalbert 2004).

Simplemente Maria was also a harbinger of transmedia storytelling. Strong parasocial relationships developed in response to well-known and appealing characters and the frequency of television and concurrent radio broadcasts. Multiple distribution channels extended reach and access points and took advantage of the cultural habits of shared viewing and verbal discourse, increasing the retelling and psychological appropriation of content. Involvement was amplified by framing social and political issues in personal and familial terms around archetypal themes, increasing both salience and emotional participation. 

Recognizing the power of subconscious drivers in programs like Simplemente Maria, Televisa executive Miguel Sabido was inspired to develop a theory-based approach to telenovela storytelling that would intentionally target social change. Drawing on experts in behavior change and communication, Sabido created a distinct methodology that was the basis for his productions, making him a pioneer in the Education-Entertainment genre. For over 25 years, he successfully produced media structured on psychological theory and achieved significant social impact, tackling topics from birth control and literacy to HIV testing (Papa et al. 2000). 

The Sabido Methodology remains a model for the incorporation of psychological theory into media construction. It integrates: 1) dramatic theory to extend emotional range and increase attention and direct focus, 2) circular communication theories to capture the impact of messages and the renorming of beliefs reaffirmed by offline discussion and social sharing, 3) universals drawing on Jungian archetypes to trigger recognizable and relatable characters and plots and to enhance buy-in, 4) transitional characters to model a pathway for behavior change based on Albert Bandura’s social cognitive theory, 4) instinctive, emotional and cognitive triggers drawing on MacLean’s Triune Brain Theory, 5) enhanced personalization to promote parasocial relationships and 6) Sabido’s theory of tone which used sound variations to activate targeted somatic responses. The Sabido Methodology effectively targets both subconscious and conscious processing, creating multiple psychological access points to enter and emotionally engage with the story. 

This approach informs many successful serialized entertainment-education programs, notably Hulu’s award winning transmedia production East Los High, targeting the high pregnancy rate among young Latinas.  East Los High was the first culture-centric intervention designed to use a transmedia format, integrating television, web properties, and interactive social media.  Enthusiastically received by the audience, the website served as a portal to health and social services and surveys showed a significant increase among many social indicators, such as willingness to seek information about contraception, sexually transmitted infections and support for pregnant teens. Like Simplemente Maria, East Los High offered multiple entry points for identification and emotional engagement and modeled several pathways for positive behavior change, from sexual health to exercise and healthy dietary options.