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READING PASSAGE 12
Second nature
Your personality isn't necessarily set in stone. With a little experimentation, people can reshape their
temperaments and inject passion,
optimism,
joy and courage into their lives
A
Psychologists have long held that a person's character cannot undergo a transformation in any meaningful
way and that the key traits of personality are determined at a very young age. However, researchers have
begun looking more closely at ways we
can
change. Positive psychologists have identified 24 qualities we
admire, such as loyalty and kindness, and are studying them to find out why they come so
naturally to some
people. What they're discovering is that many of these qualities amount to habitual behaviour that determines
the way we respond to the world. The good news is that all this can be learned.
Some qualities are less challenging to develop than others, optimism being one of them. However, developing
qualities requires mastering a range of skills which are diverse and sometimes surprising. For example, to
bring more joy and passion into your life, you must be open to experiencing negative emotions. Cultivating
such qualities will help you realise your full potential.
B
'The evidence is good that most personality traits can be altered,' says Christopher Peterson,
professor
of psychology at the University of Michigan, who cites himself as an example. Inherently introverted, he
realised early on that as an academic, his reticence would prove disastrous in the lecture hall. So he learned to
be more outgoing and to entertain his classes. 'Now my extroverted behaviour is spontaneous,' he says.
C
David Fajgenbaum had to make a similar transition. He was preparing for university, when he had an
accident that put an end to his sports career. On campus, he quickly found that beyond ordinary counselling,
the university had no services for students who were undergoing physical rehabilitation and suffering from
depression like him. He therefore launched a support group to help others in similar situations. He took
action despite his own pain - a typical response of an optimist.
D
Suzanne Segerstrom, professor of psychology at the
University of Kentucky, believes that the key to
increasing optimism is through cultivating optimistic behaviour, rather than positive thinking. She
recommends you train yourself to pay attention to good fortune by writing down three positive things that
come about each day. This will help you convince yourself that favourable outcomes actually happen all the
time, making it easier to begin taking action.
E
You can recognise a person who is passionate about a pursuit by the way they are so strongly involved in it.
Tanya Streeter's passion is freediving - the sport of plunging deep into the water without tanks or other
breathing equipment. Beginning in 1998, she set nine world records and can hold her breath for six minutes.
The physical stamina required for this sport is intense but the psychological demands are even more
overwhelming. Streeter learned to untangle her fears from her judgment of what her body and mind could do.
'In my career as a competitive freediver, there was a limit to what I could do - but it wasn't anywhere near what
I thought it was/ she says.
F
Finding a pursuit that excites you can improve anyone's life. The secret about consuming passions, though,
according to psychologist Paul Silvia of the
University of North Carolina, is that 'they require discipline, hard
work and ability, which is why they are so rewarding.' Psychologist Todd Kashdan has this advice for those
people taking up a new passion: 'As a newcomer, you also have to tolerate and laugh at your own ignorance.
You must be willing to accept the negative feelings that come your way,' he says.
G
In 2004, physician-scientist Mauro Zappaterra began his PhD research at
Harvard Medical School. Unfortunately, he was miserable as his research wasn't compatible with his curiosity
about healing. He finally took a break and during eight months in Santa Fe,
Zappaterra learned
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about alternative healing techniques not taught at Harvard. When he got back, he switched labs to study how
cerebrospinal fluid nourishes the developing nervous system. He also vowed to look for the joy in everything,
including failure, as this could help him learn about his research and himself.
One thing that can hold joy back is a person's concentration on avoiding failure rather than their looking
forward to doing something well. 'Focusing on being safe might get in the way of your reaching your goals,'
explains Kashdan. For example, are you hoping to get through a business lunch without embarrassing yourself,
or are you thinking about how fascinating the conversation might be?
H
Usually, we think of courage in physical terms but ordinary life demands s omething else.
For marketing
executive Kenneth Pedeleose, it meant speaking out against something he thought was ethically wrong. The
new manager was intimidating staff so Pedeleose carefully recorded each instance of bullying
and eventually took the evidence to a senior director, knowing his own job security would be
threatened. Eventually the manager was the one to go. According to Cynthia Pury, a psychologist at Clemson
University, Pedeleose's story proves the point that courage is not motivated by fearlessness,
but by moral
obligation. Pury also believes that people can acquire courage. Many of her students said that faced with a
risky situation, they first tried to calm themselves down, then looked for a way to mitigate the danger, just as
Pedeleose did by documenting his allegations.
Over the long term, picking up a new character trait may help you move toward being the person you want to
be. And in the short term, the effort itself could be surprisingly rewarding, a kind of internal adventure.
