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The 5 minute 'Health' read - Relationships: recent research (December)

I read a fair amount of research and thought some people might be interested in recent studies that I've found helpful.  I plan to write an approximately 1,200 word (5 minutes to read) blog post pretty much every week, highlighting helpful material that has emerged in the previous couple of months.  I'll rotate through six topic areas ... Lifestyle, Positive Psychology, Relationships, Ageing, Psychedelics, and Meditation.  I also plan to write occasional posts where I go into more detail about particular related subject areas. 

How to live well: 9th meeting - social identity theory, strength of weak ties & Fredrickson's emotional resonance

 

                 "No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main."                                                                                                                            John Donne

How to live well: 7th meeting - relationships, roles, Dunbar, needs & dyads

 

           "Of all the means which wisdom acquires to ensure happiness throughout the whole of life,                                                                    by far the most important is friendship."           Epicurus

        "Friendship is the single most important factor influencing our health, well-being, and happiness."                                                            Robin Dunbar, Oxford emeritus professor of evolutionary psychology 

The surprising power of weak 'social ties'

I’ve just been to the Farmer’s Market here in Edinburgh and I set myself the challenge of being more chatty than usual to the stallholders I was buying food from.  I ‘pushed’ myself to be friendly & talk more than I’ve ever done before (and I’ve been going to the market intermittently for years) … and it was such fun.  Tender, bubbly, jokey, light.  And I had more of a spring in my step for hours afterwards.  And it didn’t mean that I took much longer doing the shopping than I usually do either.  And as one might have predicted, this ‘good mood’ and happy positivity then splashed over into my actions subsequently (see Barbara Fredrickson's 'Broaden-and-build theory' of the function of positive emotions and her comments about

Social networks: social identity & the importance of both formal & informal group memberships (what can we do?)

“ Age wrinkles the body. Quitting wrinkles the soul. ” - Douglas MacArthur

   Social networks: social identity & the importance of both formal & informal groups (what can we do?)

 

key points: 

the social identity model highlights the value of group membership (more & less formal) for both psychological & physical wellbeing - are there groups you would like to join (or initiate) and are there helpful ways you can increase the sense of the importance to you of some of the groups you're a member of (for example by increasing your involvement with them).

Social networks: Dunbar's 5-15-50-150 model (assessing how we're doing)

The genius of Tulku Urgyen was that he could point out the nature of mind with precision and matter-of-factness of teaching a person how to thread a needle and could get an ordinary meditator like me to recognize that consciousness is intrinsically free of self ... I came to Tulku Urgyen yearning for the experience of self-transcendence, and in a few minutes he showed me I had no self to transcend ... Tulku Urgyen simply handed me the ability to cut through the illusion of the self directly, even in ordinary states of consciousness.  This instruction was, without question, the most important thing I have ever been explicitly taught by another human being.  It has given me a way to escape the usual tides of psychological suffering - fear, anger, shame - in an instant.

- Sam Harris

                       Social networks: Dunbar's 5-15-50-150 model (assessing how we're doing)

key points: 

 

1.)  Please would you download a personal community map (see below) and begin to fill it in. 

 

2.)  While filling in the map and afterwards, answer the items on the associated questionnaire ... and start to jot down possible intentions too.

 

Social networks: Dunbar's 5-15-50-150 model (support clique/closest relationships)

Life is a sum of all your choices. - Albert Camus

                         Social networks: Dunbar's 5-15-50-150 model (support clique/closest relationships)

key point: 

 

In this first part of three on Dunbar's 5-15-50-150 personal social network model, I introduce the crucially important inner layer - the 'support clique' of closest relationships.

 

Social networks: social identity & the importance of both formal & informal group memberships (background)

“ For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you. ” - Walt Whitman

Social networks: social identity & the importance of both formal & informal group memberships (background)

 

key point: 

 

The intriguing additional value of understanding social networks through a social identity lens is highlighted and a wealth of emerging research validating the importance of this approach is introduced.

 

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