HUMOR ,POSITIVE

ILLUSIONS, CREATIVITY,
GIFTEDNESS AND WISDOM
 HUMOR
• Also playfulness
• The telic state is associated with seriousness and achievement,
while the paratelic state is associated with playfulness and fun
• http://theconversation.com/getting-serious-about-funny-psyc
hologists-see-humor-as-a-character-strength-61552
• http://www.viacharacter.org/blog/tickle-funny-bone-5-humor-
exercises-get-happier/
• https://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/2017/07/19/there-are-nine
-different-types-of-humour-which-one-are-you_a_23036626/
THERE ARE NINE DIFFERENT
TYPES OF HUMOUR
Which One Are You???
 1. Physical

Also referred to as slapstick, this style of humour involves physicality. It can be

everything from clowns to mimes to funny facial expressions to someone falling
over.
2. Self-Deprecating

• This kind of humour is a favourite

among stand-up comedians, in which
they basically make themselves the
butt of a joke and are rewarded with
laughs.
• It's also a style that has been further
popularised by the internet,
particularly with memes.
3. Surreal

As suggested by the name, this style of humour can be pretty weird, featuring
illogical events, absurd situations or nonsensical themes. Or in other words, just
plain silly.
4. Improvisational

• Comedy without a plan. Ever seen

‘Just for Laughs Gags?' That's what
we're talking about.
• The fact you know the person is
making up the jokes on the spot
makes this style of comedy even
funnier (and impressive, if they do it
well).
5. Wit-Wordplay

Usually a play on words, this humour involves twisting language around with
humorous results. (And yes, puns do fall into this category. Dads everywhere,
rejoice.)
 6. Topical

Humour based on current events or trends. This sort of humour requires having a
thorough knowledge of what's going on in the world (news, elections, pop culture
etc.) and the ability to put a humorous spin on it.
 7. Observational

The ability to poke fun at everyday life

 8. Bodily

Ah, yes, the home of the old toilet joke. This is everything to do with farts or other
bodily functions. This is a divisive type of humour that tends to be popular with
men and teenagers.
9. Dark

This style of humor usually involves some dark, depressing underlying themes, but
throws some comical or unusual situations in this setting.
• It might come as a surprise that in a
trial of 200 people, eHarmony found
dark humour to be the least popular
while physical humour came out on
top.
• In saying that, educated people
tended to find physical humour less
funny than wit and wordplay, while
older people found everything less
funny across the board.
YOU ARE…………?
Positive Illusions
• Prof. Shelley E. Taylor’s term for the tendency for us to
view ourselves in a positive way.
• 1989 - University of UCLA
POSITIVE ILLUSION:
• Perception that represents what is perceived in a way different from the
way it is in reality. An illusion is a false mental image or conception which
may be a misinterpretation of a real appearance or may be something
imagined. It may be pleasing, harmless or even useful.’(Stein, 1982, p662)

• Positive illusions are a form of self-deception or self-enhancement that

feel good, maintain self-esteem or stave off discomfort, at least in the
short term. There are three broad kinds: inflated assessment of one's
own abilities, unrealistic optimism about the future, and an illusion of
control.
 Positive illusions are necessary for mental health and that
the conventional view of having a realistic approach to self,
the world and the future might be, at least somewhat false.
 TRACES OF POSITIVE ILLUSIONS:
• Freud’s take on Illusion: Sexual Aggressive driver, social acceptable ways and afterlife

• Pollyanna Principle-  most people recall positive experiences earlier than negative
experiences, people recall more positive words whilst speaking or writing and evaluated
themselves more positively compared with others

• Taylor and Brown (1988) in their challenging paper posited that these unrealistically
positive self-evaluations, an exaggerated perception of control and unrealistic optimism
are useful for cognitive, affective and social functions and are therefore necessary for
subjective well-being and mental health.
 Positive Illusions
Unrealistic sense
Illusion of self of personal
Unfounded
enhancement – control and
sense of
past behavior exaggerated
optimism
and own person belief for the
betterment
 SELF-ENHANCEMENT:
• Self-enhancement is a concept from the field of social psychology that is commonly
used to describe the predisposition that individuals have “to distort self-appraisals so
as to maintain the most favorable self-view”.

• To maintain a view of self, and the world, studies reveal that we use a variety of
defences and self-deceptive strategies to manage the negative information.
 Self-Deception

• The self deceptive strategies we use to manage a load of awful

information , which is contrary to an optimistic world view,
includes
• Defense mechanisms
• Positive illusions
 Denial & Repression
• Shelly Taylor (1989): Defenses like denial and repression are
maladaptive because they distort reality.
• Illusions are adaptive because they permit people to interpret reality in
the best possible light.
• These allow people to know negative information about the self and
manage this in a way that preserves a positive view of the self.
• Extensive research reveals positive illusion involve cognitive processes
of:
COGNITIVE PROCESSES OF POSITIVE ILLUSIONS:
1. SELECTIVE ATTENTION: Involves noticing positive things and screening out
negative things about ourselves i.e. filtering information in a biased way so that
only positive news is registered and coded.

2. BENIGN FORGETTING: A process where negative information about self is not

easily recalled and positive information that supports a positive view of self is
recalled in considerable detail

3. POCKETS OF INCOMPETENCE: Managing negative information about self by

clearly defining areas of incompetence that in those areas one has few skills. By
ring-fencing, we define these as exceptions by not using information about our
performance in these areas and preserving the predominantly competent and
attractive self-image
COGNITIVE PROCESSES OF POSITIVE ILLUSIONS:

4. NEGATIVE SELF-SCHEMA: One way to organize negative info about

self is to develop negative self-schemas (In addition to Positive self-
schemas.) It is an organized set of beliefs that allows us to anticipate
situations in which negative information about self is likely to be
received and then developing strategies to deal with those.
Playing Luddo! Roll the dice hard to get a six,
slow to get a 1 :D
• https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4485033/
CREATIVITY
Creativity: Thinking of novel and
productive ways to do things
THEORIES OF CREATIVITY
• Gardner (1993) distinguished between:
• Little ‘c’ creativity—relatively common small departures from daily
routines—
• and big ‘C’ creativity—relatively rare major innovations which
affect our culture.
• Small ‘c’ creativity can be enhanced (Nickerson, 1999).
 Csikszentmihalyi’s systems model of
creativity
• Csikszentmihalyi 1. The person with his or her talents, personality traits and
(1999, 1996) has motivations
argued that creativity
is most usefully
conceptualized as a
systemic rather than 2. The domain which consists of the symbol-system, rules,
an individualistic techniques, practices and guiding paradigm
process which involves
the dynamic
interaction of three
distinct systems: 3. The field which consists of people working within the same
domain (artists, scientists, critics, journal editors) whose activity
is governed by the same domain-specific rules and practices
 Sternberg and Lubart’s
Investment Theory
• According to Sternberg and Lubart’s (1999) investment theory of
creativity, individuals make creative contributions to a field when
they ‘buy low and sell high’ in a field of ideas. That is, they ‘buy’ or
adopt poorly developed ideas which are unpopular or unfamiliar but
which have growth potential, invest creatively in these and develop
them into ‘creative products’ before moving on to ‘new’ unpopular
ideas with growth potential.
•A unique characteristic of the creative individual is persistence in
developing a set of ideas despite resistance from the field to
these new developments and a lack of acceptance.
• There are 6 factors they gave that require creativity
• 1. Intellectual abilities to see problems in novel ways and recognize which
problems are worth pursuing, ability to sell one’s ideas to others.
• 2. Sufficient knowledge about a field to move forward , but not be paralysed by
conventional practices.
• 3. The capacity to think in novel ways about effective problem solving and to
think globally (about the big picture) as well as locally (about details).
• 4 Personality: sensible risk taking (buying low and selling high), persistence in
overcoming obstacles (in tolerating the field’s resistance to one’s new ideas).
• 5. Intrinsic motivation to work in the field.
• 6. A supportive environment which rewards creative contributions to the field
3. Broaden and build theory
• Defining Zero Sum (one wins one loses) and Non Zero Sum Games (ones
gain doesn’t means another ones loss)
• Game theory to positive psychology: Negative emotions prepare us
for zero sum games (eg, fear). Positive emotions prepare us for non
zero sum games (eg, how civilizations come together, support each
other and progress)
• Barbara Fredrickson (2002) at the University of Michigan extended
the idea that positive emotions lead to non-zero-sum games. She has
developed the broaden -and- build theory of positive emotions to
explain how positive affective experiences not only signal personal
well-being but also contribute to personal growth and development.
 Child genius to Adult creative
individual?
• Research: Only a minority of gifted children go on to become creative adults
who make major innovative contributions to their field.
 The development of creativity (Nickerson, 1999).

Create a vision of Develop basic Master domain

Opportunity filled
where you want to skills to enter the specific
environment
go domain knowledge

Motivate passion Encourage

Do your
Risk taking and reward curiosity and
PERSONAL best
yourself explore

Develop strategies
Optimistic belief for breaking Be patient!
impasses
Basic outline for Giftedness
• Giftedness in childhood, creativity in adulthood & wisdom later
• As usual, there has been a debate as to whether giftedness is
nature or nurture? What do you think?
• Evidence makes clear that gifted children show outstanding
innate talent before practice, but they are motivated to practice
a great deal to master their talent and so environmental factors
contribute to the growth of their giftedness
Historical background
Terman did a 35 y
c is G a lt on ear longitudinal s
r Fr a n children (Terman tudy on gifted
In 1869, Si i e s w it h w ell & Ogden, 1959).
Used Stanford-
s t ig a te d f amil was
Binet for screenin
g more than 1000
inve n ce. H is w o r k children with IQs
in te lli g e .
reputed D ITAR Y G E N IU S
Found that high
above 140.
le d H E R E was IQs also showed
cal if t e d n e s s exceptional
l u d e d t h at g physical health,
behavioral adjust
Co n c
ly h e r e d it ary. ment and moral
nt
predomina development

t w a s n e g a t ed b y M orelock
te d w ith o v e ra ll a djustmen
Giftedness asso c ia
ss d u e to re a c h in g an early
m a n (1 9 9 7 ): e m o tio nal distre ha v ing the
and Feld ro b lem s b e f ore
r m o ra l a nd e xistential p
understanding of m a jo
c u lty m a in t a in re la tions.
a tu rit y to c op e , a lo ngside diffi
emotional m
Defining Giftedness
• Many definitions of giftedness have been given but the one with the broadest scope
was provided by Renzulli (1986). He provided the THREE RING MODEL

a b i lity v ity i n the

n eral creati
in g g e st s or in o f hi gh
an d
outst sured by IQ sts for
t e comm doma
a e itmen ability
as me aptitude t s high le t and a
c a
specifi ains such u sical motiva
tio
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dom bi lit y ,m skills in n to develo
a t ic al a t u re th e d o p
e m l p
ma t h
e n t o r sc u high ab main of
t al ility
• The definition given by Renzulli is based on the hierarchical model of
intelligence which has its roots in the work of Spearman (1927) and Thurstone
(1938)
• Spearman used factor analysis, he examined the pattern of correlation among
a large number of different types of ability tests given to a large sample of
people. He then found a single underlying factor of general intelligence or ‘g’
• Later Thurstone used a wider range of tests and a different method, couldn’t
find ‘g’ but found a set of seven independent factors which he called the
primary mental abilities-
• 1 verbal comprehension; 2 word fluency; 3 number facility; 4 spatial ability; 5
perceptual speed; 6 induction; and 7 memory
• Later both these theories were reconciled and a hierarchial model was
developed with general intelligence at the top and other specific abilities
below it
 GIFTEDNESS:
• Renzulli (1986) defined giftedness in his three-ring model
as involving:
• 1. outstanding general ability as measured by IQ tests or
specific aptitude tests for domains such as mathematical
ability, musical talent or sculpture;
• 2. creativity in the domain of high ability;
• 3. commitment and a high level of motivation to develop
skills in the domain of high ability.
WISDOM
• Riegel (1973) has suggested that in late adolescence, after people have
passed through piaget’s (1976) four stages of cognitive development,
they enter the stage of dialectical operations.
• Formal operations stage: What’s still missing?
• Young adolescents do not realise that others occupy different (and less
logical) philosophical positions from themselves.
• What Is right and true?
• Thesis-antithesis-synthesis
• Wisdom, from this theoretical perspective, involves the application of
dialectical thinking to solving complex problems.
 Sternberg’s balance theory of wisdom
• Synthetic, analytical and practical ability.
• The balance theory defines wisdom as the use of one’s intelligence,
creativity, common sense, and knowledge and as mediated by positive
ethical values toward the achievement of a common good through a
balance among
• (a) intrapersonal i.e. personal wishes
• (b) interpersonal i.e. things that would be good for relationship with
others involved in problem situation
• (c) extrapersonal interests i.e. things that would be good for everyone
affected by the problem situation within the society.
• Wisdom also involves applying tacit knowledge to problem solving in
a way that achieves a balance among multiple types of responses to
environmental contexts. These responses include:
• (a) adaptation to existing environments,
• (b) shaping of existing environments, and
• (c) selection of new environments.
1st – utilizes knowledge gained through experience (short term goals)
2nd - the definition draws heavily on the idea of balance: 
• Intrapersonal interests affect only the individual. They have to do with one’s own
sense of identity and may include such things as the desire for self-actualization,
popularity, prestige, power, prosperity, or pleasure.
• Interpersonal interests involve other people. They relate not only to one’s sense of
self but also to desirable relationships with others. 
• Extrapersonal interests are those that affect a wider organization, community,
country, or environment.
3rd – weightage
• the balance in the balance theory of wisdom does not
mean that each interest, consequence, or response is
weighted equally. The relative “weightings” are
determined by the extent to which a particular alternative
contributes to the achievement of a common good.  

• Do people fail in their duties due to lack of conventional

intelligence or lack of wisdom?