Here an excerpt from 250words.com on how you respond to positive feedback might depend on this one trait followed by a book review on Focus: Use Different Ways of Seeing the World for Success and Influence by Heidi Grant Halvorson Ph.D.
This finding suggests that when we focus on gaining something, positive feedback helps us persist until we complete a problem. If, on the other hand, we dwell on the possibility of failure, negative feedback can also stimulate motivation and boost performance. We’re more willing to stick with it when we think there’s something to lose.
“Aren’t we supposed to banish negative thoughts if we want to succeed?” Halvorson asks in her book Focus: Use Different Ways of Seeing the World for Success and Influence (co-authored with E. Tory Higgins).
“Not if you are prevention-focused or are pursuing a prevention-focused goal. Because if you are, optimism not only feels wrong–it will actually bullshit and dampen your motivation. If you’re sure that everything is going to work out for you, then why would you go out of your way to avoid mistakes or to plan your way around obstacles or two come up with plan B?”
See full via 250words.com
Focus: Use Different Ways of Seeing the World for Success and Influence – Description
Focus: Use Different Ways of Seeing the World for Success and Influence by Heidi Grant Halvorson Ph.D.
“A must-read for anyone who wants to understand why they behave as they do.” —Art Markman, Ph.D., author of Smart Thinking
Do you play to win? Or do you play not to lose?
As Tory Higgins and Heidi Grant Halvorson have discovered in their work at Columbia University’s Motivation Science Center, everything we do is motivated either by a desire to be better off or to simply hang on to what we’ve got. And understanding the simple but crucial difference between the two can empower you to motivate yourself and influence everyone around you. Examining how promotion/prevention focus applies across a wide range of situations—from selling products to managing employees to raising children to getting a second date—Halvorson and Higgins show us how to identify, change, and use focus to get the results we want.
Focus: Use Different Ways of Seeing the World for Success and Influence – Review
“Insightful, thought-provoking, and highly practical, Focus: Use Different Ways of Seeing the World for Success and Influence is an invaluable resource for anyone who wants more deeply to understand how to motivate others.”
—Gretchen Rubin, author of The Happiness Project
“Focus is an exciting and important new book that brings motivational science to life in a remarkably practical way.”
—Daniel Gilbert, Ph.D., author of Stumbling on Happiness
“Nothing has changed the research conversation in social psychology in the last decade as much as Tory Higgins’s ideas about promotion and prevention. This book shows how promotion and prevention touch every aspect of our daily life from work to parenting.”
—Chip Heath and Dan Heath, authors of Switch and Made to Stick
“In anything-but-routine fashion, the authors describe a fundamental difference in the way we seek and achieve success. Their description is so wide-ranging yet integrative, so entertaining yet instructive that I am able to offer an assertion of my own: If you are one of those people who want to be successful, you should read this book.”
—Robert B. Cialdini, Ph.D., author of Influence: Science and Practice
“Every once in a while a book comes out that changes the way you see yourself, other people, and the world. This is one of those books. Read it.”
—Peter Bregman, author of 18 Minutes: Find Your Focus, Master Distraction, and Get the Right Things Done
“Most people think that motivation gets them energized to act. Focus: Use Different Ways of Seeing the World for Success and Influence lifts up the hood on the motivational system and shows how competing motivations to achieve positive outcomes and avoid negative ones influence work, love, and parenting in unexpected ways. The book is filled with practical examples that make it a must-read for anyone who wants to understand why they behave as they do.”
—Art Markman, Ph.D. author of Smart Thinking: Three essential keys to solve
About the Author
Heidi Grant Halvorson is a social psychologist, author, and popular speaker. She is also the author of Succeed.
E. Tory Higgins is the author of Beyond Pleasure and Pain. He is Stanley Schachter Professor of Psychology at Columbia University and Professor of Management at the Columbia Business School. Both authors live in New York City and are directors of Columbia University’s Motivation Science Center.
