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Positive Image, Positive Action:
The Affirmative Basis of Organizing
David Cooperrider
To a far greater extent than is normally acknowledged,
we human beings create our own realities through symbolic and mental
processes; and because of this, conscious evolution of the future is a
human option. Much like a movie projector on a screen, human systems
are forever projecting ahead of themselves a horizon of expectation
that brings the future powerfully into the present as a mobilizing
agent.
In his paper "Positive Image, Positive
Action," David Cooperrider explores the thesis that the artful
creation of positive imagery on a collective basis may well be the
most prolific activity that individuals and organizations can engage
in if their aim is to help bring to fruition a positive and humanly
significant future.
It is clear that images are operative virtually everywhere. We all
hold self-images, images of our race, profession, nation, and cultural
belief systems; and we have images of our own potential as well as the
potential of others. Fundamentally, too, it can be argued that every
organization, product, or innovative service first started as a wild
but not idle dream and that anticipatory realities are what make
collectivities click. (This is why we still experience a thrill on
hearing transforming speeches like Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I
have a Dream" and sometimes find ourselves enlivened through the
images associated with the mere mention of such figures as John F
Kennedy, Mahatma Gandhi, Winston Churchill, Buddha, or Christ.)
In his exploration of the potential of positive imagery,
Cooperrider mentions how research has shown that human systems are
largely heliotropic in character, meaning that they exhibit an
observable and largely automatic tendency to evolve in the direction
of positive anticipatory images of the future. Just as plants of many
varieties exhibit a tendency to grow in the direction of sunlight
(symbolized by the Greek god Helios), there is an analogous process
going on in all human systems.
Cooperrider stresses the consistency of findings of research done
on the relationship between positive imagery and positive action
across diverse areas of study. To illustrate the heliotropic
propensity in human systems at several levels of functioning, he
discusses six areas of research as examples - placebo, Pygmalion,
positive emotion, internal dialogue, cultural vitality, and
metacognitive competence.
Positive Imagery, Medicine, and the Placebo
The placebo response is a fascinating and complex process in which
projected images, as reflected in positive belief in the efficacy of a
remedy, ignite a healing response that can be every bit as powerful as
conventional therapy. Though the placebo phenomenon has been
controversial for some twenty years, most of the medical profession
now accepts, as genuine, the fact that anywhere from one-third to
two-thirds of all patients will show marked physiological and
emotional improvement in symptoms simply by believing they are given
an effective treatment, even when that treatment is just a sugar pill
or some other inert substance. While the complex mind-body pathways
are far from being resolved, there is one area of clear agreement:
Positive changes in anticipatory reality through suggestion and belief
play a central role in all placebo responses.
Pygmalion and the Positive Construction of the Other
In effect, the positive image may well be the sine qua non of human
development. As a special case of the self-fulfilling prophesy,
Pygmalion reminds us that from the moment of birth we each exist
within a complex and dynamic field of images and expectations, a vast
share of which are projected onto us through an omnipresent
environment of others.
In the classic Pygmalion study, teachers are led to believe on the
basis of "credible" information that some of their students
possess exceptionally high potential while others do not. In other
words, the teachers are led, on the basis of some expert opinion, to
hold a positive image (PI) or expectancy of some students and a
negative image (NI) or expectancy of others. Unknown to the teachers,
however, is the fact that the so-called high-potential students were
selected at random; in objective terms, all student groupings were
equivalent in potential and are merely dubbed as high, regular, or low
potential. Then, as the experiment unfolds, differences quickly
emerge, not on the basis of any innate intelligence factor or some
other predisposition but solely on the basis of the manipulated
expectancy of the teacher. Over time, subtle changes among students
evolve into clear differences as the high-PI students begin to
significantly overshadow all others in actual achievement.
A key point in the Pygmalion dynamic is, that all our cognitive
capacities - perception, memory, learning - are cued and shaped by the
images projected through our expectancies. We see what our imaginative
horizon allows us to see. And because "seeing is believing,"
our acts often take on a whole new tone and character depending on the
strength, vitality, and force of a given image. The resulting
differential behavioral treatment in turn makes the persons receiving
this treatment begin to respond to the positive images that others
have of them. The greatest value of the Pygmalion research is that it
begins to provide empirical understanding of the relational pathways
of the positive image - positive action dynamic and of the
transactional basis of the human self.
Positive Affect and Learned Helpfulness
While often talked about in cognitive terms, one of the core
features of imagery is that it integrates cognition and affect and
becomes a catalytic force through its sentiment-evoking quality.
So what about the relation between positive emotion - delight,
compassion, joy, love, happiness, passion, and so on - and positive
action? To what extent is it the affective side of the positive image
that generates and sustains heliotropic movement so often seen in
human systems?
While still in the formative stages, early results on this issue
are making clear that there is indeed a unique psychophysiology of
positive emotion and that individually as well as collectively,
positive emotion may well be the pivotal factor determining the
heliotropic potential of images of the future. In other words, the
positive emotions that are evoked by positive imagery move us toward a
choice for positive actions. Positive affect is intimately connected
with social helpfulness: somehow positive affect draws us out of
ourselves, pulls us away from self-oriented preoccupation, enlarges
our focus on the potential good in the world, increases feelings of
solidarity with others, and propels us to act in more altruistic and
prosocial ways.
The Off-Balance Internal Dialogue One of the more fascinating
refinements of the notion of positive imagery comes from Robert
Schwartz's development of a cognitive ethology: the study within human
systems of the content, function, and structure of the internal
dialogue. Here the image is conceptualized as self-talk. Traced back
to Plato and Socrates, cognition is seen as discourse that the mind
carries on with itself. It is argued that all human systems exhibit a
continuing "cinematographic -show of visual imagery" or an
ongoing "inner news real" that is best understood in the
notion of inner dialogue. It is illustrated, for example, from a study
of a stressful medical procedure, that people may have thoughts that
either impede the aim of the clinical intervention ("the catheter
might break and stick in my heart" - negative image) or
conversely may facilitate the goals of the care ("this procedure
may save my life" - positive image). Hence, the inner dialogue
functions as an inner dialectic between positive and negative adaptive
statements, and one's guiding imagery is presumably an outcome of such
an inner dialectic. Studies show that there is a definite imbalance in
the internal dialogue in the direction of positive imagery for those
groups of individuals identified as more psychologically or socially
functional. Functional groups are characterized by approximately a
1.7:1 ratio of positive to negative images, where mildly dysfunctional
groups demonstrate equal frequencies, a balanced 1:1 internal
dialogue.
Cooperrider takes Schwartz's notion of the imbalanced internal
dialogue from the individual level to the level of the organization
and beyond, and stresses that: When it comes to collective entities
like groups, organizations, or even whole societies, we must
emphatically argue that the guiding image of the future does not, even
metaphorically, exist within some individual or collective mass of
brain. It exists in a very observable and tangible way in the living
dialogue that flows through every institution, expressing itself anew
at every moment.
The Positive Image as a Dynamic Force in Culture
As various scholars have noted, the underlying images held by a
civilization or culture have an enormous influence on its fate. In his
study of Western civilization, the Dutch sociologist Fred Polak argues
this point concerning the heliotropic propensity of the positive
image. For him, the positive image of the future is the single most
important dynamic and explanatory variable for understanding cultural
evolution: "Any student of the rise and fall of cultures cannot
fail to be impressed by the role played in this historical succession
of the future. The rise and fall of images of the future precedes or
accompanies the rise and fall of cultures. As long as a society's
image is positive and flourishing, the flower of culture is in full
bloom. Once the image begins to decay and lose its vitality, however,
the culture does not long survive." For Polak, the primary
question then is not how to explain the growth and decay of cultures,
but how to explain the successful emergence or decay of positive
images. Furthermore, he asks, how do the successive waves of optimism
and pessimism or cynicism and trust regarding the images fit into the
cultural framework and its accompanying dynamics?
His conclusions, among others, include:
Positive images emerge in contexts of
"influence-optimism" (belief in an open and influenceable
future) and an atmosphere that values creative imagination mixed with
philosophical questioning, rich emotional life, and freedom of speech
and fantasy. The force that drives the image is only part cognitive or
intellectual; a much greater part is emotional, esthetic, and
spiritual. The potential strength of a culture could actually be
measured by the intensity, energy, and belief in its images of the
future. The image of the future not only acts as a barometer but
actively promotes cognition and choice and in effect becomes
self-fulfilling because it is self-propelling. When a culture's
utopian aspirations die out, the culture dies: "where there is no
vision, the people perish" (Proverbs 29:18).
Metacognition and Conscious Evolution of Positive Images
To the extent that the heliotropic hypothesis has some validity -
that human systems have an observable tendency to evolve in the
direction of those "positive" images that are the brightest
and boldest, most illuminating and promising - questions of volition
and free agency come to the fore. Is it possible to create our own
future-determining imagery? Is it possible to develop our
metacognitive capacity and thereby choose between positive and
negative ways of construing the world? If so, with what result? Is the
quest for affirmative competence - the capacity to project and affirm
an ideal image as if it is already so - a realistic aim or merely a
romantic distraction? More important, is it possible to develop the
affirmative competence of large collectivities, that is, of groups,
organizations, or whole societies affirming a positive future
together? With the exception of the last question (there just has not
been enough research here), most of the available evidence suggests
quite clearly that affirmative competence can be learned, developed,
and honed through experience, disciplined practice, and formal
training.
In the case of athletics, as just one example, imagery techniques
are fast becoming an important part of all successful training. There
is experimental evidence, that the best athletes may be as successful
as they are because of a highly developed metacognitive capacity of
differential self-monitoring. In brief, this involves being able to
systematically observe and analyze successful performances (positive
self-monitoring) or unsuccessful performances (negative
self-monitoring) and to be able to choose between the two cognitive
processes when desired. Paradoxically, while most in our culture seem
to operate on the assumption that elimination of failures (negative
self-monitoring) will improve performance, exactly the opposite
appears to hold true, at least when it comes to learning new tasks. In
one experiment, for example, a set of bowlers who received lessons on
the components of effective bowling was compared to those who did not
receive the lessons (controls) and to groups who followed the lessons
with several weeks of positive self-monitoring or negative
self-monitoring. As predicted, the positive self-monitors improved
significantly more than all others, and the unskilled bowlers (average
of 123 pins) who practices positive self-monitoring improved
substantially (more than 100 percent) more than all other groups.
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