Often times we experience negative emotions because of a negative life experience we might be having. At such times we feel stuck and unable to change anything towards the positive. Barbara L. Fredrickson proposed a theory known as Broaden and Build theory, which makes going from negative to positive fairly straight forward to understand and implement.
Broaden and Build Theory has four elements which interact with each other and transform people to be able to better cope with life stresses and experience more positivity as a result.
These four elements are as follows:
1) Experiences of Positive Emotions.
2) Broadening of Momentary Thought-Action Repertoires.
3) Building of Enduring Personal Resources.
4) Transformation of People and Production of Upward Spirals.
Explanation of each element
Each of these elements will be explained below, followed by an explanation of how they interact and relate with each other.
1) Experiences of Positive Emotions:
This means that when an individual thinks a positive thought or indulges in a positive behaviour, he/she will experience positive emotions for instance of joy, happiness, enjoyment, satisfaction and love, etc.
2) Broaden Momentary Thought-Action Repertoires:
According to Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary, Repertoires is, “the complete list or supply of skills, devices, or ingredients used in a particular field, occupation, or practice”. In the context of this theory, it means the range of thoughts or actions that a person is able to think or do in a given moment. According to Fredrickson, this repertoire broadens in the moment one feels positive emotions. Broadening could be at physical, psychological or on social levels. This will be explained further below.
3) Build Enduring Personal Resources:
As opposed to the temporary nature of the above two, here the same experiences, thoughts and actions permanently become a part of the overall resources a person has in order to cope with stressful situations. These resources may be external e.g. friends and family, or internal resources e.g. being resilient in face of adversity. According to this theory, momentary repertoires lead to building of personal resources.
4) Transform People and Produce Upward Spirals:
Once such resources become enduring, i.e. long-lasting, they change the person into someone who is better able to cope with stress. This causes an upward spiral, which is defined as a state “in which something continuously increases.” This means that a transformed individual will have more resources to deal with future problems and experience more positive emotions, which will then start the positive cycle all over again.
Relation of the four elements:
When an individual is experiencing a negative emotion, it leads to a negative affect, which causes the physiological response of fight or flight. This constricts the repertoire of thoughts and actions to just these two options. One where the individual is engaged in “flight” e.g. avoiding facing a situation, or “fight” e.g. getting angry or actually quarrelling.
On the other hand, if a person engages in a behaviour which leads to experiencing positive emotions, it broadens the thought-action repertoire in the moment. Broadened repertoire occurs in physical, psychological and social areas of life.
Examples of Broadening of Repertoires
Examples of physical broadening may be feeling more relaxed and energised. Psychologically, one may begin to think more creatively about the problem at hand and hence be able to see the broader picture, or one may feel more positive emotions. Similarly, one may become more socially active and interact with others positively.
Building of personal resources
Even though these changes are temporary, over time they lead to building up of lasting and enduring changes. These enduring changes then act as “personal resources” to deal better with future stressors.
These resources, similar to the momentary broadening, range from physical resources to psychological and social resources. For instance, one may become more physically fit as a result of regular exercise, or learning a skill may help in more creative ways of problem-solving. Similarly, building of a social network would provide help from other people when facing adversity.
Permanent transformation
All of these transform the individual to become a person who is better able to cope with stressors of life. The transformed person will naturally and efficiently indulge in activities that will help him/her experience more positive emotions and further broaden the thought-action repertoire, hence acting as a self-sustaining upward spiral. Each new positive experience leads to further broadening, further build-up of resources and further positive transformation. Such an individual then becomes someone who can manage stress more efficiently.
An example from personal life
When I graduated from college and having spent 20 years of my life in the same city, I had a very active social life. Upon moving to England for work, I had to leave all my friends behind. Even though I did have family there, I had no friends. I started missing my friends from back home. That led to me withdrawing completely from active social interactions and my self-esteem and self-confidence decreased. During this time old friends tried to contact me but I would not take their calls. Even if I tried to go out and meet people, I felt shy and anxious in social situations and failed to make any new friends. I gave up soon and felt sad and hopeless as a result. In retrospect, I understand now that due to the initial loneliness I felt upon moving to another country, I was experiencing a constricted thought-action repertoire!
One day an old friend called from an unknown landline number and I picked up the phone. It turned out that he had moved to England as well and upon his persistence I had no choice but to meet him.
Even though I felt anxious as I headed to his house, it soon turned into relief and all my concerns of having a bad time turned out to be false. I experienced enjoyment and laughter in that interaction. Due to that experience, I also felt optimism about restarting my social life.
Upon meeting my friend I was surprised at how we connected immediately on the same mental level as before. I realised that the real issue was being overly self-critical when meeting new people. My sense of humour improved with time and we joked, laughed and reminisced about old times. I felt my self-esteem increasing and we agreed to meet again for a run in the park.
Upon finding out that he had made a few friends, I asked him if I could meet them, so we planned a dinner over the weekend. I also started to think of ways of how to improve my situation. This gave me the idea to make a WhatsApp group and to get reconnected with all my friends from my hometown.
Having enjoyed the run in the park, I planned further runs and it soon became a regular activity. I became motivated to train for a 5K race which improved my stamina and fitness and helped me lose weight. This further helped to increase my self-esteem. My existing social circle at that point acted as a resource to meet new people at different social events.
Each social interaction increased my enthusiasm further and I returned to my previous confident social level. I started meeting the friends of my new friends and my social circle started to expand and my social life became how I wished it to be.
I slowly reached the fitness level to be able to run 5K without stopping and then continued to train for 10K by joining a running group and made friends there as well. Currently, I am training for a half-marathon and I can confidently say that what had started as just a fun meeting with an old friend has transformed me into a long distance runner!
Conclusion
As evident from my story above, when I was feeling negative, my thoughts and behaviours were “constricted” in the sense that I was focusing on my problem and not doing anything to deal with it. Once I experienced the positive emotion through meeting an old friend, step by step the positivity spiralled and slowly but surely I became socially active again.
For those readers who are finding this theory interesting and worth applying, pick one area of your life where you want to improve and take one small action which will surely lead to positive emotions and some form of achievement. Then from there take more and more actions and you will build and broaden your positive experiences as a result.
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References
- Garland, E. L., Fredrickson, B., Kring, A. M., Johnson, D. P., Meyer, P. S., & Penn, D. L. (2010). Upward spirals of positive emotions counter downward spirals of negativity: insights from the broaden-and-build theory and affective neuroscience on the treatment of emotion dysfunctions and deficits in psychopathology. Clinical psychology review, 30(7), 849–864. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2010.03.002
- Fredrickson, B. L., & Joiner, T. (2018). Reflections on Positive Emotions and Upward Spirals. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 13(2), 194–199. https://doi.org/10.1177/174569161769210
- Celestine, N. (2021) Broaden-and-Build Theory of Positive Emotions. (https://positivepsychology.com/broaden-build-theory/)
- Virtual University, Positive Psychology – PSY409 Handouts. Virtual University, Pakistan
