Recent MAPP Capstones

Left to right: Joseph Glasser-Reich, Laura DelPrato, Jennifer F. Beatty, and Henry Richardson at MAPP Graduation 2018. Photo courtesy of the author.

With each passing year, the tonnage of applied positive psychology that gets generated in the form of MAPP capstones increases. Many capstones and all of the abstracts are available on the University of Pennsylvania’s Scholarly Commons, but it’s hard to stay caught up. So we’re profiling a handful of recent capstones in more personal terms in the MAPP Magazine. Like the idea or know of a capstone that has inspired you? Let us know and we’ll make it a regular feature: andrew@eubd.ca.

Andrew: How would you describe yourself?

Joseph Glaser-Reich (MAPP 2018): I enjoy jumping out of helicopters to help other people for a living as a rescue swimmer with the U.S. Coast Guard and am fascinated by the intersection of performance and well-being.

Jennifer F. Beatty (MAPP 2018): I am deeply interested in developing meaningful research and exploring creative ways to share insights to help all communities thrive, particularly those who are often marginalized. I’m currently the research coordinator at Wharton People Analytics.

Henry Richardson (MAPP 2018): I am the Founder and CEO of DEFINE, a body and mind fitness studio with over 20 locations in the USA and abroad, where I bring yoga and positive psychology to co-create positive environments for individuals, families, businesses, and communities.

Andrew: What was the title of your Capstone and what was it about?

Joseph: So Others May Live: Enhancing Resilience and Performance for United States Coast Guard Helicopter Rescue Swimmer Candidates to Help Close the AST Body-to-Billet Gap.

My capstone was a proposal to include mental training, specifically mindfulness meditation and sports and performance psychology skills, into the Coast Guard’s helicopter rescue swimmer training. We do a great job of providing candidates with resources to help develop their physical abilities, but we neglect the mental component of their training. Before my capstone, the only guidance regarding mental training for prospective rescue swimmers consisted of the following statement: “There is a multitude of informational tools available concerning mental toughness. Search the good ones out and utilize them...your mind will break before your body.” We could do a much better job equipping candidates with a balanced set of both physical and mental skills.

Jennifer: Intentions: The Beginnings of an Empirically Derived Typology.

My capstone was about motivation. My aim was to explore the categories of intentions that individuals display in instances where they were at their best. I began with a review of the literature on motivation and then presented some qualitative research I had conducted. I developed the categories of intentions by analyzing infinitives from the Corpus of Contemporary American English - a free open-sourced repository of all the words currently being used in the English language. From those categories, I coded the positive introductions from my MAPP classmates, with their consent and IRB approval. I wanted to begin to understand more of what drives individuals in these moments of elevation and pride at a more granular level of motivation.

Henry: The Spiritual Business: Breathing life Into the Body, Mind, and Spirit of Organizations.

My capstone was a passion project that gave me freedom to intertwine my love of yoga, Ayurveda, positive psychology, and positive organization scholarship. I took inspiration from yoga being a powerful tool for bringing vitality to individuals, and I connected yogic frameworks and vedic principles to help bring this same vitality into families, communities, and organizations. The vedic sciences look at the physical body, the subtle body (mind), and the causal body (spirit) to give us guidance on where we tend to lose our energy and how to regain it. The Spiritual Business is focused on how businesses and community leaders can help achieve the same within their own setting.

Andrew: How did you land on your topic?

Joseph: I came to MAPP with the rather lofty goal of bringing resilience training to the Coast Guard at large. During immersion week, I realized that I might need a slightly more manageable project, at least when it came to my capstone. I love the brother (and sister) hood with whom I work, and it just so happens that the Coast Guard is currently suffering from a fleet wide shortage of rescue swimmers. My love for my job in the Coast Guard and the folks with whom I am privileged to work combined with a very real need for more rescue swimmers helped focus and shape the scope of my work during my year in MAPP.

Jennifer: The questions I had been asking in class all year led me to the work of my capstone. I used it as a place to capture and explore my recurring questions. I spent a lot of time consulting others about these questions and how I might begin to structure them into a capstone.

Henry: The capstone was truly a summary of my entire year of learning and processing with MAPP. With each class I saw an overlap of positive psychology with vedic principles, an area I have been learning about for over two decades. Everything from the layers of life (body, mind, spirit) the koshas (the veils of illusion), to the PERMA construct and how it gets applied into our daily life through the eyes of yoga. All of these concepts were constantly running through my brain. With the guidance of my amazing capstone advisor, I was able to take the foundation from each class and really apply my understanding to an area where I have a lot of interest.

Andrew: What’s one huge take-away from your capstone you wished every MAPPster knew?

Joseph: If you want to drive institutional change, justify the change and provide a blueprint for the change. One additional thing that I wish I had done in my capstone was generate sample lessons / a curriculum that could be incorporated directly into the rescue swimmer training.

Jennifer: I see tremendous value in using qualitative data to inform the development or expansion of theory. I am of the belief a diversity of perspectives can lead to an inclusive, rich output. Although my capstone used a convenience sample, I value deliberately seeking out as many viewpoints as possible.

Henry: Although I always give respect to the advice I am given, I also know when I must "swim" in my own lane and listen to my heart. In describing my capstone to several people, I received several looks of uncertainty, well as best as a MAPPster could do that. It wasn't fully fleshed out by the time I started writing, however, I was convinced that I had something unique to say and wanted to share it. I benefited from all of my conversations with every MAPPster and staying in my own lane gave me the ability to nurture my idea into something I ended up loving.

Andrew: How might you apply what you learned in the “real world”?

Joseph: I want to see my capstone become a part of the Coast Guard’s rescue swimmer training. As you know, the government moves at a lightning pace so that should happen within – oh say – the next ten years. Through my capstone work, I met Dr. Scott Salvatore, the chief of the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Psychological Health and Readiness Division. Recently, I have managed to finagle my way into being assigned to work for him part time, while still standing duty as a rescue swimmer. Together, we are rolling out a mindfulness pilot program for all interested DHS components, developing a wellness and performance subsection of the DHS web-site, and consulting with various agencies regarding their resilience training efforts.

Jennifer: In the last year, my interests have developed in new ways. I will always be interested in the topic of motivation, but I’m now less interested in the mechanisms that drive behavior and am growing increasingly passionate about working with others to test interventions to change behavior, specifically those that can reduce prejudice and oppression. Before I was a MAPPster, I was an urban school teacher. Before that I was a minority student on scholarship whose mother immigrated to America after a time of great tragedy. These experiences inform my outlook and galvanize my passion for research and teaching. I recognize that there are things that need to be done before everyone can flourish, and I want to be involved in the work that can directly help these efforts.

Henry: In spring 2019, I started developing a weekly class called Positive+Yoga. I started each class with an overview of a monthly theme following Barbara Fredrickson's top 10 positive emotions (joy, gratitude, serenity, interest, hope, pride, amusement, inspiration, awe, and love). I added "define positive" and "celebrate" to round off all 12 months of the year. At the beginning of each yoga class we use the emotional theme to discuss topics from positive psychology. From there we set a powerful intention for the yoga class, offering participants a focused opportunity to bring more joy (for example) into their yoga practice and into their life. One of the most amazing things about the event is the venue: with 25-foot ceilings and 100-foot long projections, it creates gives participants an awe-inspiring experience.

Andrew: How might the MAPP community help you in your mission?

Joseph: I am interested in continuing my academic work through a PhD exploring the intersection of performance and thriving (specifically relationships between mindfulness, resilience, mental toughness, and performance). If you know of someone doing work in this area looking for a candidate with ties to the Coast Guard and Department of Homeland Security, let me know.

Jennifer: Right now, I am most looking to continue to find connections to people who are researching and or applying work in behavior change and shifting social norms.