Chapter 16 Further Reading: The Luck Journal — Noticing and Amplifying Good Fortune

Primary Research Papers

Emmons, R. A., & McCullough, M. E. (2003). "Counting Blessings Versus Burdens: An Experimental Investigation of Gratitude and Subjective Well-Being in Daily Life." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84(2), 377–389. The foundational randomized controlled trial on gratitude journaling. This is the paper behind the three-condition design described in Case Study 16-1. Available through most university databases and commonly accessible via Google Scholar. Carefully reading the methods section will reveal how the conditions were designed and the dependent measures were selected — useful for understanding the claims and limitations of the research.

Seligman, M. E. P., Steen, T. A., Park, N., & Peterson, C. (2005). "Positive Psychology in Practice: Empirically Validated Interventions." American Psychologist, 60(5), 410–421. The large-scale internet study introducing the "Three Good Things" intervention and several related positive psychology practices. Tests multiple interventions simultaneously, which allows some comparison of their relative effectiveness. The "Three Good Things" results are particularly relevant to the luck journal.

Fredrickson, B. L., & Branigan, C. (2005). "Positive Emotions Broaden the Scope of Attention and Thought-Action Repertoires." Cognition & Emotion, 19(3), 313–332. The primary paper establishing the broaden-and-build effect on attentional scope. Uses both behavioral and perceptual measures to show that positive affect broadens the global-local processing bias — one of the cleanest demonstrations of the mechanism underlying the luck journal's attention effects.

Simons, D. J., & Chabris, C. F. (1999). "Gorillas in Our Midst: Sustained Inattentional Blindness for Dynamic Events." Perception, 28(9), 1059–1074. The gorilla experiment. A landmark in attention research with direct relevance to why the noticing problem is real and universal. Short and readable by psychology paper standards. The 1999 paper is followed by a 2010 book (The Invisible Gorilla) that makes these findings accessible to a general audience.

Bargh, J. A., Chen, M., & Burrows, L. (1996). "Automaticity of Social Behavior: Direct Effects of Trait Construct and Stereotype Activation on Action." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 71(2), 230–244. The classic priming study demonstrating that unconscious conceptual exposure influences subsequent behavior. Establishes the mechanism underlying the luck journal's priming effect. Note: some specific findings from this paper have faced replication challenges, but the general principle of unconscious priming has extensive support across the broader literature.

Yiend, J., & Mathews, A. (2001). "Anxiety and Attention to Threatening Pictures." Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 54(3), 665–681. Research on how anxiety affects attentional allocation, specifically showing that high-anxiety individuals attend more narrowly and show interpretive bias toward threat. Directly supports the chapter's claim that anxiety drives tight attentional sets that miss lucky breaks.

Accessible Books

Wiseman, R. (2003). The Luck Factor: The Scientific Study of the Lucky Mind. Miramax Books. The essential companion to everything in this chapter and Chapter 12. Wiseman writes accessibly and presents his decade of luck research in a clear, engaging format. The chapters on attention, social engagement, and resilience (his four luck principles) are directly aligned with Part 3 of this textbook. The Luck School section is particularly relevant to the luck journal exercises.

Fredrickson, B. L. (2009). Positivity: Groundbreaking Research Reveals How to Embrace the Hidden Strength of Positive Emotions. Crown Publishers. Fredrickson's book-length treatment of her broaden-and-build theory and the research behind it. More accessible than her academic papers while covering the same ground. Chapters 5–8 are most relevant to the broaden-and-build mechanism discussed in this chapter.

Simons, D., & Chabris, C. (2010). The Invisible Gorilla: And Other Ways Our Intuitions Deceive Us. Crown Publishers. The popular science book expanding on the gorilla experiment and inattentional blindness more broadly. Includes many examples from everyday life — sports, driving, medicine — where inattentional blindness produces costly failures to notice. The luck applications are not explicitly developed but the implications are immediate.

Emmons, R. A. (2007). Thanks!: How the New Science of Gratitude Can Make You Happier. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Emmons's accessible book on gratitude research, including the studies described in this chapter's case study. More personal and narrative in tone than his academic papers; includes practical guidance derived from his research. Chapter 3 on the psychology of gratitude and Chapter 4 on gratitude in practice are most relevant.

Seligman, M. E. P. (2011). Flourish: A Visionary New Understanding of Happiness and Well-Being. Free Press. Seligman's most recent comprehensive treatment of positive psychology, including updates on the "Three Good Things" research and its applications. The PERMA model (Positive emotions, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning, Achievement) provides a useful framework for understanding why luck journal practices affect well-being across multiple dimensions.

Attention and Perception

Mack, A., & Rock, I. (1998). Inattentional Blindness. MIT Press. The foundational academic treatment of inattentional blindness, predating Simons and Chabris's gorilla study. More technical than the popular science accounts but provides thorough grounding in the phenomenon. For students interested in the cognitive science of attention.

Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, Fast and Slow. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Chapters 1–3 provide excellent background on System 1 and System 2 thinking, attentional demands, and cognitive load — all relevant to understanding how tight attentional sets develop under demanding conditions and why relaxed, open attention produces different (and often better) outcomes for opportunity recognition.

Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990). Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. Harper & Row. While not specifically about luck, Csikszentmihalyi's work on flow states — conditions of highly focused, effortful attention that produce intrinsic reward — is relevant to the tension in this chapter between focused attention (which can cause inattentional blindness) and open attention (which notices more). The skill-challenge balance concept helps frame when tight attention is appropriate and when broader attention is more valuable.

Gratitude and Positive Psychology — Extensions

Lambert, N. M., Clark, M. S., Durtschi, J., Fincham, F. D., & Graham, S. M. (2010). "Benefits of Expressing Gratitude: Expressing Gratitude to a Partner Changes One's View of the Relationship." Psychological Science, 21(4), 574–580. Research showing that expressing gratitude to specific people (rather than journaling abstractly) produces stronger relational benefits. Supports the social luck journaling component of the luck journal — tracking and acknowledging specific people who help you.

Algoe, S. B., Haidt, J., & Gable, S. L. (2008). "Beyond Reciprocity: Gratitude and Relationships in Everyday Life." Emotion, 8(3), 425–429. Research on how expressed gratitude creates a "find, remind, and bind" effect — helping you find good in relationships, reminding you of it, and strengthening social bonds. Relevant to understanding why the social luck journal builds the relationships that generate more luck.

Wood, A. M., Froh, J. J., & Geraghty, A. W. A. (2010). "Gratitude and Well-Being: A Review and Theoretical Integration." Clinical Psychology Review, 30(7), 890–905. A comprehensive review of gratitude research up to 2010, including a critical evaluation of the evidence for different mechanisms. Useful for understanding what the research consensus is (and isn't) on why gratitude practices work.

Mindfulness and Attention Training

Kabat-Zinn, J. (1994). Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life. Hyperion. A highly accessible introduction to mindfulness practice, with particular relevance to the broad, open awareness that the luck journal is trying to cultivate. Many of the attentional exercises Kabat-Zinn describes work directly on the attentional breadth variable that Wiseman identified as characteristic of lucky people.

Colzato, L. S., Ozturk, A., & Hommel, B. (2012). "Meditate to Create: The Impact of Focused-Attention and Open-Monitoring Training on Convergent and Divergent Thinking." Frontiers in Psychology, 3, 116. Research showing that different meditation styles produce different attentional and creative outcomes: focused-attention meditation improves sustained focus; open-monitoring meditation (broad, non-reactive awareness) improves divergent thinking and insight. The open-monitoring style aligns most closely with the broad attentional aperture associated with lucky people.

Online Resources

Greater Good Science Center — UC Berkeley (ggsc.berkeley.edu) The GGSC's website includes research summaries, practical articles, and exercises related to gratitude, awe, and positive emotion practices. Their "gratitude quiz," "awe quiz," and related tools can help you assess your current baseline on the dimensions most relevant to luck noticing. Their practice library includes guided gratitude journaling exercises.

Action for Happiness (actionforhappiness.org) A UK-based organization that synthesizes positive psychology research into practical programs. Their 10-week courses and daily practices draw heavily on the research described in this chapter. The "Ten Keys to Happier Living" framework includes several practices directly aligned with luck journal mechanisms.

The Three Good Things Practice — Penn Positive Psychology Center The University of Pennsylvania's Positive Psychology Center offers a structured version of the "Three Good Things" practice from Seligman and colleagues' research, with instructions calibrated to the original study protocol. A good starting point for anyone who wants to try the version closest to the research design before customizing it for luck journaling purposes.