Every Object Tells a Story: Searching for Finnishness Among Bay Area Finns

BLC

 

Berkeley Language Center

Every Object Tells a Story: Searching for Finnishness Among Bay Area Finns

By Victoria K. Williams
Published Feb 28, 2012 

 

 

During the 35 years I’ve lived in Berkeley, I’ve visited many Finnish & Finnish-American homes in the Bay Area. During these visits, my eyes have inadvertently wandered to scout the Finnish objects and artifacts displayed in Finnish/American homes. Different generations may have different stylistic preferences, but some stable elements, such as wall hangings and design vases can often be found. It has been my longtime dream to look into Finnish immigrant material culture more closely, and I’m grateful to have had the opportunity to do just that with the Berkeley Language Center Fellowship in the fall of 2011.

Goals

My goal in this project has been to explore what Finnishness means, how it might relate to what artifacts people keep in their homes, and how Finnishness is expressed through the narratives shared with me. In addition, I have tied the project to my teaching, as the intermediate and advanced Finnish students in my multilevel class did their own research projects on the Bay Area Finnish American community and on current students in UCB Finnish courses. The project also relates to the MLA (2007) recommended guidelines of translingual/transcultural competence for language instruction.

Finnish Immigration to the United States

Finns most likely joined Viking expeditions as early as 1,000 years ago, but the Finnish emigration to North America was strongest between 1864 and 1914, when Finnish communities were built mostly along the US-Canada border. Today, it is estimated that there are around 700,000 Finnish-Americans in the U.S. Northern California is one of the traditional Finnish areas, and the older Finnish communities can be found in Fort Bragg, San Francisco, and Berkeley. As life in the Finnish-American communities revolved around a variety of ethnic activities and organizations, Finnish-Americans created a new hybrid culture that had ingredients from both the old homeland, Finland, and the new adopted home, America. A hybrid cuisine, and a hybrid language—“fingliska”, “fingelska”, or “finglish”—also emerged. To date, many Finnish organizations are still alive (Tuomainen, 2008, p. 500-503).

Berkeley as a Finn Town

The already established Berkeley Finnish community grew dramatically after the 1906 earthquake. San Francisco’s sizable Finnish community near the Embarcadero had burned down, and Finns moved to undamaged areas such as West Berkeley where Finnish communities already existed. West Berkeley came to be known as FinnTown. Finns have played a significant role in Berkeley history, especially with the Co-op movement. Even today, two Finnish Halls and a church with services in Finnish exist in West Berkeley. Partly due to Berkeley’s deep Finnish immigrant roots, UC Berkeley launched the Finnish Studies program in 1995 as the first—and so far only—University of California campus to offer instruction in Finnish language and culture (Watkins, Tuomainen, 2011, p. 89-90).

Qualitative Research: Ethnographic/Autoethnographic Approach

While my study can be labeled ethnographic, autoethnography undoubtedly and unavoidably plays a large role in it. Autoethnography as a method combines characteristics of autobiography and ethnography. When writing an autobiography, an author retroactively and selectively writes about past experiences. When researchers write ethnographies, Geertz and Goodall claim, they produce a “thick description” of a culture (quoted in Ellis, Adams & Bochner, p. 3). The purpose of this thick description is to help facilitate understanding of a culture for insiders and outsiders, and is created by (inductively) discerning patterns of cultural experience—repeated feelings, stories, and happenings—as evidenced by field notes, interviews, and/or artifacts (Jorgenson, quoted in Ellis, Adams & Bochner, p. 3).

What I’ve done is have Finns and Finnish-Americans in the Bay Area discuss the Finnish objects and artifacts in their homes. My goal has been to “tease” the role of Finnishness in their lives out of the interviews. As an ethnographer doing the above, I became participant observer—that is, by taking field notes about cultural happenings as well as people’s engagement with these happenings (Ellis, Adams & Bochner, p. 5). As I was also interviewing cultural members I was examining and analyzing their ways of speaking and relating to their Finnish roots, and to the ethnic artifacts in their homes.

The data set included video recordings, photos, and talk. I analyzed the data reflexively and realized that my presence influenced the narratives, and my autoethnographic comments produced more data and mixed in with the data. I didn’t even try to avoid autoethnicity but did my best to pay attention to the possible influences my pre-established attitudes might have had. The collected data is a collage of materials, which provided a focus for the themes that emerged. I have analyzed the narratives and the artifacts reflexively in relation to my own interpretative stance. 

The Traditional Idea to Identify Finnishness:
the Three S’s: SAUNA, SISU & SIBELIUS 

When I started looking into the literature regarding the concept of Finnishness, the idea of the 3 S’s kept popping up. I assume sauna to be a familiar concept to most; also Sibelius’s music is widely appreciated. However, sisu is probably a new term, and thus I will share the explanation given in the Urban Dictionary.
The 3 S’s, SAUNA, SISU & SIBELIUS, is a popular metaphor, used for images, articles and even books.
                   
However, I find the concept somewhat limited and limiting. While searching for a more appropriate metaphor, I came up with the concept of aitta.
                   
AITTA

➢ a granary or other unheated farm storehouse of relatively firm build, used as a storage of various goods that are relatively valuable and too voluminous.
➢ figuratively used with a modifier, as in aarreaitta (a treasure chest). 
(Wiktionary)

I will now take you to visit Finns and Finnish-Americans of different generations as I enter their aarreaittas with curious eyes, searching for new treasures.

My Interviewees

I interviewed 13 Bay Area residents: ten women and three men. Six were Finland-born Finns, four were children of varying ages born to at least one Finnish parent, and three were third generation Finnish-Americans. The ages of my interviewees ranged from 3 to 74. 

I used the following categorization of immigrant generations:
- First generation immigrants: Those born in Finland and immigrating to the US at the age of 15 or older.

- Second generation immigrants: Those born in the US or having immigrated under the age of 15.

-The offspring of the second generation is considered the third generation, and their grandchildren are the fourth generation.   
(Martin and Jönsson-Korhola, p. 13)

A Highwire Experience

We immigrants have options. We can choose to acculturate as best as possible, or we can live as if we never left our native place (in this case Finland). Most of us end up living in the in-between, a malleable Third Place, balancing our identities every day.

The term Third Space/Third Place has been mostly discussed by post-colonialist thinkers and sociolinguists. Here I’m using Letizia Allais’ working definition presented in her BLC talk. Allais sees the Third Place as the dynamic and hybrid space that serves the navigation across the multiple languages, identities, and cultures an individual may have and experience. She claims further that the Third Place is not static, but malleable. It’s a space of potential as a cultural, personal, and emotional construct.

I’ve viewed that place as being a highwire artist—I actually prefer the Finnish term: nuorallatanssija, literally a ropedancer. I had assumed that many of my second or third generation interviewees would maybe display some symbolic ethnicity. The literature I reviewed had many ideas about the definition of symbolic ethnicity. The term was coined by Herbert Gans (p. 167) and refers to ethnicity that is individualistic in nature. These symbolic identifications are essentially holiday traditions, special recipes and rituals, rooted in family traditions—enjoyable aspects of being ethnic. Displaying ethnic and cultural pride through material culture or objects such as flags, bumper stickers, t-shirts, and so on is also included in some definitions of symbolic ethnicity (Virtanen, 2006, p. 2). 

But my interviewees surprised me. They seemed to be dwelling much more deeply in the third place than I had expected. The first generation immigrants hardly ever leave the third place, as I so well know, being one myself. This was also the case with the Finns I interviewed. But visual or auditory cues seem to compel also many American born Finns to plunge into the third space occasionally, to varying degrees.  Harminder Dhillon expresses this beautifully in the following quote:

Hypothesis

My hypothesis is that Bay Area Finnish-Americans go beyond symbolic ethnicity. They live in frailty and a flimsily outlined third place that is constantly in dynamic motion, expanding or deflecting, depending on the moment.  At the same time, the place they reside in is a hybrid personal space of a nostalgic, imaginary ‘homeland’, filled with true and imagined ethnicity. Finnishness is being continually reconstructed according to individual life events, needs, goals, and desires.

Fragilities

I found what is called symbolic ethnicity dynamic and constantly reshaping itself. An example of this is St. Urho’s Day. Midwestern Finnish Americans created this celebration to compete with St. Patrick’s Day, and the celebration has now spread all around the U.S. And there are rumors that even some people in Finland are embracing St. Urho’s Day. Because of the dynamic quality of symbolic ethnicity, I would argue that it is a deeper concept than what the current literature indicates. I found that visual or auditory cues seem to compel many American born Finns (who could be identified as embracing symbolic ethnicity) to plunge into the third space occasionally, to varying degrees. The high-wire balancing act immigrants engage in daily, and the nostalgia moments by the hyphenated Americans, the second or third generation Finnish-Americans, have led me to the concepts of fragility. Fragile objects are often kept carefully wrapped in the aitta. So, I’m peeking into the aitta as a treasure chest of Finnishness.

Becoming a Fragilologist

My findings and fascination with fragilities echo those of a Nigerian visual artist, Otobong N Kanga, whose work I discovered in November 2011 and found intriguing. He has coined the term, fragilologist (i.e., a person who studies things that are fragile) to identify himself. I’d like to join him as a fellow fragilologist to consider the objects, artifacts, and the narrations of those from the following viewpoints:

-Fragility of artifacts
-Fragility of memory
-Fragility of language
-Fragility of ethnic origin of an artifact
-Fragility in awareness of surroundings
-Fragility of traditions
-Internally fragile identity
-Fragility of nostalgia: nostalgia for ethnicity and ethnic purity

So far, I have looked at the following three fragilities in more depth:

➢ Fragility of the artifacts
➢ Fragility of the language
➢ Fragility of the ethnic origin of the artifact

Fragility of the Artifacts

The concepts of fragility made me walk around my own home and consider my artifacts with new eyes. I realized that I’ve only used the three green wine glasses inherited from my grandma to toast a new baby, and that the little shot glasses with painted flies get to come out of the china cabinet for only very special occasions.


Also my interviewees pulled out carefully packed fragile items with extreme care while discussing the importance of preserving them and passing them onto next generations. Grandma’s apron is too fragile to be worn at all, the baptismal gown is over 100 years old, the rya rug wall hanging had to be taken off the wall because of the effects of bright California sun, the bird vase inherited from mom is kept on the floor in case of an earthquake, the birch bark slippers are falling apart and displayed on a bookcase, a unique designer vase, received as a 60th birthday gift, is used only for special, expensive bouquets of flowers, the salad utensils carved by grandpa are chipped because a non-Finnish husband uses them for pasta, the rag rug, ordered from Finland and specially color-coded for the bedroom, is now falling apart, and so on. Tuohikontti, a backpack constructed out of birch bark by a skilled grandpa, used for carrying fish, has been chewed up by the interviewee’s dog. The unraveling of the tuohikontti had been quite upsetting. “It felt like a significant part to ancestors unraveling,” my interviewee told me. Similar feelings were shared by many. No one had any plans to discard these fragile items. They have inherent value as nostalgic mementos and connections to important family members. The artifacts are ‘telling a story’—they are ‘evocative objects’ or ‘things we think with’ as Sherry Turkle puts it (Turkle, p. 307).

The meaning of the items shifts with the generations, with time, place, and the narrator and the listener of the story. While the objects become more fragile, the memories associated with them also become more fragile. There’s a narrative of nostalgia and loss associated with many of the artifacts. Some of these objects seem almost idealized. They’re kept because of my interviewees’ needs for belonging and continuity. One of my interviewees, a visual artist, has even based most of her work on nostalgic objects and old photos. The importance of these artifacts could be due to their Finnish origin, but for many the family connection was more important. The artifacts coming from a Finnish relative made them Finnish in the eyes of the owner. This concept brings me to the second fragility.

Fragility of the Ethnic Origin

There’s often no clarity if the object is actually Finnish, but as long as it appears Finnish-like, is acquired in Finland, or inherited from a Finnish relative, it is considered authentically Finnish.


The favorite Finnish object of Maia’s (age 6) is a Walt Disney book, The Princess and the Frog. It is a Disney product, and very American as such. It is naturally also originally written in English. But Maia’s book is called Prinsessa ja sammakko, and it is a Finnish translation, printed in Finland. Thus, in Maia’s mind, it is a Finnish object.  Another interviewee had a reindeer-shaped clock, mounted on a board covered with lichen, on her mantel. She remarked that it certainly looks very Finnish. How is that manifested? Reindeer live in Finland. Lichen is abundantly available and even exported in large quantities. Maybe the lichen for the clock comes from Finland, but the clock itself is manufactured in China. The clock has a multiple ethnic identity, as by now does its Finnish-born owner.

I asked one interviewee, a young California-born Finnish-American, “how would you feel if you broke one of your treasured objects?” She told me that one of her friends had actually dropped a soup plate she loved. She had found a set of the blue-and-white plates, all a little different, at a flea market in Helsinki. She couldn’t explain why the plates made her feel very nostalgic for Finland. I asked to see the remaining plates to take some photos. As she was holding them up, she burst out laughing. On the bottom of two of the plates, you could easily read SVERIGE (Sweden), and another one had DDR printed on it. “But they really look very Finnish to me,” was my interviewee’s embarrassed comment. They were ‘Finnish’ to her.

A third generation Finnish-American showed me a little jewelry box she had inherited from her mom.  She told me it was not Finnish, but it made her think of her Finnish mom, so it, in effect, became ‘Finnish’ in her mind. As the artifact is connecting her to her Finnish past, her ethnic identity, it makes it Finnish to her.
In an editorial of The Journal of Material Culture, Daniel Miller and Christopher Tilley define the study of material culture to cover a wide area. “The approach can be global or local, it can consider the past or the current period, or the relationship of these two.” (in Esine ja Aika, p. 11). Based on this, the fragility of the ethnic origin could be considered to look at the relationship that connects the current and the past owners of the artifact and their common ethnic heritage. Maybe this could also bring us to the concept of imagined ethnicity, the reconstructed, reimagined Finnishness that is malleable and keeps reforming itself.  The urban legend of St. Urho and the celebration attached him can be viewed as an example of imagined ethnicity.

Fragility of Language

The third fragility I’ll discuss is the fragility of language. A lot of Finglish was used by the third generation Finnish-Americans. The term was created to describe the way English and Finnish languages were getting mixed in the everyday speech of Finnish immigrants in America. It is typical of Finglish to borrow lexical items from English, to nativize them and to insert them into the framework of Finnish syntax and morphology (Tuomainen, p. 1).

The third-generation Finnish-Americans called certain items with a dialect name the owner of the object had always used. Esiliina (an apron; literally a front cloth) became esliina, with a dropped ‘i’, or vyöliina (literally a belt cloth). Most also displayed many different types of baskets, typically used in household for many functions. However, no one knew the Finnish name, derived from Swedish, kori, but called them ‘baskitti’, a typical way Finglish words are formed (i.e., by adding a vowel into an English word). Haarukka, a fork, became forkki or kahveli from Swedish, a word borrowed into older Finnish. 

They also couldn’t think of a proper term for specially named wall hangings in Finnish. There is täkänä, raanu, poppana, ryijy, etc. based on the style or material used. But even Finland-born Finns mixed these up. Also, for example a wall hanging, called a rya rug in English would be mispronounced as the Finnish term, ryijy became [raia]. Interestingly, though, I found another side . . .

The Strength of Finnish

Many of the Finnish-American interviewees told me that they do sprinkle in certain Finnish exclamations into English sentences in their everyday life and that the English-speaking family members have learned to react appropriately. Älä nyt! (C’mon!) Tule tänne! (Come here!). So, there’s certain strength in the Finnish language. Finnish, unlike other Nordic languages, has weathered better and longer in immigrant communities. This is claimed to be due to Finnish being a non-Indo-European language, and thus very different from English. Speakers of other Nordic languages, Swedish, Norwegian, and Danish, all Germanic languages, had a much easier time in gaining fluency in English than Finns. Most likely, this is partly the reason why Finns have ended up retaining their communal cohesion and ethnic identity longer than other Nordic groups (Susag, p. 42-43).

The strength of Finnish was also revealed by the difficulty people had in naming many of the objects in any language other than Finnish. I already knew that that many of the artifacts could only be named in one language, as I had tried to figure out an appropriate name for an item I found at my mom’s attic last summer. It is Pyykkiessu (laundry apron), a small apron with a large pocket to hold clothespins when hanging laundry outside. The Finland-born Finns could not often find a word to describe an item in English, mainly because the item does not exist in the U.S. Tuohivirsut has to be described as slippers made out of birch bark. 

A Finland-born interviewee showed me his kantele. When asked for an English name, Peitsa, a music lover and a musician, got into a complicated description, “it’s a cord instrument, and there are different types. For instance, there’s virsikantele used to accompany church music such as hymns. Kantele has no threads, just open strings. You could call it a zither—it’s close to the hammered dulcimer and cembalo, used in Hungary. It also exists in Estonia as kannel or in Latvia as kokle.”

A second-generation Finnish-American told me that her best American friends know what to bring if she asks for Mariskooli, one of her favorite design items that she owns in many colors and sizes. When asked to name it in English, she had to pause for a moment before she could come up with “a special kind of Marimekko glass bowl with a stand.”

Code-shifting frequently took place with bilingual or multilingual interviewees. A nine-year-old trilingual interviewee, Mikko, insisted on reading (translating) his book, Tatu ja Patu supersankareina, his favorite Finnish item in English. But when he came to a list of words, made-up by the author as puns on plays on words, such as kurjasto (a place of misery), a pun inspired by kirjasto (a place of books, i.e., a library), he quickly reverted to Finnish, without making any effort in trying to translate those into English. Of course, this was most likely an easy choice since Mikko knows me well, and Finnish is the language we have always conversed in.

The strength of the language is also evident in the desire of many of the second and third generation Finnish-Americans to learn or improve their Finnish skills. They told me that knowing the language makes them feel closer to the culture. So there’s a definite longing for Finnishness.  To relate that to my topic, the last question I asked was, “If money were no object, what would you bring from Finland to your home here?”

Objects of Desire–Longing for Finnishness

Answers to this last question became almost monotonous. Most interviewees would bring a sauna. The ones who wouldn’t were planning to build one here, and one already had a sauna in his house. One who planned to build a sauna would bring a container load of Marimekko fabrics to use for anything and everything, another who planned building a sauna would bring the grandparents’ wooden furniture, one would bring a Finnish Swan-brand sailboat and name it using an original family name, Kontio that had been changed on Ellis Island. (Kontio is a euphemism for karhu, a bear). One would not want anything concrete but would just want to go to live in Finland to learn the language. 

The fact that the sauna was such a popular choice didn’t really surprise me. Many of my interviewees had wall hangings, prints and pictures of saunas on their walls. And the favorite Finnish object of my youngest interviewee, Thea, who was 2 years, 10 months old, was the sauna she pretended to be taking in her playroom. Appropriately, the last person I interviewed treated me to a sauna in his house.

After the various fragilities I’ve been describing, I must admit that I’ve been overwhelmed by the depth of Finnishness even the third generation Finnish-Americans displayed and shared. It is also obvious that there is one stable concept that everyone, whether Finn, Finnish-American, or wannabe Finn, holds close to heart and that proves most essential to his or her Finnishness: the sauna. However, I hope I’ve been able to show you that obviously, the sauna is not the only treasure.  And as it so happens, in addition to sauna, aitta also belongs historically and culturally next to a sauna to form a traditional Finnish farmhouse complex.

Obviously, there is a whole aarreaitta or treasure chest to explore. I realize that I’ve been just scratching the surface layer. I hope to keep exploring to get to the bottom of the chest and to all the hidden corners of aitta, where new generations of Finnish-Americans will no doubt add their new and unexpected treasures of Finnishness.

Works Cited

“Aitta.” Wiktionary http://www.wiktionary.org/ Web. 11 Nov 2011.
Allais, Letizia. “Third Place in the French classroom: A separate space for a new beginning?” Berkeley Language Center Fellows Presentation. UC Berkeley, December 3, 2011.
Dhillon, Harminder. “The In-between Life of an Immigrant”. readerswords.wordpress.com/page/15/?archives-list&archive. A guest post. Readerswords.wordpress, 3 March, 2007. Web. 3 Nov. 2011
Ellis, Carolyn, Tony E. Adams, and Arthur P.  Bochner. (2010). “Autoethnography: An Overview .” Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 12(1), Art. 10. (2010). qualitative-research.net/index.php/ fqs/article/ view/1589/3095. Web. 28 Oct. 2011
Gans, Herbert J. The Social Systems of American Ethnic Groups. New Haven: Yale University Press. 1945. Print
Martin, Maisa and Hannele Jönsson-Korhola. “Amerikansuomalaiset ja heidän kieliolonsa.” Amerikansuomi. Virtaranta, Pertti, Hannele Jönsson-Korhola, Maisa Martin, and Maija Kainulainen. Helsinki: Suomen kirjallisuuden seura. 1993. Web. 5 Nov 2011.
Miller, Daniel and Christopher Tilley. “Editorial.”  Journal of Material Culture, 1 (1996). Esine ja Aika. Materiaalisen kulttuurin historiaa. Mäkikalli, Maija ja Riitta Laitinen. Eds. Helsinki: Hakapaino Oy. 2010. Print
Kanga, Otobong N. “Fragilologist’s Predicament 2011”. KIASMA Museum, Helsinki. 2001.
Susag, Chris. “Contemporary Finnish American Identities Compared: A Preliminary Examination.” Journal of Finnish Studies 6 (1-2) 42-43. 2002. Print.
Tuomainen, Sirpa. “Finnish-Americans.” Encyclopedia of Race, Ethnicity, and Society. Richard T. Schaefer (Ed.). 2008. Print
- - -, “Suomalainen kotikaupunkini Berkeley San Franciscon kupeessa. Suomea pitkin palloa.” eds. Mai Frick and Saija Merke. Ulkomaanlehtoriyhdistyksen 40-vuotisjuhlajulkaisu. Tallinn: Alfapress. 2011. Print
Tuominen, Jenni. ”An Introduction to Finglish.” A FAST-US-1 (TRENPP2A) Introduction to American English First Paper. University of Tampere. 5 November 2008. Web. 9 Nov 2011.
Turkle, Sherry (ed.). Evocative Objects: Things We Think With. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2007. Print.
Virtanen, Hilary. Heikki Lunta. Cultural pride in the Upper Peninsula and Finnish America. 2006.  http://csumc.wisc.edu/exhibit/HeikkiLunta/culture/ Web. 6 Nov 2011.

Watkins, Thayer. “When West Berkeley was a Finn Town.” San Jose State University, Department of Economics; applet-magic.com; http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/watkins/finntown.htm. Web. 18 Oct 2011.

Further Reading

Akhtar, Salman. Objects of our Desire. New York: Harmony Books, 2005.
Caldas-Coulthard Carmen Rosa and Rick Iedema. Identity Trouble: Critical Discourse and Contested Identities. Palgrave Macmillan, 2008
Finnish American Lives. Finnish American Lives
The Fragility of Memory In A Postmodern Age.
http://science.jrank.org/pages/10165/Memory-Fragility-Memory-in-Postmodern-
Jarvenpa, Aili. (Ed.) In Two Cultures: The Stories of Second Generation Finnish-Americans. North Star Press of St. Cloud. 1992
Kramsch, Claire. “Third culture and language education.” V. Cook (Ed.),
Contemporary applied linguistics. 2009. 233-254. New York: Continuum.
Kivisto, Peter. The Ethnic enigma: the salience of ethnicity for European-origin groups.  Associated University Presses, 1989.
- - -, The Attenuated Ethnicity of Contemporary Finnish Americans in Immigration and Ethnicity: American Society–“Melting Pot” or “Salad Bowl”? Michael D’Innocenzo and Josef P. Sirefman, editors. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1992.
Lockwood, Yvonne R. “The Sauna: An Expression of Finnish-American Identity.” Western Folklore Vol. 36, No. 1, Studies in Folklore and Ethnicity 1977. pp. 71-84
Pahl, Kate. “Narratives, artifacts and cultural identities: An ethnographic study of communicative practices in homes.” Linguistics and Education. Volume: 15, 4, 339-358. 2004.
- - - , and Andy Pollard.  “The Case of the disappearing object: narratives and artifacts in homes and a museum exhibition from Pakistani heritage families in South Yorkshire.” Museum and Society 8 (1). 2010.
Stoller, Eleanor Palo. “Sauna, Sisu & Sibelius. Ethnic Identity Among Finnish Americans.” The Sociological Quarterly, 37, (1) 145–175. 1996.
Virtanen, Keijo. Finnish Americans. Michigan Historical Collections Bulletin No. 26. 1976.

Do You Have Sisu? Are You Mentally Tough?

Beautiful Minds

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Insights into intelligence, creativity, and the mind

Beautiful Minds Home

Are You Mentally Tough?

By Scott Barry Kaufman | March 19, 2014 |  6

The views expressed are those of the author and are not necessarily those of Scientific American.

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Forty seconds before round two, and I’m lying on my back trying to breathe. Pain all through me. Deep breath. Let it go. I won’t be able to lift my shoulder tomorrow, it won’t heal for over a year, but now it pulses, alive, and I feel the air vibrating around me, the stadium shaking with chants, in Mandarin, not for me. My teammates are kneeling above me, looking worried. They rub my arms, my shoulders, my legs. The bell rings. I hear my dad’s voice in the stands, ‘C’mon Josh!’ Gotta get up. I watch my opponent run to the center of the ring. He screams, pounds his chest. The fans explode. They call him Buffalo. Bigger than me, stronger, quick as a cat. But I can take him – if I make it to the middle of the ring without falling over. I have to dig deep, bring it up from somewhere right now. Our wrists touch, the bell rings, and he hits me like a Mack truck. — Joshua Waitzkin

In his book The Art of Learning, Joshua Waitzkin describes how he is able to compete, and win, against martial arts competitors much physically stronger than himself by putting his mind into the game. When I asked Waitzkin whether he thinks his mental game is a result of his high intelligence, he told me,

“I don’t think I have an extraordinary intelligence. Buffalo had cultivated his whole body his whole life, and he had that edge. I had cultivated my mind. My chance lay in making the mental game dominate a physical battle. At a high level of competition, success often hinges on who determines the field and tone of battle.

“Mental toughness” is a phrase that is commonly used in sports to describe the superior mental qualities of the competitor. Most elite athletes report that at least 50% of superior athletic performance is the result of mental or psychological factors, and a whopping 83% of coaches rate mental toughness as the most important set of psychological characteristics for determining competitive success.

One of the first descriptions of mental toughness was made by sports psychologist James Loeher. Based on his extensive work with elite athletes and coaches, he proposed seven dimensions of mental toughness that he argued are developed: self-confidence, attention control, minimizing negative energy, increasing positive energy, maintaining motivation levels, attitude control, and visual and imagery control.

Following up this work with a more systematic analysis in 2002, Graham Jones and colleagues interviewed ten international performers (seven males and three females) from a variety of sports. The elite performers were asked to define mental toughness in their own words and describe the central characteristics of mental toughness. The following definition naturally emerged from the interviews:

People who are mentally tough have a psychological edge that enables them to cope better than their opponents with the many demands that sports place on a performer, and they are also more consistent and better than their opponents in remaining determined, focused, confident, and in control under pressure.

The athletes identified 12 key attributes as key to mental toughness in sport, ranked in order of importance:

1. Unshakeable self-belief in your ability to achieve competition goals (“Mental toughness is about your self belief and not being shaken from your path. . . . It is producing the goods and having the self belief in your head to produce the goods”).
2. Ability to bounce back from performance set-backs as a result of an increased determination to succeed (“Yea, we all have them (setbacks), the mentally tough performer doesn’t let them affect him, he uses them”).
3. Unshakeable self-belief that you possess unique qualities and abilities that make you better than your opponents (“I am better than everyone else by a long way because I have something that sets me apart from other performers”).
4. Insatiable desire and internalized motives to succeed (“You’ve really got to want it, but you’ve also got to want to do it for yourself. Once you start doing it for anyone else . . . you’re in trouble. You’ve also got to really understand why you’re in it . . . and constantly reminding yourself is vital”).
5. Remaining fully focused on the task at hand in the face of competition-specific distractions (“There are inevitable distractions and you just have to be able to focus on what you need to focus on”).
6. Regaining psychological control following unexpected, uncontrollable events (comeptition-specific) (“It’s definitely about not getting unsettled by things you didn’t expect or can’t control. You’ve got to be able to switch back into control mode”).
7. Pushing back the boundaries of physical and emotional pain, while still maintaining technique and effort under distress during training and competition (“In my sport you have to deal with the physical pain from fatigue, dehydration, and tiredness . . . you are depleting your body of so many different things. It is a question of pushing yourself . . . it’s mind over matter, just trying to hold your technique and perform while under this distress and go beyond your limits”).
8. Accepting that competition anxiety is inevitable and knowing that you can cope with it. (“I accept that I’m going to get nervous, particularly when the pressure’s on, but keeping the lid on it and being in control is crucial”).
9. Not being adversely affected by other’s good and bad performances (“There have been cases where people have set world records and people have gone out 5 or 6 minutes later, and improved the world record again. The mentally tough performer uses others ‘good performances as a spur rather than say “I can’t go that fast.” They say “well, he is no better than me, so I’m going to go out there and beat that”).
10. Thriving on the pressure of competition (“If you are going to achieve anything worthwhile, there is bound to be pressure. Mental toughness is being resilient to and using the competition pressure to get the best out of yourself”).
11. Remaining fully focused in the face of personal life distractions (“Once you’re in the competition, you cannot let you mind wander to other things”; and, “it doesn’t matter what has happened to you, you can’t bring the problem into the performance arena”).
12. Switching sport focus on and off as required (“You need to be able to switch it [i.e., focus] on and off, especially between games during a tournament. The mentally tough performer succeeds by having control of the on/off switch”).

In more recent years, a number of studies have attempted to further clarify mental toughness, its dimensions, and its development. In one large review, Daniel Gucciardi and colleagues argued that the dimensions that comprise mental toughness influence the way we approach and interpret both positive and negative events, which in turn influence performance.

Research also shows that mental toughness is an ongoing developing process. The attitudes, cognitions, emotions, and personal values that comprise mental toughness develop as a result of repeated exposure to a variety of experiences, challenges, and adversities. Once acquired, mental toughness is maintained by:

• A desire and motivation to succeed that is insatiable and internalized
• A perceived support network that includes sporting and non-sporting personnel
• Effective use of basic and advanced psychological skills.

Do athletes have higher levels of mental toughness than non-athletes? In a very recent study, Félix Guillén and Sylvain Laborde compared levels of mental toughness between athletes and non-athletes. Based on the review by Gucciardi and colleagues, they distilled mental toughness down into four main dimensions:

1. Hope: The unshakeable self-belief in one’s ability to achieve competition goals (“I can think of many ways to get out of a jam“).
2. Optimism: A general expectancy that good things will happen (“In uncertain times, i usually expect the best“).
3. Perseverance: Consistency in achieving one’s goals and not giving up easily when facing adversity of difficulties (“I am often so determined that I continue working long after other people have given up“).
4. Resilience: The ability to adapt to challenges in the environment (“I do not dwell on things that I can’t do anything about“).

All four dimensions were significantly related to each other, forming a general factor of mental toughness. Athletes scored much higher than non-athletes on this general mental toughness factor, with a large effect size. What’s more, there was no difference between the type of sport (individual vs. team sports). This is consistent with prior research suggesting that mental toughness is more a function of environment than domains.

The researchers also found that mental toughness increased with age, also consistent with prior research showing that mental toughness develops through developmental experiences. Finally, the researchers found that athletes with higher levels of mental toughness practiced for longer, on average, than athletes with lower levels of mental toughness.

Mental toughness is not only important in sports. Markus Gerber and colleagues found that adolescents with higher mental toughness are more resilient against stress and depression. As Gucciardi and colleagues argue, mental toughness is important in any environment that requires performance setting, challenges, and adversities.

Beyond Mental Toughness

In Finland there is a phrase– dating back hundreds of years– which refers to extraordinary determination, courage, and resoluteness in the face of extreme adversity. It’s called Sisu.

Rising superstar Emilia Lahti, who is about to begin her doctoral studies relating to Sisu, hasmade a good case for why Sisu is distinguishable from other dimensions of mental toughness, such as perseverance, grit, and resilience. In one large-scale survey, which she conducted as a Masters student in the Masters of Positive Psychology Program at the University of Pennsylvania, Lahti found that 62% of people surveyed (Finns and Finnish Americans) viewed Sisu as a powerful psychological strength capacity, rather than the ability to be persistent and stick to a task (34%).

Lahti argues that Sisu contributes to an “action mindset”, a consistent and courageous approach toward challenges that enables individuals to see beyond their present limitations and into what might be. I think Joshua Waitzkin illustrates Sisu in his competition with Bufffalo (described above), as he digs deep into the wellspring of possibility that is not evident from the surface.

Lahti is currently planning further research on the topic in 2014, and I look forward to seeing where her work takes her in her Sisu journey!

Are You Mentally Tough?

It’s time to test your mental toughness! While the true test of mental toughness can only come in the moment of training and competition, the following is a questionnaire that can give you a rough guide to your current levels of mental toughness:

SCORING KEY

Now add up the items, reverse scoring (5=1, 4=2, 3=3, 2=4, 1=5) the following items: 2, 3, 6, 8, 9, 11, 12, 16, 17.

Interpretation:

High mental toughness= 70-90

Average mental toughness= 58-69

Low mental toughness= 18-57

© 2014 Scott Barry Kaufman, All Rights Reserved.

Acknowledgements: Thanks to Peter Clough for providing me with his mental toughness questionnaire, and for providing me with norms for the scale. Appreciation also goes to Emilia Lahti for her assistance in preparing the section on Sisu. Finally, big thanks to my personal trainer Carolina Araujo for teaching me the meaning of mental toughness.

Source for Mental Toughness Questionnaire: Clough, P., Earle, K., & Sewell, D. (2002). Mental toughness: The concept and its measurement. In I. Cockerill (Ed.), Solutions in sport psychology (pp. 32–46). London: Thomson Learning.

Cover image credit: istockphoto; Sisu image credit: https://www.facebook.com/InspireSisu

About the Author: Scott Barry Kaufman is Scientific Director of The Imagination Institute in the Positive Psychology Center at the University of Pennsylvania. Follow on Twitter @sbkaufman.

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The views expressed are those of the author and are not necessarily those of Scientific American.

YEAR OF SISU - 2015 (Sisu is in the heart)

SISU  IS IN THE HEART

YEAR OF SISU - 2015 2/18/2015

PARK COFIELD

A couple of weeks ago, I became acquainted with Emilia Lahti, a researcher whose work revolves around understanding how individuals, groups and organizations grow from challenges and come out of hardships with a newly discovered sense of strength, purpose and adaptability.  She is a scholar of "sisu" and seeks answers to many of the same questions I  am posing with the SISU is in the Heart project. 

In ten days, Emilia will spearhead a global event titled, "Day of Sisu" in order to recognize and celebrate the strength that resides in all of us. The event will kick off at Korjaamo in Helsinki onSaturday, February 28th, and comes with an open invitation for people to host their own sisuesque events all over the world. You can check out more of the details hereand learn how to set up an event in your community. This event officially adds "sisu" to the Finnish calendar for the first time in its 500 year history and will continue to grow in future years-- it's quite the undertaking and pretty awesome if you ask me!

On Tuesday, March 10th, there will also be a global challenge called the "Hour of Sisu". Between 3 PM and 4 PM (your local time) Emilia is encouraging you to do one thing that you know will benefit you, but is something that you have been putting off. Maybe it’s something scares you but which will help you push your boundaries in a healthy, empowering way. The goal is to turn these boundaries (e.g. fear, uncertainty, complacency or desire for comfort) into frontiers.

So, what will I be doing to participate on the 28th? Two things! 

1) I'll be sharing a blog post compiling all of the definitions for "sisu" that I have gathered over the past year of research for the play. Want to contribute? There's still plenty of time. Send an email to: SISUisintheHeart@gmail.com with the answers to these two questions: What does sisu mean to you? Where do you get your sisu?  and I'll add your response to the list! 

2) I'm hosting a small personal gathering in Los Angeles, CA to dig a little deeper and to hear more stories of "sisu" from the Finnish American community and to hone in a little more closely on what it means to have "sisu" as an artist. Stay tuned for updates and details in the next couple of days! After the session, I'll share a re-cap with some thoughts (and possibly some video) from the session. If you'd like to attend, please drop me an email at: SISUisintheHeart@gmail.com 

If you've just found yourself on my site for the first time, please check out ABOUT THE PROJECT to learn more about the play I am writing about my family and my mom, who had more "sisu" than anyone I have ever met.

-PC 

P.S. Want to know more about sisu and how Emilia defines it? Check out her recent talk from TEDx Turku!

Park Cofield is director of theater and opera, a puppet designer, playwright, and community builder based in Los Angeles and Atlanta. His original theatrical projects and puppets have been commissioned by the Center for Puppetry Arts (the largest non-profit in the United States dedicated to the art of puppetry),Georgia Shakespeare, Art on the Atlanta Beltline (the largest public art program in the U.S.), Mammoth Lakes Repertory Theater, andGateway Performance Productions. 

He has a degree from Emerson College in Boston and has traveled extensively in Europe to study performance with Eugenio Barba and Odin Teatret. Park is most known for his bi-lingual stage adaptation of the classic film and book, The Red Balloon, produced by Théâtre du Rêve, Atlanta’s unique French-language theatre company which premiered in 2011 and was remounted in 2012 due to sold out performances and audience demand. 

In the fall of 2011, he was awarded the prestigious Altvater Fellowship with Cornerstone Theater Company, a leader in community based theater work in the U.S. During his time with Cornerstone, Park helped to produce Creative Seeds, a two week long festival to kick off the company's Hunger Cycle and worked as the project coordinator for Talk It Out: A Community Conversation to Fix School Discipline, a new initiative addressing suspension and expulsions in Sacramento. He also spearheaded community engagement efforts in Richmond, CA around healthy living and a vote regarding a tax on soda and sugary drinks.

His work with opera includes directing The Atlanta Opera’s educational tours for the past three years, including the first ever commission for the company, Rabbit Tales, an original opera based on the folk tales of Joel Chandler Harris. He has also assistant directed for Yuval Sharon, of Los Angeles’ newest opera company,The Industry. Park is also in the process of talking with composers about developing a series of new operas for young audiences.

This past November, Park directed the U.S. premiere ofZAGAZOO, written by famed children’s author and illustrator Quentin Blake. This show is currently available for tours in the U.S. and is featured on the website of Plays for Young Audiences. 

Park is also the Program Associate for Network of Ensemble Theaters, a national service organization dedicated to supporting and advocating for ensemble theater practices in the US. He manages and runs the NET/TEN grant program,  a funding program designed to support ensemble-to-ensemble knowledge, sharing and relationship building. 

He is a member of the Dramatist Guild and TYA USA, the US branch of the International Association of Theatre for Children & Young People.    

Read more about Park and see examples of his work at:www.parkcofield.com