Active constructive responding  (Gable, 2004) is a way of communicating which leads to higher quality relationships.

It involves responding to other people’s good news by asking questions to show you are interested in what the person is sharing and would like to know more, such as ‘when did this happen? How do you feel? Etc. This is followed by congratulating the person sharing the good news to show you are genuinely happy for them e.g. “congratulations, you really deserve this opportunity I know it means a lot to you and you worked hard for it”. 

Research shows doing this regularly can lead to an increase in daily positive emotions, satisfaction with life, and overall wellbeing in the person sharing the good news and leads to building higher quality relationships. You can look for opportunities to practice this with others by asking them “what’s going well for you right now?” or link it with the ‘Three good things’ exercise above and when others share their three good things you can respond using active constructive responding. 

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