Positive psychology is a recent branch of psychology whose purpose was summed up in 1998 by Martin Seligman and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi: "We believe that a psychology of positive human functioning will arise that achieves a scientific understanding and effective interventions to build thriving in individuals, families, and communities." Positive psychologists seek "to find and nurture genius and talent", and "to make normal life more fulfilling",not simply to treat mental illness. The field is intended to complement, not to replace traditional psychology. It does not seek to deny the importance of studying how things go wrong, but rather to emphasize the importance of using the scientific method to determine how things go right. Researchers in the field analyze things like states of pleasure or flow, values, virtues, talents, as well the ways that they can be promoted by social systems and institutions.
Several humanistic psychologists—such as Abraham Maslow, Carl Rogers, and Erich Fromm—developed theories and practices that involved human happiness. Recently the theories of human flourishing developed by these humanistic psychologists have found empirical support from studies by positive psychologists. Positive psychology has also moved ahead in a number of new directions.
Positive psychology began as a new area of psychology in 1998 when Martin Seligman, considered the father of the modern positive psychology movement, chose it as the theme for his term as president of the American Psychological Association, though the term originates with Maslow, in his 1954 book Motivation and Personality,and there have been indications that psychologists since the 1950s have been increasingly focused on promoting mental health rather than merely treating illness. Seligman pointed out that for the half century clinical psychology "has been consumed by a single topic only - mental illness", echoing Maslow’s comments. He urged psychologists to continue the earlier missions of psychology of nurturing talent and improving normal life
Judaism promotes a Divine command theory of happiness: happiness and rewards follow from following the commands of the divine
The ancient Greeks had many schools of thought. Socrates advocated self-knowledge as the path to happiness. Plato's allegory of the cave influenced western thinkers who believe that happiness is found by finding deeper meaning. Aristotle believed that happiness, or eudaimonia is constituted by rational activity in accordance with virtue over a complete life. The Epicureans believed in reaching happiness through the enjoyment of simple pleasures. The Stoics believed they could remain happy by being objective and reasonable, and they describe many "spiritual exercises" that have been compared to the psychological exercises employed in CBT and Positive Psychology
Christianity continued to follow the Divine command theory of happiness. In the Middle Ages, Christianity taught that true happiness would not be found until the afterlife. The seven deadly sins are about earthly self-indulgence and narcissism. On the other hand, the Four Cardinal Virtues and Three Theological Virtues were supposed to keep one from sin.
During the Renaissance and Age of Enlightenment, individualism came to be valued. Simultaneously, creative individuals gained prestige, as they were now considered to be artists, not just craftsmen. Utilitarian philosophers such as John Stuart Mill believed that moral actions are those actions that maximize happiness for the most number of people, suggesting an empirical science of happiness should be used to determine which actions are moral (a science of morality). Thomas Jefferson and other proponents of democracy believed that "Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" are inalienable rights, and that it justifies the overthrow of the government.
The Romantics valued individual emotional expression and sought their emotional "true selves," which were unhindered by social norms. At the same time, love and intimacy became the main motivations for people to get married
"Happiness" encompasses many different emotional and mental phenomena (see below). One method of assessment is Ed Diener's Satisfaction with Life Scale. This 5-question survey corresponds well with impressions from friends and family, and low incidences of depression.
Psychologist Daniel Kahneman explains this discrepancy by differentiating between happiness according to the 'Experiencing Self' compared to the 'Remembering Self'. Kahneman explains that, when we are asked to reflect on experiences, memory biases like the Peak-End effect (e.g. we mostly remember the dramatic parts of a vacation, and how it was at the end) play a large role.
The Midlife crisis may mark the first reliable drop in happiness during the average human's life. Evidence suggests that, with the exception of the years 40 - 50, most people generally get happier as they get older. Researchers specify that people in both their 20s and 70s tend to be happier than during midlife, although the measures of happiness change at different rates (e.g. feelings of stress and anger tend to decline after age 20, worrying drops after age 50, enjoyment had been very slowly declining but finally starts to rise after 50, etc.). These findings are based on decades of data, and controls for cohort groups; the data avoids the risk that the drops in happiness during midlife are due to populations' unique midlife experiences, like a war. The studies have also controlled for income, job status and parenting (as opposed to childfreedom) to try and isolate the effects of age. Researchers found support for the notion that there are changes inside of the individual with age that affect happiness.
This could be for any number of things. Psychological factors could include a greater awareness of one's self and preferences; an ability to control desires and hold more realistic expectations; getting closer to death may motivate people to pursue more goals; improved social skills, like forgiveness, may take years to develop; or happier people may live longer and are slightly overrepresented in the elderly population. Chemical changes that come with age may also be playing a role.
Other studies have found that older individuals report more health problems, but fewer problems overall. Young adults reported more anger, anxiety, depression, financial problems, troubled relationships and career stress. Researchers also suggest that depression in the elderly is often due largely to passivity and inaction - they recommend that people continue to do the things that bring happiness, even in old age
In his book Stumbling on Happiness, psychologist Dan Gilbert describes research suggesting that money makes a big difference to the poor (where basic needs are not yet met) but has greatly diminished effects once one reaches middle class (i.e. the Easterlin paradox). Professor of Economics Richard Easterlin notes that job satisfaction does not depend on salary. In other words, having extra money for luxuries does not increase happiness as much as enjoying one's job or social network. Gilbert is thus adamant that people should go to great lengths in order to (a) figure out which jobs they would enjoy and (b) find a way to do one of those jobs for a living (that is, provided one is also attentive to social ties).
English poet Thomas Grey said "Where ignorance is bliss, Tis folly to be wise."Research suggests that neither a good education nor a high IQ reliably increase happiness. Anders Ericsson argues that an IQ above 120 has a decreasing influence on success. Presumably, IQs above 120 do not go much further to cause other happiness indicators like success (with the exception of careers like Theoretical physics, where high IQs are more predictive of success). Above that IQ level, other factors start to matter more, like social skills or a good mentor. One of the main benefits of intelligence and education may simply be that it allows one to reach the middle-class level of need satisfaction (as mentioned above, being richer than this seems to do little for happiness).
Martin Seligman has said that "As a professor, I don't like this, but the cerebral virtues — curiosity, love of learning — are less strongly tied to happiness than interpersonal virtues like kindness, gratitude and capacity for love
The human ability of emotional Hedonic Adaptation explains why beauty, fame and money do not generally have lasting effects on happiness (this effect has also been called the Hedonic treadmill). The tendency to adapt is clearly illustrated by studies showing that lottery winners are no happier years later.Other studies have shown that, after equally few years, paraplegics are almost as happy as control groups that are not paralyzed. Daniel Kahneman explains that "they are not paraplegic full time...It has to do with allocation of attention". Contrary to our impact biases, lotteries and paraplegia do not change experiences in the ways we think, or even to as great a degree. After adaptation, the paraplegics almost returned to their baseline happiness. Adaptation is much slower for other distracting life changes, like the death of a spouse, or losing one's job. These events can show measurable changes in happiness levels for several years. Thus, adaptation does mitigate the emotional effects of many life events, but not entirely
Besides training new habits and antidepressants, getting better exercise and a healthier diet have proven to have strong effects on mood. In fact, exercise is sometimes called the "miracle" or "wonder" drug - alluding to the wide variety of proven benefits that it provides
Gender effects on wellbeing are paradoxical in that while men report feeling less happy than women, women are more susceptible to depression. Possible explanations include that women may experience more variance (more extremes) in emotion, although women are generally happier.
An emotionally stable (the opposite of Neurotic) personality correlates well with happiness. Not only does emotional stability make one less prone to negative emotions, it also predicts higher social intelligence - which helps to manage relationships with others.
Cultivating an extroverted temperament may correlate with happiness for the same reason: it builds relationships and support groups. Some people may be lucky, then, that many personality theories leave room for the idea that individuals have some control over their long term behaviours and cognitions
Professor Philip Zimbardo suggests we might also analyze happiness from a "Time Perspective". Zimbardo suggests sorting people's focus in life by valence (positive or negative) but also by their time perspective (past, present, or future orientation). Doing so may reveal some conflicts between individuals to be conflicts, not over whether an activity is enjoyed, but whether one prefers to risk delaying gratification further. Zimbardo also believes that research reveals an optimal balance of perspectives for a happy life; he says our focus on reliving positive aspects of our past should be high, followed by time spent believing in a positive future, and finally spending a moderate (but not excessive) amount of time enjoying the present.
The broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions suggests that positive emotions (e.g. happiness, interest, anticipation) broaden one's awareness and encourage novel, varied, and exploratory thoughts and actions. Over time, this broadened behavioral repertoire builds skills and resources. For example, curiosity about a landscape becomes valuable navigational knowledge; pleasant interactions with a stranger become a supportive friendship; aimless physical play becomes exercise and physical excellence.
This is in contrast to negative emotions, which prompt narrow survival-oriented behaviors. For example, the negative emotion of anxiety leads to the specific fight-or-flight response for immediate survival.
Simple exercise, such as running, is cited as key to feeling happy.
Abraham Maslow proposed a hierarchy of needs in which more primitive desires must be met (basic physiological, sense of safety) before social needs can be met (e.g. intimacy), and certainly before one can effectively pursue more conceptual needs (e.g. morality).
There is evidence suggesting that negative emotions can be damaging. In an article titled "The undoing effect of positive emotions", Barbara Fredrickson et al. hypothesize that positive emotions undo the cardiovascular effects of negative emotions. When people experience stress, they show increased heart rate, higher blood sugar, immune suppression, and other adaptations optimized for immediate action. If individuals do not regulate these changes once the stress is past, they can lead to illness, coronary heart disease, and heightened mortality. Both lab research and survey research indicate that positive emotions help people who were previously under stress relax back to their physiological baseline. Other research shows that improved mood is one of the various benefits of physical exercise.
Mindfulness, may be defined as the intentionally-focused awareness of one's immediate experience. The experience is one of a moment-by-moment attention to thoughts, emotions, physical sensations, and surroundings. To practice mindfulness is to become grounded in the present moment; one's role is simply as observer of the arising and passing away of experience. One does not judge the experiences and thoughts, nor do they try to 'figure things out' and draw conclusions, or change anything - the challenge during mindfulness is to simply observe.Benefits of mindfulness practice include reduction of stress, anxiety, depression, and chronic pain
Learned optimism is the idea that a talent for joy, like any other, can be cultivated. It is contrasted with learned helplessness, which is when one believes that they have no control over what occurs, rather it is something external that dictates their ability to accomplish a task, succeed, etc. Learning optimism is done by consciously challenging self talk if it describes a negative event as a personal failure that permanently affects all areas of the person's life
Hope is a learned style of goal-directed thinking in which the person utilizes both pathways thinking (the perceived capacity to find routes to desired goals) and agency thinking (the requisite motivations to use those routes).
Author and journalist J.B. MacKinnon provides a cognitive tool for avoiding helplessness (e.g. paralysis in the face of earth's many problems) in the form of what he calls "Vertical Agitation". The concept comes from research on denial by sociologist Stanley Cohen. Cohen explains that, in the face of massive problems, people tend towards learned helplessness rather than confronting the dissonant facts of the matter. Vertical Agitation, according to MacKinnon, means focusing on only one portion of the problem at a time, and holding oneself accountable for the solving of that problem - all the way to the highest level of government, business and society. This allows each individual in society to make the vital "trivial" changes, without being intimidated by the work that needs to be done as a whole. Mackinnon adds that this will also keep individuals from getting too 'holier than thou' (harassing friends and family about every possible improvement).
Strengths and virtues
The Buddhist saying that "Life is Suffering", according to Jordan Peterson, refers to the fact that nature can be harsh and indifferent, which highlights the importance of cultivating virtues
Research and clinical psychologist Jordan Peterson argues that it is natural (but of course not good) for human beings to suffer a great deal. He says this is because living beings are limited and restrained in many important ways. For this reason, Peterson adopts a Buddhist saying that "Life is suffering". He does not think this view is pessimistic, and asserts that accepting the universe's harsh indifference towards living things can free one from the expectation that they should always be happy. This realization can ultimately help one overcome suffering, which is no longer unexpected. This also means that individuals should be all the more delighted when they flourish, when others flourish, or when they build a society where flourishing is anywhere near the norm at all. To Peterson, virtues are important because they give people the tools to escape suffering (e.g. the strength to admit dissonant truths to themselves). Peterson thus believes that suffering is sometimes caused by a false philosophy (one that denies how natural suffering is), and sometimes by a lack of strong virtues - on our part or on the part of people that affect us.
The development of the Character Strengths and Virtues handbook represents the first attempt on the part of the research community to identify and classify the positive psychological traits of human beings. Much like the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders of general psychology, the CSV provides a theoretical framework to assist in understanding strengths and virtues and for developing practical applications for positive psychology. This manual identifies six classes of virtue (i.e., "core virtues"), made up of twenty-four measurable character strengths.
The introduction of CSV suggests that these six virtues are considered good by the vast majority of cultures and throughout history and that these traits lead to increased happiness when practiced. Notwithstanding numerous cautions and caveats, this suggestion of universality hints that in addition to trying to broaden the scope of psychological research to include mental wellness, the leaders of the positive psychology movement are challenging moral relativism and suggesting that we are "evolutionarily predisposed" toward certain virtues, that virtue has a biological basis.
The organization of these virtues and strengths is as follows:
1.Wisdom and Knowledge: creativity, curiosity, open-mindedness, love of learning, perspective, innovation
2.Courage: bravery, persistence, integrity, vitality
3.Humanity: love, kindness, social intelligence
4.Justice: citizenship, fairness, leadership
5.Temperance: forgiveness and mercy, humility, prudence, self control
6.Transcendence: appreciation of beauty and excellence, gratitude, hope, humor, spirituality
The organization of these virtues into 6 groups is contested. It has been suggested that the 24 strengths identified are more accurately grouped into just 3 or 4 categories: Intellectual Strengths, Interpersonal Strengths, and Temperance Strengths or alternatively Interpersonal Strengths, Fortitude, Vitality, and Cautiousness These general traits, and even their classifications, have emerged independently elsewhere in literature on values. Some examples have been described by Paul Thagard, including Jeff Shrager's workshops that attempt to discover the habits of highly creative people.
Practical applications of positive psychology include helping individuals and organizations identify their strengths and use them to increase and sustain their respective levels of well-being. Therapists, counselors, coaches, and various psychological professionals, as well as HR departments, business strategists, and others are using these new methods and techniques to broaden and build upon the strengths of individuals who are not necessarily suffering from mental illness or disorder.
Researcher Dianne Hales described a person as emotionally healthy as someone who exhibited flexibility and adaptability to different circumstances, had a sense of meaning and affirmation in life as well as an "understanding that the self is not the center of the universe", had compassion and the ability to be unselfish, along with increased depth and satisfaction in intimate relationships, and who had a sense of control over the mind and body.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_psychology
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