Positive Psychology and Well-being

Affective components of well-being

- refers to emotions and moods

Cognitive components of well-being

- refers to thought processes (evaluative aspect)

The concept (Hedonic) subjective well-being includes:

1. Emotional Well-Being: - Positive Emotions - Negative Emotions 2. Cognitive Well-Being: - Life Satisfaction - Domain Satisfaction

Eudaemonic Well-Being includes:

1. Functioning Well: - Engagement (Flow) - Meaning

Professor Alice Isen died on February 29, 2012. Professor Isen's research concerns the influence of affect on social interaction, thought processes, and decision making, including applications to consumer behavior, organizational behavior, medical decision making, doctor-patient interaction, risk preference, and self-control. Current interests also include social cognitive neuroscience. Isen was famous for extending her findings into attention-grabbing applications within organizational behavior, marketing, and health care interactions, including her famous demonstration that physicians who receive an unexpected bag of candy make better medical decisions. Isen's work was indeed inspirational for my own next-generation research on positive affect, as she had provided foundational evidence to support the broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions.

Alice M. Isen

Modern view: Liberalism -- Every person knows him- or herself what's best for him/her

Ancient vs Modern view of Happiness: Liberalism

Ancients: Paternalism - Only the Wise know the secrets of happiness, the Common Man should be guided by them.

Ancient vs Modern view of Happiness: Paternalism

- Happiness is an end in itself - Wealth or money as such does not constitute happiness, they are only useful for the sake of something else! - Amusement or pleasure is NOT the essence of happiness: - Even a slave can have these, but we would not say he is happy or has a good life happiness is not a state, it is an activity - activity directed towards a goal - Happiness is the activity of soul exhibiting excellence (the very best within us), activity in accordance with virtue

Aristotle (384-322 B.C.)

WHY is it good to process and express negative emotions by writing about them? -Not talking about the trauma or actively suppressing thoughts related to the trauma is associated with weakened immune system. - Health benefits (drops in doctor visits; increased immune function). - Behavioral benefits (improvement in grades for students; diminished absenteeism from work) -Psychological benefits (reductions in distress; improvement of mood and well-being) Social benefits

Bennefits of "Pennebaker Paradigm".

1.First, the level and amount of positive and negative emotions experienced measured. 2. Participants put in quarantine for 6 days (to isolate from any free-floating viruses). 3. On day two participants given nasal drops containing one of two types of rhinovirus (common cold). 3. Participants' monitored in the quarantine for the development of common cold (objective and subjective symptoms). People who experience a higher level and amount of positive emotions are more resistant to colds than people who are low in positive emotional style BUT negative emotional style was not associated with colds. (Cohen, Doyle, Turner et al, 2003)

Building Effects of Positive Emotions: Immune Function, define.

1) Focusing on a single salient feature or period of time in a choice, rather than looking at the big picture. 2) Overestimating the long-term impact of our choices and problems. 3) Forgetting that happiness is an ongoing process, not a destination. 4) Paying too much attention to external information while overlooking personal preferences and experience. 5) Trying to maximize outcomes rather than focusing on personal satisfaction. 6) Confusing wanting something for liking it later, and forgetting to evaluate whether we will enjoy the choice once its novelty wears off.

Common Errors in Predicting Our Own Future Happiness (Name 6 most common).

Problem-focused coping: Resolving the stressful situation: • problem solving • finding out information • learning new skills Use: when stressor/situation is controllable Emotion-focused coping: Decrease situation-related distress: • seeking emotional support • positive reframing • acceptance • humor • relaxation and meditation techniques Use: when stressor/situation is uncontrollable

Coping Strategies, name two.

Admiration: "a response to non-moral excellence", such as an extraordinary display of talent, skill, or achievement (Algoe & Haidt, 2009, p. 3) Motivates a desire to work harder to reach one's own goals, to improve oneself by emulating the other and to boost the prestige of the admired person.

Define Admiration

Elevation: "a response to acts of moral beauty in which we feel as though we have become (for a moment) less selfish, and we want to act accordingly" (Algoe & Haidt, 2009, p. 2). Motivates kindness, warmth and altruistic behaviour (e.g., produces nurturing behaviour in nursing mothers, increases hugging and suckling their infants)

Define Elevation

Gratitude: "a positive emotion that typically flows from the perception that one has benefited from the costly, intentional, voluntary action of another person" (McCullogh, Kimeldorf, & Cohen, 2008, p. 281) Motivates 'reaching out' to and connecting with as well as 'giving back' to their benefactors.

Define Gratitude

Pleasant Life + Engaged Life + Meaningful Life = Full Life or Overall Happiness - Martin Seligman

Define PEM, and who the model belongs to.

* Pleasant Life - positive emotions about the past, present and future * Engaged Life - Using one's strengths to achieve flow; engaging in optimal experience * Meaningful Life - Using one's strengths in order to belong to and serve something larger than oneself (e.g., careers experienced as callings, involvement in positive institutions such as churches, nonprofit etc. organizations) * Relationships - having enjoyable and supportive relations with others * Accomplishments - completing our goals and following our core values - Martin Seligman

Define PERMA, and who the model belongs to.

*A new, growing branch of psychology *It is, first and foremost, a branch of psychological SCIENCE! " A scientific study of positive states of mind and positive behaviour" Sonja Lyubomirsky: "Positive Psychology is the psychology of what makes life worth living." C. R. Snyder & Shane J. Lopez: "...is the scientific and applied approach to uncovering people's strenghts and promoting their positive functioning (Snyder & Lopez, 2011, p. 3)" Christopher Peterson: "...is the scientific study of what goes right in life, from birth to death and all stops in between" (Peterson, 2006, p. 4) Shelly L. Gable & Jonathan Haidt: "...is the scientific study of the conditions and processes that contribute to the optimal functioning or flourishing of people, groups and institutions (Gable & Haidt, 2005, p. 104)"

Define Positive Psychology

The scientific study of mind and behaviour

Define Psychology

MBCT combines key elements of cognitive therapy with training in mindfulness meditation. (Mark Williams, Zindel Segal & John Teasdale) * 8-week mindfulness meditation training: - A weekly group session lasting 2.5-3h - Silent 7h retreat on week 6 - Home practice of guided meditation lasting 1h 6 days/week Cognitive therapy techniques: Education about... * The symptoms of depression * The role of negative thoughts * How rumination, avoidance, suppression , and struggling with unhelpful cognitions and emotions can maintain distress rather than dissolve it.

Describe Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT)

Any bodily movement produced by skeletal muscles that require energy expenditure, which encompasses moderate-vigorous exercise and lower intensity walking. - Reduction of negative emotions - Improved mental health (fewer symptoms of psychological disorders) - Enhancement of positive emotions

Describe the benefits of Physical Exercise for well-being.

Low approach-motivated positive emotions vs. High approach-motivated positive emotions: Joy/Amusement - Broadens cognition Desire- Narrows cognition

Do all kinds of positive emotions broaden cognition? Motivate your answer.

Domain satisfaction refers to..

Domain satisfaction - refers to the assessment of satisfaction with specific domains of life (such as satisfaction with work, marriage, friends)

Based on the distinction between behavioural activation system (approach behaviour) and behavioural inhibition system (avoidance behaviour) Involves active movement TOWARD, rather than away from, stressful encounters and negative emotions. Comprised of 2 distinct emotion regulation strategies: - Emotional Processing: attempts to acknowledge, explore and understand emotions. - Emotional Expression: active, free and intentional expression of emotions

Emotional Approach Coping

Epicureans (Epicurus 342-270 B.C.) * pleasure = inherently good; pain = inherently bad >> we ought to seek pleasure and avoid pain "Selective" hedonism >> satisfy only those desires that will make us happy in the long run >> a moderate lifestyle of simple pleasures rather than overindulgence

Epicureans

Daniel Kahneman (1934 - ...) Retrospective evaluations usually more intense than the averaged emotions - Experience-Sampling Method (ESM) - Day Reconstruction Method (DRM; Kahneman et al., 2004) - Self-report questionnaires (e.g., PANAS, PR)

Experiencing Self vs Remembering Self, name the person and 3 methods/measurements.

Memory-experience gap: mismatch between the average of experienced emotions and the overall retrospective evaluation of the experience. (Miron-Shatz, Stone, & Kahneman, 2009) * Peak-end rule: retrospective evaluations are based on the most intense emotion and/or the emotion experienced near the end of the event (e.g., worst pain experienced during the event or pain experienced at the end of the event) * Duration neglect: it is often overlooked how long the experience is/was (Miron-Shatz, Stone, & Kahneman, 2009)

Experiencing Self vs Remembering Self: Name two examples..

"The Undoing Effect" ─ Positive emotions undo the lingering effect of negative emotions. 1. Anxiety experimentally induced by telling participants they have 60 sec to prepare a speech on "why you are a good friend". 2. Measures of sympathetic function taken: cardiovascular responding, pulse, blood pressure. 3. Film clips inducing joy, contentment, sadness and neutrality. Positive emotions promote faster cardiovascular recovery from negative, or just unexpected, events. Negative emotions, such as sadness, prolong cardiovascular recovery.

Explain "The Undoing Effect".

Midwesteners focus too much on some attributes when considering living in California. However, when people answer about themselves they focus more on the more central aspects of their lives. - we see only one or a few distinctive features about a choice and evaluate the whole thing based on that. - we ignore other important characteristics, we don't see the big picture, the context, the long-term effects. * Diener: Moving to live on a tropical island: >> when imagining this, we narrowly focus on the beach life and forget about the rest of life. "Our research suggests a moral, and a warning: Nothing that you focus on will make as much difference as you think" (Schkade & Kahneman,1998)

Explain the Focusing illusion.

All derivatives from this Latin root "have to do with kindness, generousness, gifts, the beauty of giving and receiving, or getting something for nothing" (Pruyser, 1976, p. 69). "A positive emotion that typically flows from the perception that one has benefited from the costly, intentional, voluntary action of another person" (McCullogh, Kimeldorf, & Cohen, 2008, p. 281) "The object of gratitude is other-directed—persons, as well as to impersonal (nature) or nonhuman sources" (Emmons & McGullough, 2003).

Expressing Gratitude (the Latin root gratia means "grace", "graciousness", "gratefulness")

Gratitude exercise either... - once a week OR 3 times a week. Participants who regularly expressed gratitude showed increases in well-being over the course of the 6 weeks, BUT... This increase was evident only among those who performed the activity just once a week. (Lyubomirsky, Tkach & Sheldon, 2004)

Gratitude exercise

The ability of people to predict how happy they will feel in the future! (In research literature, also known as "Affective Forecasting") Complex cognitive skills involved: >> requires mental time travel, simulation of future circumstances and one's own emotional and cognitive reactions to them. People tend to make predictable mistakes in Happiness Forecasting: * The Focusing Illusion ("tunnel vision") - we see only one or a few distinctive features about a choice and evaluate the whole thing based on that - we ignore other important characteristics, we don't see the big picture, the context, the long-term effects

Happiness Forecasting

1. Our tendency to overestimate the emotional impact an event will have on us, either positively or negatively. 2. Our tendency to underestimate our own resilience and adaptation over time. 3.Catastrophising, exaggerating the ill effects of a (potential) event Before an important decision that affects personal life, what kind of information would best help to predict how you will feel about it? - imagining your life after the decision as vividly as possible. - asking others who have done a similar choice before how their life changed. - get personal experience or try out each alternative in practise before committing yourself.

Happiness Forecasting - Impact Bias

* Waiting and expecting for a holiday trip increases happiness. * During a holiday, hedonic happiness is elevated, life- satisfaction not. * After a relaxing holiday, happiness is elevated for 2 weeks, and returns to baseline within 8 weeks.

Happiness Myth: Vacationing:

"Most happiness studies have not shown children to be an important cause of happiness. Many people are shocked by this finding, and are reluctant to accept it." (Diener & Biswas- Diener 2008, 61) Marital satisfaction - decreases dramatically after the birth of the first child and increases only when the last child leaves home. Three types of studies 1) Studies comparing parents with nonparents 2) Studies following the transition to parenthood 3) Studies measuring experiences of parents with children Parenthood and Meaning in Life - Most parents report that having children is worth the trouble and the costs. - No parents later in life report regretting that they had children, but some nonparents regret not having children.

Happiness Myth; Children

The happiness- enhancing effects of getting married last for about 2 years (on the average) - BUT: there are individual differences and variation! In terms of SWB, a study across 43 nations shows that: - Married persons are more satisfied with their life, than those who are living with a significant other, - Experience more positive emotions and less negative emotions than divorced or separated persons. (Diener et al.,2000; Stutzer & Frey, 2006)

Happiness Myth; Marriage

- people living in ideal climate (California) are not happier than similar people living in northern states with a worse climate (but similar US culture) >> but they believe Californians to be happier! The belief that climate makes a major difference on happiness is based on the focusing illusion • When imagining moving to California, we focus too much on the climate • When really living there, other things than daily weather mostly determines our happiness BUT: one study found that some features of climate correlate with life-satisfaction across countries - extreme cold and extreme heat are related to lower life-satisfaction (Rehdanz & Maddison 2005) How does weather affect mood? • The positive effect of weather when one spends time outside is only observed in spring (April-June) with no effect in autumn or winter. • In summer mood declined as people spent more time outside (Keller et al., 2005)

Happiness Myth; Weather & Climate

Richard Easterlin (1974): - Economic growth and raising average income at the national level is NOT coupled with increase of average happiness levels of the population in the long term - But inside a nation, the rich are happier than the poor. While income (GDP) has risen, self-reported happiness has not BUT within any given nation, rich people are (on average) happier than poor. High income improves evaluation of life but not emotional well-being. Life evaluation was assessed using Cantril's Self- Anchoring Scale (the ladder), worded as follows: "Please imagine a ladder with steps numbered from 0 at the bottom to 10 at the top. The top of the ladder represents the best possible life for you, and the bottom of the ladder represents the worst possible life for you. On which step of the ladder would you say you personally feel you stand at this time?" . (Kahneman & Deaton, 2010)

Happniess Myth; Money

* happiness = pleasure * what ultimately matters for well- being is the pleasurable quality of subjective experience, and nothing more!

Hedonistic theories of Happiness

Quality: What kind of emotions? (High-activated/arousal vs Low- activated/arousal; Discrete vs Dimensions) Quantity: How many or how intense? (Frequency vs Intensity) Time-frame: Is the emotion experienced at the moment of measurement or evaluated when reflected upon them as they were experienced in the past? (Now vs Yesterday vs Past week vs In general)

How to Measure Positive Emotions?

1. Forgiveness letter 2. Finding benefit in the offense 3. The Enright's Model (Enright & Fitzgibbons, 2000) • Uncovering (negative feelings about the offense) • Decision (to pursue forgiveness for a specific instance) • Work (toward understanding the offending person) • Discovery (of unanticipated positive outcomes and empathy for the offending person) The REACH Model (Worthington, 2001) • Recall the hurt • Empathize with the transgressor • Altruism (offer the gift of forgiveness to the person who hurt you) • Commit to forgive • Hold on to forgiveness (McCullough et al., 1997, 2000; Wade et al., 2013)

Interventions for Learning Forgiveness.

Prosocial changes in one's motivations towards a transgressor as a result of which a person has: • Decreased motivation for revenge • Decreased motivation for avoidance: Decisional forgiveness • Increased motivation for conciliation and benevolence: Emotional forgiveness What forgiveness is not? • Pardoning (a legal term) • Condoning (implies justification to the offense) • Excusing (implies that the offender had a reason for offense) • Forgetting (memory of offense has been forgotten) • Denying (unwillingness to perceive the offense) • Reconciliation (restoration of a relationship) (McCullough, Pargament, & Thoresen, 2000; McCullough, Worthington, & Rachal, 1997)

Learning Forgiveness (the Latin root perdonare means "to give completely")

Life Satisfactions refers to..

Life Satisfaction - refers to the global assessment of one's life in general (all aspects)

(in Pali metta means "benevolence", "friendliness", "amity", "friendship", "good will", "kindness", "inoffensiveness", "non-violence") A form of mental training that aims to develop an affective state of unconditional kindness to all people. (Hofmann, Grossman, & Hinton, 2011)

Loving-Kindness Meditation

A 7-week LKM program to employees in an IT company involving six 1-hour group sessions: week 1: meditation directing love and compassion towards themselves week 2: meditation added loved ones subsequent weeks: meditation built from self, to loved ones, to acquaintances, to strangers, and finally to all living beings Home practice with guided recordings at least 5 days per week (Fredrickson et al., 2008) Meditation produces increases over time in daily experiences of positive emotions (whether or not the individual meditates on that day) The increased amount of positive emotions builds a range of personal resources (eg, increased mindfulness, purpose in life, social support, decreased illness symptoms) Effects of LKM are specific to positive emotions, without a comparable decrease in negative emotions (Fredrickson et al., 2008)

Loving-Kindness Meditation program to employees..

Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT), 2002. (MBCT combines key elements of cognitive therapy with training in mindfulness meditation)

Mark Williams, Zindel Segal, John Teasdale

8-week clinical training program in mindfulness meditation: - A weekly group session lasting 2.5-3h - Silent 7h retreat on week 6 - Home practice of guided meditation lasting 1h 6 days/week

Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR): Describe the intervention

Money: Getting more money? Economic growth and increasing income. Climate: Moving to / Living in an ideal climate? Weather: Having a beautiful, sunny day? Vacationing: Taking a holiday trip? Marriage: Getting and staying married? Children: Getting and raising children, parenting?

Name the Happiness Myths mentioned in lecture.

* Bad events produce a longer lasting and more intense affective response. (e.g., winning vs losing the same amount of money; single traumatic events vs single positive events; having a bad day vs having a good day on next day's well-being ) * Most people report being happy rather than unhappy * Mild to moderate positive mood is the automatic baseline or offset in humans (Baumaister et al., 2001; Diener et al., 2015)

Negativity Bias vs Positivity Offset

Compared to participants who experienced neutral or negative emotions, participants experiencing positive emotions do not show the own-race bias. Positive emotions can eliminate racial group differences in face recognition.

Own-Race Bias

Martin Seligman's model of well-being PERMA includes both the hedonic and eudaemonic components of well-being.

PERMA: Positive Emotions - (Hedonic) Engagement - (Eudaimonic) Positive Relationships Meaning - (Eudaimonic) Accomplishment

- Hedonistic theories - Desire theories - Authentic happiness theories - Eudaimonistic (nature-fullfillment) theories

Philosophical Theories of Happiness

Review of literature (1976-1995) on the acute mood effects associated with participation in a single session of exercise (different types of exercise, e.g., running, swimming, cycling, aerobics, walking, at different durations and intensities). * 85% of the studies found at least some degree of improved mood, that is, the results were either positive or mixed, on a wide variety of measures following exercise. * Even a single bout of exercise can be beneficial

Physical Exercise & Acute Mood

180 nuns from the School Sisters of Notre Dame - Handwritten autobiographies - Written in 1930, the mean age of sisters being 22 years old Instruction: "write a short sketch of [her] life. This account should not contain more than two to three hundred words and should be written on a single sheet of paper . . . include place of birth, parentage, interesting and edifying events of childhood, schools attended, influences that led to the convent, religious life, and outstanding events." (Danner et al, 2001) Results: *Experiencing positive emotions can lead to a longer life. * Nuns who used the greatest variety of positive emotions lived on average 10.5 years longer than nuns who expressed a smaller range of positive emotions. * Nuns whose autobiographies contained the most sentences expressing positive emotions lived on average 7 years longer than nuns whose stories contained the fewest.

Positive Emotions & Longevity: The Nun Study

Maximizing pleasure = the essence of happiness? - Reality-problem: The Experience Machine - The Happy Swine -problem - The Happy Oyster -problem - The Miserable Hedonist -problem

Problems with Hedonism

Resiliency - flexibility in response to changing situational demands and the ability to "bounce back" from negative emotional experiences.

Psychological Resources: Resiliency

* Maximizers only accept the very BEST solution > they rely on external evaluations and comparisons when looking for it > they regret and wonder whether another option would have been even better. * Satisficers aim for a good, perfectly acceptable solution. > they rely on an internal standard when evaluating if a solution is "good enough" for them. > they understand that there is often little if any difference between "good" and "best" solutions.

Satisficing vs. Maximizing

Savouring — to attend to, appreciate, and enhance the positive experiences in one's life. 3 temporal forms: 1. Savoring the past: reminiscing or looking back at a positive event to rekindle the favorable feelings or thoughts. - Reminiscence using memorabilia reported greater increases in happiness over the course of the week. - Cognitive imagery boosted the happiness more than memorabilia. 2. Savoring the present: being in the moment, or thinking and doing things to intensify and perhaps prolong a positive event as it occurs 3. Savoring the future: anticipating or enjoying a forthcoming positive event

Savouring

Take a sheet of paper and divide it into three columns. In the column on the left list all personal memorabilia of happy times from the past that you have physical access to every day. These may include, for example, specific objects, photos, gifts, awards, souvenirs, songs, video clips, smells, tastes In the second column briefly describe the specific positive memory associated with each particular cherished object. Now, select one of the positive memorabilia from the list to reflect upon. Take a deep breath, relax, close your eyes, and begin to think about the memory. Allow images related to the memory to come to your mind. Try to picture the events associated with this memory in your mind. Use your mind to imagine the memory. Let your mind wander freely through the details of the memory, while you are imaging the memory. What kind of emotion is this memory and memorabilia related to? (Bryant et al., 2005)

Savouring the Past: Happiness Activity

Stoics (300 B.C - 100 A.D.) - Chrysippus - Epictetus - Emperor Marcus Aurelius - Happiness comes from inside each individual's own mind, it does NOT depend on anything external - >> Happiness can be found even in the most difficult of times and circumstances! - to live according to reason and moral virtue >> the principal virtues: wisdom, courage, justice, temperance, self-control - to be free of pathos (suffering, destructive emotions, negative states of mind) - áskësis: >> to develop wisdom and self-control through systematic exercise Ultimate Goals: Logos, Apatheia, Eupatheia ,Ataraxia - to be in harmony with the Universal Reason of nature (Logos) - to be free of suffering through apatheia (freedom from negative states of mind) - to reach eupatheia ("good states of mind;)" intellectual and moral perfection) - to reach an unshakable peace of mind (ataraxia)

Stoics

Barbara L. Fredrickson (1964-...) * Broadening Effects of Positive Emotions: - Enhanced creativity (Word-association task) - Increased problem-solving skills ("candle task") - Broadened thought-action repertoires (expanded array of thoughts and actions that come to mind) - Broadened perceptual scope and increased holistic processing (perceptual biases towards global configurations) - Broadened perception of self and others: (Self-other overlap) the extent to which one's self-concept overlaps with another's, that is, how distinct is the boundary between self and others. ° Higher levels of positive emotions is associated with greater feelings of self-other overlap ° Higher levels of self-other overlap is associated with a more complex understanding of others * Building Effects of Positive Emotions: - Social Resources - Psychological Resources

The Broaden-and-Build Theory

- Desire (wanting something) does not guarantee liking it after we got it! - Craving for something vs getting pleasure out of it when you have it.

The Cute Puppy Error

>> condemning a choice (or a place or a person etc.) due to the Focusing Illusion based on a single conspicuous negative feature.

The Hell Fallacy

>> idealizing a choice (or a place or a person etc.) due to the Focusing Illusion, based on a single conspicuous positive feature

The Paradise Fallacy

1) Peace of Mind: * A lasting, higher state of consciousness, reached through physical and mental exercise 2) Pleasure (Hedonism): * A life of many pleasures and few pains 3) Meaningful activity: Eudaimonia: * Becoming the "Best Possible Self" through virtuous activity towards meaningful goals

Three Ancient views on "Happiness"

Humanistic Psychology (1950's) "The Third Force": 1. Reaction to psychoanalysis 2. Reaction to behaviourism = The Road to Positive Psychology Humanistic Psychology (1950's): - Abraham Maslow (1908-1970) - Carl Rogers (1902-1987) Client-Centered Therapy (1940s): • Empathy, acceptance, and unconditional positive regard as central in therapy

What is "The third force"?

"Mindfulness means paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally" (Kabat-Zinn, 1994, p. 4) "A form of mental training that aims to improve an individual's core psychological capacities, such as attentional and emotional self-regulation" (Tang, Hölzel, & Posner, 2015, pp. 213-214)

What is Mindfulness Meditation?

System for acquiring and developing knowledge according to which scientific data must be consistent, observable, testable, and predictable, and any conclusions, explanations or theories must be tentative and open to modification as new information becomes available.

What is science?

Objective or external measures often do not track with self-reported or subjective measures. People may be highly satisfied with a life way that seems poor by objective measures. Sometimes people with below-average incomes rank their well-being as high. This is the perceptual or subjective side of well-being:

What means by the concept objective well-being.

"Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.[...]Now such a thing happiness, above all else, is held to be; for this we choose always for itself and never for the sake of something else." — Aristotle

What was Aristotle's definition of happiness?

Jon Kabat-Zinn. Jon Kabat-Zinn (born Kabat on June 5, 1944) is creator of the Stress Reduction Clinic and the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. Kabat-Zinn was a student of Buddhist teachers such as Thich Nhat Hanh and Zen Master Seung Sahn and a founding member of Cambridge Zen Center. His practice of yoga and studies with Buddhist teachers led him to integrate their teachings with those of science. He teaches mindfulness, which he says can help people cope with stress, anxiety, pain, and illness. The stress reduction program created by Kabat-Zinn, mindfulness-based stress reduction, is offered by medical centers, hospitals, and health maintenance organizations.

Who is related to Mindful Meditation?

Martin Seligman, 1998. President of the American Psychological Association during 1998.

Who is the (God)Father of Positive Psychology

- "What is wrong with people?" to "What is right with people?" - Repairing the worst things in life to building the best things in life - Healing pathology and mere coping with life stressors to the fulfillment of human potential Positive Psychology Primary enhancement: "Make life good!" Secondary enhancement: "Make life the best possible!!!"

Why is Positive Psychology? ...to direct focus of attention from: