Positive Psychology Quiz #1 - Week 2 Slides
PPI
"A psychological intervention (training, exercise, therapy), primarily aimed at raising positive feelings, positive cognitions, or positive behavior as opposed to interventions aiming to reduce symptoms of mental illnesses." (Positive Psychology Intervention)
Flow
"Flow is the experience associated with engaging one's highest strengths and talents to meet just do-able challenges"
Positive Psychology
"Positive Psychology is the scientific study of positive experiences and positive individual traits, and the institutions that facilitate their development." (i.e. wellbeing and optimal functioning.)
First Wave Positive Psychology
- appeared to embrace a "polarizing rhetoric" - positive qualities were seen as beneficial and necessary - negative phenomena were seen as undesirable
Count your blessings intervention- saw that participants who counted their blessings once a week, as compared to thrice a week, were happier
Ex. of Evidence based PPI
Participants who performed five acts of kindness in a day were happier than those who did them over a week
Ex. of Evidence based PPI
Forgiveness vs Anger (2nd wave)
Forgiveness can be harmful in contexts
Forgiveness vs Anger (1st wave)
Forgiveness considered beneficial to the wellbeing of the forgiver
Freedom vs Restriction (1st wave)
Freedom is necessary for wellbeing.
Do interventions made to build positive emotion/engagement/meaning benefit individuals with clinical/subclinical depression?
Future Goal of PP research
How ado you build positive emotion, engagement and meaning interventions and test them with the appropriate scientific rigor?
Future goal of PP research
What are optimal combinations and sequencing of positive psychology exercises?
Future goal of PP research
Optimism vs Pessimism (1st Wave)
Optimism is integral to wellbeing. Pessimism halts flourishing.
Second Wave Positive Psychology
- argues that positive could be counter-productive - Negative states could promote flourishing - SWPP's goal is to speak to the "fundamentally dialectical nature of wellbeing" - Wellbeing is seen as dialectical ie., involving a "complex interplay" between conceptual opposites and Hegelian thesis-antithesis-synthhesis - Moving away from simplistic binary views
Why PPI'S?
- build pleasure, engagement and meaning - can counter disorders through Fredrickson's "undoing" hypothesis - positive psychology may already be critical and implicit; nonspecific factors that explain why therapeutic approaches are effective (ex: by instilling hope, building strengths to buffer, therapeutic connection) are already suggested by PP.
The Dialectics of Wellbeing
- principal of appraisal - principal of covalence - principle of complementarity
The Engaged Life
A life that consists of using positive individual traits, including strengths of character and talents.
The Meaningful Life
A life that entails belonging to and serving institutions, people, communities.
The Pleasant Life
A life that maximizes positive emotions and minimizes pain and negative emotion. It concerns positive emotions about the past, present, and future.
Subjective Well-Being
A person's cognitive and affective evaluations of his or her life
Optimism vs Pessimism (2nd Wave)
Appreciate situational context of the optimism and pessimism.
Principle of Appraisal
Argues that appraisals of "Positive" or "Negative" are context dependent. Positive can be negative, and Negative can be positive.
Happiness vs Sadness (2nd wave)
Chasing the form and being happy can be unhelpful at times
Participants asked to write about. earliest memories
Control condition for Seligman study
Three Good Things like
Evidence based PPI (similar to Count your blessings) - Seligman study
Gratitude Visit -where the participants write a letter of gratitude, make an appointment with the individual and read it out
Evidence based PPI - Seligman study
Recognizing character strengths with the Values in Action Inventory
Evidence based PPI - Seligman study
Using your Strengths- participants given feedback about strengths and asked to use them in different ways
Evidence based PPI - Seligman study
Why measure subjective well-being?
Helps bring areas of high functioning into awareness; satisfaction with life accounts for variance over and above negative psychological factors in suicidal ideation
Self-Esteem vs Humility (1st Wave)
High levels of self esteem is better for wellbeing.
Meaning
Individuals usually tend to seek meaning from multiple, overlapping sources rather than singular ones.
Freedom vs Restriction (2nd wave)
Limiting freedom might be liberating
Principle of Co-valence
Many emotional states involve complex, intertwinded shades of light and dark. Emotional states can involve both positive and negative to some degree.
Strengths of Character
Refers to qualities considered virtuous across historical eras
All participants were happier and less depressed at immediate post-test, gratitude visit had longer lasting effects than placebo
Seligman study
Why study Strengths of Character?
There is potential for this to be used as a diagnostic tool; authors believe that real pyschopathologies are the absence of these strengths
Self-Esteem vs Humility (2nd wave)
There is value in humility as well as in self esteem.
Happiness vs Sadness (1st wave)
We must both seek and fin happiness
Principle of Complementarity
Wellbeing itself can involve inevitable dialectics between positive and negative aspects of living. That is, wellbeing and ill-being are two separate dimensions of functioning.
