Psych 2340: Exam 4

The organism has one basic tendency

"The organism has one basic tendency and striving - to actualize, maintain, and enhance the experiencing self." (Rogers, 1951).

Flourishing grows out of

- Continuous self-growth - High-quality relationships - Purposive and meaningful life.

Ego Development

- Ego Development: critical in psychoanalytic and psychodynamics - Healthy Development Involves Advancing from Heteronomy to Autonomy. Personality development involves not only learning to regulate sexual and aggressive feelings but also moving from an immature, socially dependent state to a mature, interdependent one. Healthy development involves moving from heteronomy (immature, social dependence on others) to autonomy (mature, independent).

Empathy

- Feel what the other feels: Emotional state triggered by another person's emotional state or situational circumstances. - Other-oriented desire for the other person to feel better: A compassionate other-oriented state (compassionate, moved, sympathetic) How Triggered: 1. Mimicry (changing one's own facial expressions, voice tone, and posture in synchrony with the other's facial, vocal, and postural expressions. Mirror Neurons (same neural pattern is involved in feeling an emotion and in observing someone else feel that same emotion). 2. Perspective Taking (imagining oneself in the place of the other) Leads to: 1. Heightened perceptions of closeness to the other 2. An approach-orientation toward others in need that facilitate prosocial behavior (similar to an urge for parental nurturance)

Building Strengths

- Fosters personal growth and well-being - Prevents sickness (e.g., depression, suicide) from taking root in the personality in the first place.

Envy

- Painful emotion caused by the good fortune of others. - The other person has some advantage over the self, desiring what the other has—special quality (better job), achievement (prestigious award), possession (sports car), etc. - Function: Level the difference between self and other—either by raising the self, or tearing down the other. - Benign envy: Moving-up motivation; improve one's position (Appraisal: the other deserves their good position) - Malicious envy: Tearing-down motivation; improve one's position by tearing down the other (Appraisal: the other does not deserve their good position). Crabs in a bucket. How dare you be better than me. Dragging other people down.

Control Causality Orientation

- Relies on external guides (e.g., social cues). Who will tell me what to do? - Pays closer attention to behavioral incentives and social expectations. What will help me not look like a loser? - Relates to extrinsic regulation and introjected regulation. Thwarting of self.

Autonomy Causality Orientation

- Relies on internal guides (e.g., needs, interests). Been developed over time, so you trust it because it's been confirmed. - Pays closer attention to one' s own needs and feelings. Relates to intrinsic motivation and identified regulation. You are the best harborer of what drives you and motivates you. - Correlates with positive functioning (e.g., self-actualization, ego development, openness to experience etc.). you have an influence and role to play. This leads to open to experience and stronger self-actualization.

Fear Allies

1. Anxiety: does not have an identifiable threat and creates a state of undirected arousal and tension. Fear of the unknown and future 2. Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: arises from an experience of extreme danger that elicits intense fear and long-term trauma. 3. Phobias: fears of specific situations, events, bodily injury, animals, and places.

Effects of Parental Conditional Regard

1. PCR -> I have to retain the good accomplishments -> pressure-driven functioning, inability to regulate negative emotions, suppression. 2. PCNR -> I'm never going to be good enough, so I resent them -> relationship suffers, a-motivation in school 3. UPR (Unconditional Positive Regard) -> Child feels loved and accepted. I may have screwed up, but they have my back -> close, high-quality relationship, autonomous motivation, and handling negative emotions well

Cognitive Aspects of Emotion

1. Appraisal- Evaluating the significance of the event in terms of one's well-being ("Is this situation significant to me?") driving a car, which is fine, but hitting a patch of ice, so there's a threat. Uh oh. This is now a significant life event 2. Emotional Differentiation- Capacity to experience different emotions to the same event (fear, shame, guilt, embarrassment) 3. Emotional Knowledge- Learn to discriminate shades of the same emotion (anger-> irritation, frustration, rage, etc.) 4. Attribution- Reason used to explain why an outcome to a life event (success/failure) occurred (e.g., pride, gratitude) failing bc I'm not smart/I didn't study enough/I studied enough, but Dr. Matherne made it too hard/I wasn't lucky (sad/fixable/anger/neutral) 5. Social Interaction- Emotional Contagion (seeing everyone else being mad makes me mad), Ingroup/Outgroup 6.. Social Sharing- Re-experience and re-live the emotional event (affective sharing, cognitive sharing) through story telling. The more you tell the story, the more emotionally distant you are from it . Validation through feedback (I would've been so mad) makes you tell the story more angrily the next time you tell the story 7. Culture- Cultural construction of emotional experience (sharing your feelings in America but surprising your feelings in other cultures)

Cognitive Aspects of Emotion

1. Appraisals- quickly sizing up situations, based off memory of the past. 2. Knowledge on how to break down situations. 3. Attributions- coming up with reasons or causes as to why something happened a way

Biological Aspects of Emotion

1. Autonomic nervous system- heart rate, breathing, skin temp 2. Subcortical brain circuits- amygdala, basic, low-level thinking 3. Facial feedback- when we experience things, facial expressions accompany it.

Two Fundamental Directions within Self-Actualization Strivings

1. Autonomy- Greater mindfulness Courage to create Realistic Appraisals 2. Openness- self-realization

Criticisms Against the James-Lange Theory

1. Body reactions were actually part of the body's fight or flight response and did not vary from one emotional to the next. 2. The emotional experience was quicker than the physiological reaction. I am able to label this faster than I appreciate the bodily reactions. You process anger in a 1/10th of a second, while the body produces a response in 1 second. 3. The role of physiological arousal was to augment, rather than cause, emotion. The intensity of the emotion is indicated by the physiological response. It's the volume, not the on/off switch

Motivational Importance of Ego Development

1. Ego defense- The ego develops to defend against anxiety. 2. Ego Offense- The ego develops to empower the person to interact more effectively and more proactively with its surroundings. Working in the world and being proactive, knowing the id and ego conflict and anticipating before they have a chance to blow up

Freud's Dual-Instinct Theory

1. Eros- Instinct for life. Survival. Life giving and life sustaining. Sex- reproducing to sustain the species, Nurturance- taking care of ourselves and each other, and Affiliation- ensuring our survival and those like us 2. Thanatos- Death instinct that leads to destruction. aggression toward self, (self-criticism, depression)- ways of being critical of self and identifying weaknesses and coming past that and getting better aggression toward others (anger, prejudice) manipulating relationships for our self gain

Positive Psychology Goals

1. Examine people's lives and mental health and ask, "What could be?" 2. Seeks to build people's strengths and competencies. 3. Articulate the vision of the good life (psychologically speaking); that is, seeks to articular what makes life worth living.

Four Ways of Supporting the Actualizing Tendency

1. Helping others- prosocial and altruistic 2. Relating to others in authentic ways- Being in the moment with people and truly connecting with people. Being present and free to express your emotions 3. Promoting the freedom to learn- Challenging yourself and setting goals 4. Defining the self- Being honest about your strengths and weaknesses

Arnold's Appraisal Theory of Emotion

1. How does the perception of an object or event produce a good or bad appraisal? 2. How does the appraisal generate emotion? 3. How does felt emotion express itself in action? Situation (life event) -> Appraisal (good or bad/beneficial or harmful) -> Emotions (liking or disliking)

Two Forms of Discussion About Evil

1. How much of human nature is inherently evil? 2. Why do some people enjoy inflicting suffering on others?

Role of Defense Mechanisms in Buffering the Ego from Anxiety-Generating Agents

1. ID demands- Neurotic Anxiety- what I want 2. Environment demands- Reality Anxiety- scared of bugs 3. Superego demands- Moral Anxiety-deals with your conscience

Interest is important for two things

1. Interest motivates environmental engagement and promotes learning, skill development, knowledge acquisition, and achievement. 2. Interest replenishes personal resources. Exploring and learning require a great deal of engagement which can be exhausting. When people engage in a learning task with the motivational support of interest, they often experience a vitality that energizes further engagement.

Functions of Joy

1. Joy facilitates our willingness to engage in social activities; joy is the social glue that bonds relationships together. It makes us big and motivates us to spread the love—social experience. When you have a good experience, you want to keep it going. 2. Joy has a soothing function. It is the positive experience that makes life pleasant and balances life experiences of frustration and disappointment. Small joy helps us ease the sad things in life. Look for the good things that you'd miss otherwise. It makes life suck less

Encouraging Growth and Self-Actualization: Recommendations.

1. Make good choices 2. Be honest 3. Situationally position yourself to peek experiences 4. Give up defensiveness 5. Let the self emerge 6. Be open to experience

Criticisms

1. Many of Freud's concepts are not scientifically testable. 2. Motivational concepts arose from case studies of disturbed individuals. We try to apply this to healthy people. Not accurate 3. Many points about human motivation and emotion was simply wrong (e.g., Freud's theory of superego formation). 4. Methods of data collection. Nothing objective and scientific. 5. Psychoanalytic theory is woeful as a predictive device. Explaining things after they happened. We can't predict with it.

Three Illustrative Personal Strengths

1. Optimism 2. Meaning 3. Eudaimonic Well-Being

Criticisms

1. Perhaps people possess not only positive human potentials but also the potential to do harm to themselves and others. 2. Humanistic view emphasizes only one part of human nature. They don't want to acknowledge the dirty side of human nature 3. Unconscious concepts. Humanistic theorists use a number of vague and ill-defined constructs. definitions/methods are hard to agree upon. Terms are altered in how they are used, which makes them vague and unreliable. 4. Unknown origin of Inner Guides. How is one to know what is really wanted or what is really needed by the actualizing tendency? How do we know if these things aren't just bad for us when we think they're good for us? We don't know the nature or basis of the innateness of this actualizing tendency? What if it's not good for us?

Fully Functioning Individual

1. Person lives in close contact with his or her organismic valuing process. You're free to choose growth affirming things as much as you want. Create and develop as much as possible. 2. Accepts the full range of personal characteristics (congruence), rather than rejecting personal characteristics, desires, physical features, personality, etc. (incongruence). 3. Spontaneous expression of inner impulses, desires, wishes, etc because you don't have to repress/suppress who you are because you're already accepted as who you are.

3 Principles of Happiness

1. Presence of Positive Affect- enthusiastic, interested, proud. You are proud of how you raised your family. 2. Absence of Negative Affect- upset, irritable, ashamed. You deal with things relatively easy and don't feel these emotions 3. High Level of Life Satisfaction- I am satisfied with my life. In most ways, my life is close to my ideal.

Illustration of Psychodynamics

1. Repression- The process of forgetting information or an experience by ways that are unconscious, unintentional, and automatic. A safety switch that blocks off memories that will produce anxiety/guilt. Repression is the ego's counterforce to the id's demanding desires. 2. Suppression- The process of removing a thought from attention by ways that are conscious, intentional, and deliberate. We are aware of the things we don't want to deal with.

Ways of Sharing

1. Social-Affective Sharing Listening; understanding; unconditional positive regard; comforting; offering consolidation; caring; reassuring; perspective taking and empathy; revalidating self-esteem; providing social and concrete help and assistance. 2. Cognitive Sharing- Reframing the event; reappraising the emotional episode; creating meaning; encouraging the abandonment of failed goals; reprioritizing one's goals and motives.

Freud's Drive Theory

1. Source of a drive- Bodily deficit 2. Impetus of drive- Intensity of the psychological discomfort (anxiety) 3. Object of drive- Environmental object capable of satisfying bodily deficit 4. Aim of drive- Satisfaction by removing the bodily deficit

Do the Id and Ego Actually Exist?

1. The limbic system (subcortical) makes for a pretty fair id (I want it, I got it. Two year old): Hypothalamus, thalamus, amygdala, medial forebrain bundle, etc. reward system. Pleasure & unpleasure brain centers.wants to feel good all the time 2. The neocortex makes for a pretty fair ego (based on reality principle): Learning, memory, decision-making, intellectual problem-solving. You need experience to build up your ego. Executive control center that perceived the world and learns to adapt to it.Executive control brings in the resources to know what is good for you based on past experience. 3. Intricately interrelated neural pathways and structures of the neocortex and limbic systems. Interrelationships show how one structure affects another (e.g., how the amygdala excites and inhibits the neocortex).

Contemporary Psychodynamic (Modern) Perspective

1. The unconscious. Much of mental life is unconscious. We disagree with Freudians on what drives it, but we know it still exists. 2. Psychodynamics. Mental processes operate in parallel with one another. They influence each other. Our emotions work with our physiology. 3. Ego Development- we operate in an environment with rules. We learn through experience and have to counterbalance. Healthy development involves moving from an immature socially dependent personality to one that is more mature and interdependent with others. 4. Object Relations Theory- how do we perceive moral and social relationships? Mental representations of self and other form in childhood that guide the person's later social motivations and relationships. We can share and learn from each other

Quality of Interpersonal Relationships

1. Warmth: Care, love, enjoying spending time with the other person. 2. Genuineness: Being fully present in and open to the here-and-now, authentically. We have people's full attention rather than being distracted. They genuinely want to be here, not for clout or money. 3. Empathy: Listening to and hearing all the messages the other person is sending and being truly understanding and willing to adopt the other persons' perspective. 4. Acceptance: A basic trust from the other (unconditional positive regard). We are going to do good things for each other and ourselves 5. Capacity for Self-Determination: Acknowledges that the other person is capable and competent and possesses an inherently positive developmental direction. We are capable of making our own choices as individuals, outside of our friend's views

20 Individual Emotions

7 Basic Emotions 5 Self-Conscious Emotions- involve personal involvement (guilt) 8 Cognitively Complex Emotions- Require cognition with certain situations that elicit emotions (envy)

Emotional Sharing

A conversational context in which we put ourselves in position to re-experience and re-live the emotional experience, as people: - Recount what happened during the episode. - Recount how they felt during the episode. - Solicit from others their assistance, coping responses, help in making sense of the event, and reconfirmation of our self-concept (especially following negative emotions). - Build and maintain the relationships that are central to our lives. - Most of the time, we share more happy things than sad things. We share a lot within the first 24 hours.

Meaning

A life with purpose and significance, including future-oriented goals and connecting today's activity with a future goal. We see how these bad things have meaning in our lives, but we understand we don't have to go through bad things just to find meaning. The act of creating meaning helps prevent future sickness because we have things to accomplish and do in our life.

Disappointment

A positive outcome was planned, an action was taken, the positive outcome did not materialize (e.g., I thought I would get the job but I did not). I still need to obtain an outcome I didn't get, and I feel helpless. It didn't turn out the way I hoped and there's nothing I can do

Unconditional Positive Regard

Acceptance, love, and approval based only on who a person naturally is (rather than on who others wish us to be). With the environmental/relationship offering of unconditional positive regard, the self-structure will be a relatively transparent representation of the person's inherent preferences, talents, and potentialities. Easier to experience organismic valuing because you don't have to work for love and affection from others. We are loved as we are, and we feel congruent.

Defining Features of the Adaptive Unconscious vs. the Conscious Mind

Adaptive Unconscious- Working whether we know it or not. Happens in the background - automatic - intuitive - fast/quick - rash/uncontrollable - effortless mental activity - emotional - very efficient - thoughts come to mind automatically - first impression - not open to education/training Conscious- Controlling and engaging thought. All about details and analysis - controlled -analytical/logical - slow - thoughtful/controllable - voluntary/intentional - effortful mental activities - rational - self-control/regulation - thoughts have to be effortfully produced - reflective judgement - open to education/training

Implicit Motives

All the motives, emotions, attitudes, and judgments that operate outside a person's conscious awareness and that are fundamentally distinct (you may feel one way on the outside vs inside) from self-report motives, emotions, attitudes, and judgments. With research studies, you have some kind of exposure episode that feeds you unconscious information, then you have to take a test measuring reaction time Explicit (self-report) motives are linked to the self-concept; implicit motives (projective techniques; e.g., TAT) are linked to emotional experiences. Well-studied implicit motives: achievement, power, affiliation, intimacy, autonomy, prejudice.

Contempt

Arises from a sense of being morally superior to another person. Social emotion because you can only have contempt for people. Looking down on, pity. The other person is judged to be unworthy in some important way (e.g., you overhear someone bragging about an accomplishment for which they were not responsible). Has its own facial expression: Unilateral lip raise and tightening. Function: Maintain the social hierarchy. Contempt socially signals one's dominance and superiority over the other. (Note. This emotion has toxic, destructive social consequences in peer relations, such as marriage).

Two Facets of Pride

Authentic Pride: Accomplishing, achieving, succeeding, feeling confident, being productive and fulfilled. Pride in one's behavior. "I won because I practiced hard and developed my skills" (I, UnS, C). Authentic pride motivates acquisition of skills and persistence on difficult tasks. Authentic pride is prosocial, as people cooperate rather than act selfishly. Hubristic Pride: Snobbish, stuck-up, conceited, arrogant, egotistical, and smug. Narcissistic, self-aggrandizing form of the emotion. Pride in one's self. "I won because I am the greatest of all time" (I, S, UnC). Hubristic pride is antisocial, as it leads people to act selfishly, uncaring, and with hostility and exploitation rather than with care.

Benign Envy vs. Malicious Envy

Benign envy aims at improving one's position and leads to constructive behavior aimed at moving up to the superior position held by the envied person. Malicious envy aims at improving one's position by pulling down the envied person and leads to destructive behavior.

Disgust

Causes: An encounter with an object that we deem to be contaminated in some way. The oldest emotion. Disgust involves getting rid of or getting away from a contaminated, deteriorated, or spoiled object. Just what is considered contaminated depends on culture and age. Function: Rejection. Through disgust, the person actively rejects and casts off some physical or psychological aspect of the environment. Rejects things that are bad for us. Paradoxically, disgust has a positive impact on our lives, as we learn the coping behaviors necessary to prevent encountering (or creating) conditions that produce disgust (so we clean up, brush our teeth, and reappraise out thoughts and values). Our anticipation of disgust (leaving the garbage will make it disgusting) motivates us to eliminate things before they become disgusting (gross garbage).

Joy

Causes: Desirable outcomes—success at a task, personal achievement, progress toward a goal, getting what we want, gaining respect, receiving love or affection, a pleasant surprise, or experiencing pleasurable sensations. Joy is the emotional evidence that things are going well (e.g., success, achievement, progress, respect, love). Joy is in the present and in the now, whereas happiness is situation-focused and reflective of happy times

Sadness/Distress

Causes: Experiences of separation or failure. Corresponds to the closeness of the loss. Sadness is the most negative, aversive emotion. Function: Because sadness is so aversive, it motivates the person to initiate whatever behavior is necessary to alleviate the distress-provoking circumstances before they occur again. Following separation, we apologize, send flowers, and telephone and email in an effort to repair the broken relationship. Following failure, we practice to restore confidence and to prevent the reoccurrence of a similar failure. We turn inward and reflect on what we should've done. It quiets us and makes us take stock.how does loss resent priorities and reframe goals? Helps us bond with social groups through processing.

Interest

Causes: Life events that involve our needs and well-being. Puzzles, curiosities, challenges, thoughts of learning, thoughts of achieving, and acts of discovery. That which is novel-complex. Interest is the most prevalent emotion in day-to-day functioning. Interest usually involves a shifting from one event, thought, or action to another. Function: Creates the desire to explore, investigate, seek out, manipulate, and extract information from the objects that surround us. Interest motivates acts of exploration, and such engagement is that which enhances learning and skill development.

Anger

Causes: Restraint, as in the interpretation that one's plans, goals, or well-being have been interfered with by some outside force (e.g., barriers, obstacles, interruptions). Anger also arises from the betrayal of trust, receiving unwarranted criticism, and a lack of consideration from others. Anger is about believing that the situation is not what it should be; that is, the restraint, interference, or criticism is illegitimate. Function: Anger is the most passionate emotion. With anger, people become stronger and more energized. It makes people more sensitive to the injustices around them. It prepares people to overcome or right the illegitimate restraint. Anger is also the most dangerous emotion, as its purpose is to destroy barriers in the environment. About 10% of anger episodes lead to aggression.

Fear

Causes: The person's interpretation that the situation he or she faces is dangerous and a threat to one's physical or psychological well-being. Fear is about a perceived vulnerability to being overwhelmed by a threat or danger (anything one can cope with does not invoke fear, however dangerous others might think it to be). Function: Fear motivates defense; it is a warning signal that physical or psychological harm is forthcoming. When afraid, we flee and hide to put distance between ourselves and the perceived threat or danger.

Compassion as a Negative Emotion

Compassion is a negative emotion when it is tightly paired with distress and suffering and when the individual focuses on that personal distress.

Compassion as a Positive Emotion

Compassion is a positive emotion when it connotes caring and when the focus is on the another who is suffering.

Self-Conscious Emotions

Complex, something about the self 1. Shame 2. Guilt 3. Embarrassment 4. Pride 5. Triumph

Psychodynamics

Conscious volition (ego) - Idea - Desire - Excitation - Cathexis (sexual desire) Unconscious counter (id) - counter-idea - repression - inhibition - anticathexis (guilt)

Positive Psychology

Devotes attention to the proactive building of personal strengths and competencies. Seeks to make people stronger and more productive, and to actualize the human potential in all of us.

Triumph

Emotional reaction that follows victory in a competitive situation 1. Expansion—arms raised above the shoulders and away from the body, chest & torso pushed out, slight smile, etc. 2. Aggression—thrusting a fist pump, shouting, etc. Triumph signals that one is socially/competitively dominant and that others should avoid future challenges (seeks to put opponents in their place).

Pride

Feelings of pride in one's achievement and success maintains and boosts self-esteem and alters self and others that one is worthy of acceptance and status. Expansive expression—slight smile, tilt head back slightly, expand the chest, raise arms up in the air—draws attention to the achievement.

Facial Feedback Hypothesis

Felt emotion arises from movements of the facial musculature (and changes in facial temperature and glandular activity in the facial skin).

Eudaimonic Well-Being

Eudaimonic well-being is self-realization. Relatedness satisfaction and pursuit of self-endorsed goals forecast Eudaimonic well-being.

Cognitive Perspective on the Cause of an Emotion

Events per se don't cause emotions. Rather, only the person's appraisal (interpretation) that the event might have an impact of his or her well-being elicits an emotional reaction. Emotions covary so well with cognitive appraisals (e.g., if you change the appraisal, then the emotion changes): * Is the event good, bad, or neutral? * Is there any potential benefit or gain from the event? * Is there any potential harm or loss from the event? * Is there is potential threat within the event? * Can you cope well with this situation or is it potentially overwhelming?

Humanistic Theorists' Views on Evil

Evil is not inherent in human nature. Human nature is inherently good. Evil arises only when experience injures and damages the person. Both benevolence and malevolence are inherent in everyone. Human nature needs to internalize a benevolent value system before it can avoid evil. We are equally capable of either one and are moldable. Our values we pass on are designed to impose a value system that goes against evil (sesame street teaching sharing and kindness) But some grow up with antisocial value systems and are taught to look out for themselves.

Congruence (vs. Incongruence)

Extent to which the individual denies and rejects (incongruence) or accepts (congruence) the full range of his or her personal characteristics, abilities, desires, and beliefs. The individual might perceive himself as having characteristics a, b, and c and experience feelings d, e, and f, but then publically express characteristics u, v, and w and feelings x, y, and z.

Domains of Disgust

Food, bodily waste products, animals, sexual behaviors, contact with death or corpses, violations of the exterior body (gore, deformity), poor hygiene, contact with unsavory people, and moral offenses.

Grattitude

Gratitude is a benefit detector. A positive emotion that arises when one has benefited from the intentional, costly generosity (they did something out of cost for your benefit) or prosocial behavior of another. Gratitude: - Reinforces generosity and prosocial behavior (saying "thank you", hugging). - Motivates people to behave prosocially after receiving benefits. - Promotes and builds positive interpersonal relationships through positive exchanges. Significantly and meaningfully different from "indebtedness".

Guilt

Guilt does not involve an ugly attack on the self. It arises after a behavior (not the self) is evaluated as a failure. Guilt focuses on an event. Its the behavior, not me, that caused the bad event. With guilt, the person focuses on what needs to be done to undo the hurtful consequences of the behavior (make amends, apologize, confess, study harder, practice more). An emotional signal: My behavior caused harm, loss, or distress to a relationship partner.

Hope and Schadenfreude

Hope arises with a wish that a desired goal will be attained. Hope is rooted in the desire to attain some attractive goal. Personal. We are optimistic that good will happen for us. Schadenfreude is a German word that entails taking pleasure in the misfortune of others and typically arises when the other person is disliked, envied or resented.

Humanistic Psychology

Humanistic psychology is about discovering human potential and encouraging its development.

Regret

I made a poor decision, things turned out worse, and now I wish I had made a different choice (e.g., I did not study enough..., I wasted my money shopping...). Trying to undo something and correct a mistake. Only Regret generates corrective motivation.

Gratitude va. Indebtedness

If the recipient focuses on the thought and give, this leads to gratitude. If the recipient is focusing on the benefit, not the giver, and feels weird about the gift and can't make the weirdness go away through an even exchange, this leads to indebtedness. We get more than we deserve and we get stuck.

Organismic Valuing Process

Innate capability for judging whether a specific experience promotes or reverses growth. Provides the interpretive information needed for deciding whether the new undertaking is growth-promoting or not.

Actualizing Tendency

Innate, a continual presence that quietly guides the individual toward genetically determined potentials. "The forward thrust of life": Motivates the individual to want to undertake new and challenging experiences.

What does positive psychology argue?

It argues that personal strengths are just important as are weaknesses: - Strengths are as important as are weaknesses - Resilience is as important as is vulnerability - Cultivating wellness is as important an intervention strategy to reverse pathology. Just because we don't have pathology doesn't mean there isn't more room for cultivating wellness.

Embarrassment

Most common causes: Social Blunders that suggest the possibility of a personal deficiency... - Mental Lapse (forgetting someone's name) - Physical Pratfall (tripping, stumbling in front of a crowd) - Suffering a bodily dysfunction - Being complemented (strangely enough) Basically, the experience of embarrassment signals that "something is amiss"—that our social image is at risk as others begin to form a negative, not a positive, image of us. It motivates appeasement (avert eyes, goofy gin, act submissively, apologize, promise not to do it again, self-grooming). Appeasing the audience is essential to say that the social blunder was an unintentional accident that will not be repeated again—and therefore can be dismissed. Appeasement is very often successful, and the person is liked more than before.

Need for Positive Regard

Need for approval, acceptance, love from others. The emergence of the need for positive regard makes the person sensitive to feedback from others. As the self emerges, the need for positive regard differentiates into a need for positive regard and a need for positive self-regard.

Basic Emotions

Negative Emotions - Fear - Anger - Disgust - Sadness Positive Emotions - Joy - Interest

Positive Psychology and Growth

Looks at people's mental health and the quality of their lives to ask, "What could be?" Seeks to build people's strengths and competencies.

Conditions of Worth (external)

Over time, the child learns criteria on which his or her behavior and personal characteristics are judged by others either as positive and worthy of acceptance or as negative and worthy of rejection. Begins as parental conditions of worth, but expands into societal conditions of worth. Initial understanding of the world begins with your world at home with your parents. This then extends to how you view the world. If you have to earn acceptance, you think the world operates the same way.

Shame and Guilt : What Good Are They?

Overall, guilt is the more adaptive of the two moral emotions, as it benefits people and their relationships in a number of ways. The action tendency in guilt is to make amends. The "action tendency" in shame is to hide. To hide, deny, and escape. Knowing this teachers, need to consider how "socially safe" it is to give the shamed person a second try.

Shame

Overwhelmingly powerful emotion that is associated with feelings of inferiority, a sense of worthlessness, and a damaged self-image. It arises after the violation of standards associated with morality and competent functioning. You should have known better. Shame generates two motivates: protect & restore the threatened self. Restore is stronger but riskier (fixing the mess), protect is more likely because it's easier (running away from the mess).

Parental Conditional Negative Regard

PCNR. Taking away love and affection for disobedience and failure. Negative reinforcement.

Parental Conditional Positive Regard

PCPR. Giving love and affection for obedience and achievement. Positive reinforcement.

Parental Conditional (dependent upon) Regard

PCR is a socialization strategy in which parents provide more attention and affection than usual when their children enact desired behaviors or attributes and provide less attention and affection than usual when their children do not.

Attribution Theory of Emotion

People not only make cognitive appraisals of the significant events in their lives, but they also make cognitive appraisals of the outcomes of those life events. Attribution = a causal explanation for why the outcome occurred, or the reason the person uses to explain the outcome. Dimensional. Are they external or internal? Temporary or permanent? (Why did you win? Why were you fired from your job?) If you change the attribution for the outcome, then the emotion experienced will change (see next slide).

Self (The Experiencing Self)

The "I" and the "me"—awareness of one's own experience, of one's own being, of one's own functioning. With greater experience, the self grows in complexity (via differentiation) yet remains a holistic single entity (via integration).

Broaden-and-Build Theory of Emotions

Positive emotions fit into the journey of becoming open minded. Allows us to see more options as to how to achieve our goals. By taking action, we get more gains in relationships and mental outlooks. Almost like a feedback loop. Positive Emotions -> Open-mindedness (broaden) -> Take Action (build) -> Gains in Mental, Social, and Physical Resources

Happiness

Positive psychology defines happiness as "subjective well-being." It's a matter of defining what is important to you

Objects Relations Theory

Quality of any one's mental representation of relationships can be characterized by three chief dimensions: 1. Unconscious tone- (benevolent vs. malevolent) 2. Capacity for emotional involvement- (selfishness/narcissism vs. mutual concern) 3. Mutuality of autonomy with others- just because we can go back and forth with each other who we can depend on, we shouldn't be codependent on each other.

Congruence

The extent to which the individual accept the full range of his or her personal characteristics. I am a whole person—I have flaws and strengths. Everyone is unique, and you work on your set

Shame and Guilt: What Is the Difference?

Shame involves a negative evaluation of the global self. Shame causes intrapsychic pain, because the evaluation of the self as a whole is at stake. Shame = condemn and re-consider the worth of the self. Guilt involves a negative evaluation of a specific behavior. Guilt causes intrapsychic pain too, but of a lesser extent, because only one's behavioral action is at stake. Guilt = condemn and re-consider the worth of the behavior.

James-Lange Theory of Emotion

Significant Life Event- something that captures your attention and you have to deal with it right then and there. Your friend hugging you/jump scares. -> Instantaneous Bodily Reactions- Autonomic NS and Endocrine System -> Emotion Different life events activate different patterns of bodily reaction, and the different patterns of reaction led to different emotions.

Holism

Stresses "top-down" master motives such as the self and its strivings toward fulfillment. Focuses on discovering human potential and encouraging its development.

Growth-Seeking

Strivings for learning, improving, and reaching personal potential. Being good as I can be for me. Negatively correlated with depression and anxiety

Validation-Seeking

Strivings for proving self-worth, competence, and likeability given to me from other people. Correlates positively with more anxiety, inflated self esteem, and depression. Task persistence is low.

Two Versions of the Facial Feedback Hypothesis

Strong Version Facial Feedback causes emotion. You don't feel emotion until facial feedback is fed back to the brain. Slow. We feel emotions happening quickly and they happen without facial expressions. Manipulating your facial musculature into a pattern that corresponds to an emotion display will cause the activation of that emotional experience. Weak Version Facial Feedback modifies the intensity of the emotion. Addition component that adds. Managing your facial musculature into a particular emotion display will augment (exaggerate) the emotional experience caused by the significant life event, just as suppressing that emotion display will suppress/decrease the emotional experience.

Well-being comes in two forms:

Subjective well-being: Experience of positive affect, the absence of problems and negative affect, and a judgment of life satisfaction. Judgement that my life is going well Eudaimonic well-being: Seeking out challenges, exerting effort, being fully engaged and experience flow in what one is doing, acting on one's true values, and feeling fully alive and authentic. What am I doing that supports my judgement that my life is going well? Am I engaged in activities? In its essence, eudaimonic well being is self-realization. It is active engagement in a meaningful life, even if that active engagement takes one through hardships and long periods of the absence of positive affect episodes.

Schadenfreude

Taking pleasure at the misfortune of others. The world is righting itself and the bad get bad things, and the good are waiting their turn for good things. There's a right and wrong way to get things When others suffer a setback, the person who feels schadenfreude smiles and takes a bit of pleasure in the other's suffering. It typically arises when the other is: Disliked, Envied, Falls from Grace, Has Achieved in a Way that Is Underserved and Resented

Adaptive Unconscious -describing the outputs of the brain

The automatic pilot that carries out countless computations and innumerable adjustments during acts such as tying your shoes, driving a car, or playing the piano (i.e., procedural knowledge). Makes the adjustments in the background. Talking to someone whilst tying your shoes. The adaptive unconscious appraises the environment, sets goals, makes judgments, and initiates action, all while the person is thinking about something else.

James-Lange Theory of Emotion

The backwards of what we think. We think we see a snake and we run. James says the emotions come after the reaction. The body reaction comes first and drives the emotion. You're afraid because of your heart rate rising. The emotion begins with the bodily reaction. The body reacts uniquely to different emotion-eliciting events. Different patterns of activity caused different emotions The body does not react to nonemotion-eliciting events. If body changes do not occur, then the emotion does not occur.

Cognitive Aspects of Emotion

The central construct in a cognitive understanding of emotion is appraisal- an estimate of the personal significance of an event. 1. Without an antecedent cognitive appraisal of the event, emotions do not occur. The appraisal, what it means to you, causes the emotion, not the event 2. The appraisal, not the event itself, causes the emotion. 3. If the appraisal changes, then the emotion will change.

Complex Emotions

The cognitive perspective on emotion agrees that basic emotions (e.g., anger, fear, disgust) have biological origins, at least to some extent. But biology cannot explain "complex" emotions—emotions that are rooted in cognitive, social, and cultural understanding, such as hope, pride, envy, gratitude, and pity. To understand complex emotions, you need to add a cognitive (and social, cultural) perspective.

Self-Actualization

The full realization of and use of one's talents, capacities, and potentialities (Maslow, 1987). It is a process in which one develops in a way that leaves behind infantile heteronomy, defensiveness, cruelty, and timidity, and moves toward autonomy, realistic appraisals, compassion toward others, and the courage to create and to explore.

Acquired Conditions of Worth

The internalization of other's conditions of worth. Hence, all of us live in two worlds—the inner world of the organismic valuing process and the outer world of conditions of worth.

Sadness May Lead to Depression

The key trigger that slips sadness into depression appears to be rumination- repeating thoughts and getting stuck. Rumination-based depression impairs problem solving, distracts attention, stimulates negative thinking, and erodes social supports.

Terror Management Theory

The knowledge, awareness, and foresight that ultimately life will end. This knowledge leads to a massive amount of paralyzing anxiety. This "terror" needs to be managed to keep the paralysis at bay. To cope, people think and behave in ways that preserve one's perceived immorality, as though: (a) belief in an afterlife (b) Commitment to a cultural world view These beliefs keep potential terror quiet.

Social Sharing of Emotion

The person recounts the full emotional episode in conversation—what happened, what it meant, how the person felt

Effectance Motivation

Willingness to Exercise Emerging and Existing Skills and Capabilities -> Inevitable Effects on or Changes in the Environment -> Voluntary Attempts To Produce Intentional, Goal-Directed Changes in the Environment -> When Successful, Sense of Competence Increases

Intervention: Cultivating Compassion

The positive emotion in which one recognizes the suffering in others and the desire to alleviate that suffering. Involves recognizing there's something bad happening in order to help them and create something good. Compassion can be trained, as through mental exercises such as meditation and being in touch with your emotions. Positive psychology wants to scientifically, qualitatively understand the things and not just understand that these things happen

Suppression

The process of removing a thought from attention by ways that are conscious, intentional, and deliberate. Premises 1. We all have unwelcomed thoughts. 2. We all desire peace of mind ("serenity of consciousness"). 3. To achieve #2, we suppress #1. But, mental control can backfire: Suppression becomes obsession.

Emotional Contagion

The tendency to automatically mimic and synchronize expressions, vocalizations, postures, and movements with those of another person and, consequently, to converge on the same emotional experience. Validating their emotional experience when we're on the same level 1. People (unconsciously) mimic the other's facial expressions, voice, posture, movements, etc. 2. People (unconsciously) experience emotion-related feedback from such facial, vocal, etc., movements. 3. People tend to "catch" the other's emotion.

Need Hierarchy

Three themes about the nature of human needs (Maslow) - The lower the need is in the hierarchy, the stronger and more urgently it is felt. - The lower the need is in the hierarchy, the sooner it appears in development. - Needs in the hierarchy are fulfilled sequentially from lowest to highest.

Disappointment and Rage

Two emotions intrinsic to Decision Making and are concerned with "what might have been".

Four Ways of Studying Unconscious Motivation

Unconscious motivation can be split between psychoanalysis (freudian unconscious) and psychodynamics (adoptive unconscious, implicit motives, priming). 1. Freudian unconscious- subconscious and unconscious 2. Adoptive unconscious- sex and aggression, classical conditioning 3. Implicit motives- leaning without conscious awareness 4. Priming- learning theory. unconscious and conscious exposure influences how we process information

Optimism

Understood as a positive attitude or a good mood that is associated with what one expects to unfold in his or her immediate and long-term future.expecting good things in the future. Looking forward. Related to better psychological and physical health, more health-promoting behaviors, greater persistence, and more effective problem solving. Setbacks are roadblocks, and we work to overcome them because we believe that good things are going to happen

Interventions

Ways to apply this to allow people to be in a growth enhancing mode. Gratitude visit has the best results. 1. Gratitude visit. Write and deliver a letter of gratitude to someone who has been specially kind to you but was never really thanked. 2. You at your best. Write about a time when you functioned at your best. Reflect on the personal resources that made that functioning possible. 3. Identify signature strengths. Identify up to 5 signature strengths and find a way to use each in a new way.

Lazarus' Appraisal Theory of Emotion

Which situations are appraised as "significant"? Those that affect the well-being of self, or the well-being of a loved one. Deals with the appraisal a bit more. Significance can be broken down into 5 assessments: 1. Health at stake in the event? 2. Self-esteem at stake in the event? 3. Goal at stake in the event? 4. Financial state at stake in the event? 5. Respect at stake in the event? There are several types of Good appraisals; Types of Benefit to self & loved one. You can lose but regain self-respect, but your health declines more permanently. There are several types of Bad appraisals; Types of Harm/Threat to self & loved one.

psychoanalytic

an approach to psychology, psychotherapy, and the unconscious mind that accepts Freudian principles and explanations.

psychodynamic

the study of dynamic unconscious mental processes.