CNCSP 112 MIDTERM: STUDY GUIDE SPECIFIC
Learned Helplessness
A condition in which a person suffers from a sense of powerlessness, arising from a traumatic event or persistent failure to succeed; opposite of agency.
Dialectical Reasoning
A logical process in which opposing facts or ideas are weighed and compared, with a view to determining the best solution or resolving differences - not based in emotions.
Well-being: Subjective vs. Objective
A person's individual judgement about their current status in the world, often used synonymously with happiness vs. defined wellbeing in terms of quality of life indicators such as material resources (income, housing, food, etc.) and social attributes (education, health, political voice, social networks, etc.).
Flourish
According to Seligman, to flourish is to find fulfillment and happiness in our lives, accomplishing meaningful and worthwhile tasks, and connecting with others at a deeper level - in essence, living the "good life;" results from paying careful attention to building and maintaining the five aspects of the PERMA model (positive emotions, engagement, relationships, meaning, accomplishments).
Cross-Cultural Factors: Linguistic Equivalence
Achieved if the target language carries the same intended meaning or message that the source language carries.
Pessimism
Internal, stable, global; viewing failures as due to internal (characteristics of the self), stable (consistent), and global (not limited to a specific situation) attributions.
90/10 Rule
It's all about perspective - 10% of life is based on what actually happens and the other 90% is how we respond (which we can control).
The Happiness Advantage
Refers to increased cognitive functioning, improved productivity, and better performance when in a state of happiness; illustrative study wherein the treatment condition who received candy (encouraging positive affect) performed better on cognitive tests.
Happiness is...
50% genetic (with individual differences in set points), 40% intentional activities, and 10% the environment.
Cross-Cultural Factors: Conceptual (Construct) Equivalence
Examines the extent to which a construct has a similar nature and meaning when applied in a different cultural context.
Affect
A person's instinctive response to a stimulus, characterized by a sense of arousal, considered the most basic element of feeling, and often involves evaluation of a stimulus as good or bad; differs from one's mood, which refers to a general, free-floating feeling that lasts longer than an emotion (a feeling state resulting from the appraisal of an external object as salient to our own well-being, has a specific, "sharpened" quality) thought to be tied to expectations of future positive or negative affect; unpleasant and pleasant affective states are independent of one another and not physiological/psychologically related - you can't hold both perspectives at once.
Cross-Cultural Factors: Metric Equivalence
A quantitative way to assess cross-cultural equivalences of translated instruments by examining the patterns of psychometric properties based on cross-cultural data derived from both versions of the instrument; checks to refine the ability of a measurement tool to be consistent across various cultures.
Longitudinal Study
A research design that involves repeated observations of the same variables (e.g. people) over long periods of time; subjects are followed over time with continuous or repeated monitoring of the DV.
Social Well-being
A sense of belonging and social inclusion; feeling integrated; a connected person is a supported person in society.
Cultural Competence
A set of skills, values and principles that acknowledge, respect and work towards optimal interactions between the individual and the various cultural and ethnic groups that an individual might come in contact with.
How do you cultivate mindfulness?
By bringing attention to one's breathing, through a body scan, visualization meditations, belly breathing, mindfulness of sensations, thoughts, and emotions, mindful eating and walking, yoga, and grounding exercises.
Catastrophic Brain
Coined by Seligman, describes the evolutionary basis of our fight or flight response for survival which has resulted in hard-wired pathways for all that's "wrong."
Emotional Well-being
Combination of positive affect (in the absence of negative affect) and general satisfaction (gratitude) with life.
What is co-vitality and how does it differ from co-morbidities?
Covitality refers to the co-occurence of positive traits or the synergistic effect of positive mental health resulting from the interplay among multiple positive-psychological building blocks, it's the combination of strengths that matter more than any individual strength ("the whole is greater than the sum of its parts"); comorbidity is the flip side which refers to the co-occurence of multiple disorders or illnesses.
How do you cultivate gratitude?
Cultivating gratitude may be as simple as saying "thank you;" applied interventions include the Count-Your-Blessings exercise, Naikan meditations, traditional gratitude journals and letters/notes (and visits), meditating on gratitude (present-moment awareness), praying about your gratitude (if religious) and even just thinking about someone for whom you're grateful for.
What are the similarities and differences between Eastern and Western perspectives on positive psychology, and what influences such differences?
Cultural factors affect notions of perceived happiness in shaping what's seen as good, moral, and virtuous; Westerners seek rewards on more of a physical plane, while Easterners seek to transcend the physical plane to a spiritual one; moreover, Western perspectives stress autonomy, individuality, and personal satisfaction, while Eastern perspectives generally focus on harmony, collective cooperation, and group satisfaction; largely what influences these differences are adhering to individualistic vs. collectivistic values.
A stimulated prefrontal cortex engages feelings of...
Empathy, contentment, pride, happiness, hope, fulfillment, meaningfulness, and forgiveness.
What is the Broaden and Build theory?
Developed by Barbara Fredrickson, a model for explaining the mechanisms behind positive emotions in our minds and bodies; suggests positive emotions expand what an individual feels like doing at any given time, this expansion being the broadening of an individual's "momentary thought-action repertoire" to include cognitive as well as physical responses to an emotion; suggests that positive emotions allow people to build resources through the increasing of creative problem solving and recognition of personal resources; suggests that specific action tendencies associated with negative emotions fail to consider responses to positive emotions, which often are more cognitive than physical; the most famous specific action tendency associated with negative emotions being the "fight or flight" response.
Psychological Well-being
Dimensions include autonomy (having a sense of self and direction) and agency (the capacity to act independently and make free choices, may use self-affirmations).
Mindfulness...
Elevates positive emotions, increases psychological, physiological, and spiritual well-being, and promotes resilience.
Optimism
External, variable, specific; learned optimism refers to the use of a flexible explanatory style in which one has learned to make external (outside oneself), variable (not consistent), and specific (limited to a specific situation) attribution for one's failures; optimism itself is one's expectancy that good things rather than bad will happen, a stable trait in some people, and is independent of self-efficacy.
What is gratitude and how does it relate to well-being?
Gratitude is being thankful; it relates to well-being in that it has psychological, physiological, and interpersonal benefits; respectively, it elevates our positive emotions and overall happiness, increases psychological and spiritual well-being, life satisfaction, and resilience in the face of stress, depression, and trauma; reduces blood pressure, improves sleep, and increases frequency of exercise; greater self-reported physical health; enhances prosocial behavior, improves friendships and romantic relationships, strengthens family relationships in terms of stress, and increases social support.
Eudaimonia
Human flourishing, or happiness associated with living a life of virtue.
What is mindfulness and how does it relate to well-being?
Mindfulness refers to an openness to novelty and sensitivity to context and perspective, involves cultivating an awareness of everyday happenings and physiological and psychological sensations, overcoming the desire to reduce uncertainty in everyday life, overriding the tendency to engage in automatic behavior, and engaging less frequently in evaluating oneself, others, and situations; includes 1) nonjudgemental acceptance of experiences, thoughts, and emotions, 2) emotion regulation, 3) awareness and contact with the present moment, and 4) compassion for self and others; it relates to well-being in that it has a positive correlation with various forms of well-being such as subjective well-being, satisfaction with life overall, stable self-esteem, authenticity, vitality, vigor, persistence, and character strengths including love (increased relationship satisfaction), kindness, and social and emotional intelligence.
Languish
Opposite of flourish, defined as: to lose or lack vitality; grow weak or feeble; suffer from being forced to remain in an unpleasant place or situation.
What are the differences between optimism and hope?
Optimism refers to a general positive idea of where things are going, whereas hope refers to specific, goal-directed thinking/behavior in which a person has the perceived capacity to find routes to desired goals (pathway thinking) and the requisite motivations to use those routes (agency thinking).
How does positive psychology differ from pathology?
Positive psychology (the science and applications related to the study of psychological strengths and positive emotions) differs from the traditional pathology approach in its focus on strengths rather than weaknesses and deficits; traditional psychology however gave way to the development of diagnoses, measurement, and procedures (the DSM itself isn't the main takeaway (with its focus on states of conditions via labels), rather the development of a simple diagnostic system that described life processes); provides a framework for flourishing (see wellness continuum).
Cross-Cultural Factors: Cultural Equivalence
Reflects a body of research methods that can be used to minimize cultural bias and measurement error in the development and/or adaptation of assessment tools; its five established dimensions include conceptual, content (investigates if the operationalization of the construct is relevant to the population under study), linguistic, technical (concerns itself with the cultural appropriateness of the measuring techniques used), and normative equivalency (requires norms to be available for the population under study so that observations of similarities and deviations may be made).
Social Construct
Shared perspectives or definitions that are agreed upon by many people to constitute reality (rather than some objectively defined "truth" that resides in objects, situations, and people).
What are the VIA character strengths?
The VIA Classification of Strengths developed by Peterson and Seligman encourages a more strength-based approach to diagnosis and treatment, relying on the 'new' psychology of traits that recognizes individual differences that are stable and general but also shaped by circumstance and thus capable of change; created in response to two basic questions: 1) how can one define the concepts of 'strength' and 'highest potential,' and 2) how can one tell that a positive youth development program has succeeded in meeting its goals?; components of character include virtues (core characteristics valued by some moral philosophers, religious thinkers, and everyday folk), character strengths (psychological processes and mechanisms that define virtues), and situational themes (specific habits that lead people to manifest strengths in particular situations); survey detailing 24 strengths organized under 6 overarching virtues of 1) wisdom and knowledge, 2) courage, 3) humanity, 4) justice, 5) temperance, and 6) transcendence on a continua and not as distinct categories.
Reality Negotiation
The ongoing processes by which people arrive at agreed-upon world-views or definitions; individually, a person interprets information from the environment and decides the usefulness and veracity of that information; people often have a negativity-bias (due to our "catastrophic brain), easily noticing threats, problems, etc. which makes them more reactive; contrast between avoiding negative items vs. going toward happier circumstances.
Pathways Thinking
The perceived capacity to find different routes to one's desired goals.
"Medical School Syndrome"
The tendency to think that you have a disorder when you read about its symptoms; acute hypochondriasis.
What are the variety of ways in which happiness is measured?
Through theories of subjective well-being (also referred to as emotional well-being and happiness), comprising of life satisfaction, positive affect, and the absence of negative affect, psychological well-being, as well as measuring social well-being and objective well-being; recall JFK's quote about subjective well-being (love, family, etc.) > objective well-being (GDP, etc.).
Agape
Universal love, such as for strangers, nature, or God, that doesn't depend on filiation of familiarity; said to encompass the modern concept of altruism (unselfish concern for the welfare of others); helps to build and maintain the psychological, social, and, indeed, environmental fabric that shields, sustains, and enriches us by encouraging cooperation and reciprocation; in the short-term, leaves us with a euphoric "helper's high," and in the long-term, is associated with better mental and physical health as well as longevity.
