Fluent Essays

check the slides please POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY Introduction to Positive Psychology Introduction to Positive Psychology • Global warming, natural disasters • Economic problems, homelessness • Social instability Introduction to Positive Psychology • Positive Psychology aims to understand, test, discover and promote the factors that allow individuals and communities to thrive. • Much more than focus on positive emotions and positive thinking. • Focuses on well-being, happiness, flow, personal strengths, wisdom, creativity, imagination and characteristics of positive groups and institutions. The scope & aim • Positive psychology concentrates on positive experiences at three time points: 1. The past, centering on well-being, contentment and satisfaction; 2. The present, which focuses on concepts such as happiness and flow experiences; 3. The future, which concepts including optimism and hope The scope & aim 1. The subjective positive experiences: happiness, optimism, well-being; 2. The individual characteristics: talent, wisdom, love, courage, creativity; 3. The positive institutions, citizenship and communities: altruism, tolerance, work ethic. The history of Positive Psychology • The ancient Greeks • William James: • emotions come after psychological experience • connected emotions & experiences together • Humanistic psychology • A. Maslow & C. Rogers • Hierarchy of needs • Self-actualization • Positive regards • 1998 – APA. Selignman speech Mind map of positive psychology How people explain bad events? • Skill of gratitude How we measure happiness? • Too difficult to study and measure? • Psychological tests • Experimental methods • Observation • Epistemological style Self - measurement • Three good things • For the next week, before you go to bed, write down 3 good tings that happened to you that day. • Not big “things” only. Think about some small things. • Activity: write down 3 good thing (today/yesterday) • Homework ? Positive Psychology Outline • Eudaimonia: definition & historical roots • Psychological well-being (PWB) • Self-determination theory • 3 basic psychological needs • Flow & its characteristics • Importance of meaning & purpose in life • Links between existential & positive psychology • Positive death & meaning What is happiness? • Experience of well-being • Subjective well-being • Activities & goals Eudaimonic paradigm • Well-being is an ongoing, dynamic process (not fixed state) of flourishing, personal growth, self-actualization by means of engagement in an activity which utilizes one’s resources and is subjectively meaningful. Psychological well-being • Consists of 6 components: 1. Self-acceptance 2. Personal growth 3. Purpose of life 4. Positive relations with others 5. Environmental mastery 6. Autonomy • There is correlation between PWB and SWB • Different relationships to demographic and personality variables Self-determination theory • Maslow hierarchy of needs • 3 basic needs: 1. Autonomy 2. Competence 3. Relatedness Self-determination theory (SDT) • 3 additional needs (Ryan & Daci, 2017): 1. Meaning 2. Self-esteem 3. Security Authentic happiness • Seligman developed 3 routes of happiness 1. The pleasant life – enables high level of positive emotion and gratification; 2. The good life – enables constant engagement, absorption and flow; 3. The meaningful life – one uses own strengths in the service of something greater than one’s self. • Eudaimonia • Research results: • Pleasant activities experience higher levels of positive emotion in the short term • However, these experiences may give meaning and value in the long term Flow • Flow – intense experiential involvement in moment-to-moment activity, which can be either physical or mental. • Ideal for enhancing the experience positive affect • Functioning on full capacity • Related to consciousness and psychic energy (lack of it led to depression and stress) • What are the conditions to facilitate flow? Conditions to facilitate flow 1. Structured activity with clear goals & immediate feedback – helps orientate the person, monitoring if persons is on right track toward desired goal; 2. Balance of challenges vs skills – model of optimal experience: 3. Complete concentration – merging of action & awareness, to not loose “sense of ourselves”; 4. Sense of control – gaining a sense of control, related to perception skills vs. challenge; 5. Transformation of time – distortion of time from the reality because we enjoy and engage in some activities more/ less; 6. Activity for the sake of activity – wish to repeat it without any rewards or external forces; 7. Your personality – skills, curiosity, persistence, low self-centeredness, motivation by intrinsic rewards. Meaning & purpose in life • Meaning of life & meaning within life • Meaningless in life = existential fear of death • For research we need to measure structural properties of personal meaning system: • Differentiation - diversity of sources for meaning • Elaboration – how people construct links between events to give life purpose • Coherence – how well do all the features fit together Meaning & purpose in life • Benefits of living a meaningful life: • creative, experiential & attitudinal value • Major sources of meaning: • achievement, • acceptance, • relationship, • intimacy, • religion, • self-transcendence • fairness • Research claims: purpose in life & reasons to live help mediate between stress, copying and suicidal behavior Existential thought & positive psychology • Studies core conditions important for understanding human capacity to actualize and experience mature happiness & wisdom • Related to: freedom & choice, confrontations with death, isolation, meaninglessness, authentic sense of self • 3 types of mature happiness: 1. Authentic happiness – being & living authentically, embracing freedom of choices and responsibility; 2. Eudaumonic happiness – arises for doing virtuous deeds; 3. Chaironic happiness – spiritual gift, independent of our abilities and circumstances (e.g. suffering). Death & positive psychology • Anxiety-inducing mechanism allows to grow & recognize the possibility to die • Even death has potential to grow • “Positive death” is seen as integral part of “good life” • By embracing death we can live more authentically, enhancing self- actualization • 3 distinct attitudes towards death: 1. Neutral death acceptance – accepting death as a part, living life fully; 2. Approach acceptance – believing in afterlife; 3. Escape acceptance – death as an option to miserable life. POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY Outline • Defining emotions • Basic human emotions • Positive emotions • Mind & body dualism • EIQ Emotions in our life 1. When positive emotions make beneficial effect? 2. Ways in which negative emotions are beneficial to personal growth and success? 3. How positive psychology is related to EIQ? Defining emotions • Emotions: • Focus on a specific event or circumstance across time periods • Short lived • We are aware of them • Feelings: • Subjectively experiences • More long term • Awareness depends on its intensity and expression • Labelled, articulated, acknowledged • Mood: • Objectless, unfocused & enduring • Located in the background of our consciousness • Disposition to respond emotionally Basic emotions 6 basic emotions (Ekman) • Anger • Disgust • Fear • Joy • Sadness • Surprise 10 basic emotions (Izard) • Anger • Contempt • Disgust • Distress • Fear • Guilt • Interest • Joy • Shame • Surprise Positive emotions & its importance • Propagate ways of thinking and acting that are essential for growth and well-being • Broadening effect - Enhance verbal creativity tasks & expands mindset • Building effect – building valuable personal resources: • intellectual: problem-solving, openness to learning ,visualizing; • physical: increased coordination and cardiovascular health; • social: maintaining and creating relationships; • psychological: optimism, sense of identity, goal orientation. • Undoing effect – while feeling stress or stuck, anxiety and fear, positive emotion can undo negative impact on our body and mind. Positive emotions & its importance • Positive emotions & prosocial behavior, patience, creativity • Positive emotions & health • Mind-body dualism • Circumplex model of emotions Measurement personality • Finding traits: Big Five • Five factor model organizes personality traits and describes differences in personality using five categories “OCEAN”: 1. Openness (or narrow interests) 2. Conscientiousness(responsible & dependable or not) 3. Extraversion (outgoing & decisive or retiring & withdrawn) 4. Agreeableness (warm & friendly or not) 5. Neuroticism (stable & not a worrier or nervous) Emotions & face • Role of smile. • Genuine and fake smile • Does smile has anything to do with our ability to experience positive emotions? • Correlation between smiling and reducing negativity, greater competence, more positive ratings form others and greater well-being in later life • When people smile genuinely their thought patterns are immediately broadened Emotional Intelligence (EI) • Emotions are important in our psychological life • Helps to orient us in our thoughts, actions, shapes well-being • EI – ability to monitor one’s own and other’s feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them, and to use this information to guide one’s thinking and action • Emotions serve as a function DEFINING INTELLIGENCE • Multiple-intelligence theory (H. Gardner, 1999) • Studies abilities to adapt and be successful in different environments • Instead of one kind of general intelligence, there are at least nine different kinds, including: 1. verbal intelligence 2. musical intelligence 3. logical mathematical intelligence 4. spatial intelligence 5. body movement intelligence 6. intelligence to understand oneself 7. intelligence to understand others 8. naturalistic intelligence 9. existential intelligence Emotional Intelligence - the ability model • MSCEIT - 141 model of EI • Set of competences or mental skills that include four stages: 1. Perceiving emotions: How do you feel? How others feel? 2. Using emotions to facilitate thinking and mood (e.g. writing creative essay - music) 3. Understanding emotions: Why are feeling this? What do this emotions mean? What has caused that for you? Where is that going to? 4. Managing emotions (self-regulation): appropriate expression of own emotions, dealing with others emotions • EI predicts: well-being, self-esteem, more pro-social behaviors, less smoking, enhanced positive mood, less violent behavior, greater academic eagerness and higher leadership performance Mixed models of EI • Goleman’s model • EI – the ability to adaptively perceive, understand, regulate, and harness emotions in the self and others • EI matters in predicting academic, occupational and relationship success • 5 main areas within EI: 1. Managing emotions – reframing anxiety and dismiss stress; 2. Using emotion for self-motivation – proficiency in delaying gratification for future success; 3. Recognizing emotions in others – empathy, social relationships; 4. Managing emotions in others – helping other with their distress, encouraging; 5. Emotional self-awareness – understand and identify own emotions • ESCI test Self-measurement • P. 49-53