Lecture XXIII: Positive Psychology

You are perfect, just the way you are; and you could use a little improvement.
Shunryu Suzuki

Positive Psychology

Focuses on developing strengths, enhancing positive adjustment, strengthening adaptive coping, building up the person.
Martin Seligman is a promenant figure in the subfield of positive psychogy. He used his 1998 inagural APA presidential address to promote this approach, taking a phrase coined by Abraham Maslow decades before (1954).
Seligman’s PERMA model of building well-being: Positive Emtions, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning, Accomplishment.
One focus in positive psychology has been on subjective well-being (happiness)
- subjective well-being: how happy, satisfied with your life, and free from distress are you?
- “Most people are mildly happy most of the time (Diener & Diener, 1996)” (p. 386)
- As your text points out: the relationship between subjective well-being and life situation is very modest. People in difficult life circumstances often report reasonable subjective well-being. Poverty often bring challenges, reducing poverty does reduce stress, but wealth does not automatically bring happiness. Your text also points out the positive effects of subjective well-being [Caution: again, most of the cited studies are correlational in nature: individuals with subjective well-being do appear to be healthier, etc; but there is no clear evidence that working to increase subjective well-being in other people will lead to these people being healthier etc. An alternative hypothesis is that happiness is a result (not a cause) of other attitudes and behaviors; for example, a regular practice of meditation is associated with both increased subjective well-being and a number of health benefits {{extra caution: even here it is not absolutely clear if this is a causal relationship: it may have something to do with the type of person who would be motivated at some point in their life to take up a meditative practice. Assignment studies: looking at people who meditate vs. a “control group” who do not meditate is not an experimental study, it is a correlational study. Beware making causal conclusions based on correlations!}}].
Eudaimonic Well-Being
- Hedonic: pleasure focus, what feels good
- Eudaimonic: “seeking out challenges, exerting effort, being fully engaged” (p. 388); putting in effort and raising up to challenge (Aristotle)
  - eus: good; eu: well
  - daimon: spirit, true nature
- Related concepts: Beck’s pleasure and mastery
Optimism, Positivity, Hope
- Positivity bias: can be seen in “normal”, clinically depressed individuals show opposite bias (and in some situations give more accurate appraisals of reality)
- Dr. Sydney Freeman’s letter to Freud on MASH: “like springtime at MASH, if you can’t see it or find it, you just go ahead and make it.”
- John Steinback, Sweet Thursday, “just because something didn’t happen doesn’t necessarily mean it isn’t true”

Barbara Fredrickson’s work is often cited in discussions of positive psychology

Broaden-and-Built Theory of positive emotion: to flourish and grow we need more positive emotions to outweigh our experiences of negative emotions.

Positive Emotions

(Gains in resources position the person to experience positive emotions more frequently) lead to:
- Open-Mindedness
- Broaden
- expanded attention
- cognitive flexibility
- lead to:
  - take action
  - Build
  - personal resources
  - skills
  - social support
  - lead to:
    - gains in:
      - mental
      - social
      - physical
      - resources
[caution: the mathematical model that generated Fredrickson’s 3 to 1 ration (2.9 to 1) (also called: Losado ratio, positivity ratio, Gottman ratio, Lasodo line, high performing teams) has been called into question. A similar ratio for number of positive thoughts to negative thoughts necessary to prevent depression was suggested by Lewinsohn, Munoz, Youngren, & Zeiss (1978) was offered with support. As a general rule: be highly skeptical of any simple answers to important human questions.]

Critiques of positive psychology

How could we say bad things about positive psychology? Well . . .
Too much hype, too little results. Claims that exceed demonstable effects.
Too much cost, too little investigation/replication. Books, workshops, and buying enlightenment.
Too much personality, too little science. Ted Talks are great, but . . .

A last thought

“Finally, you don’t have to choose between being scientific and being compassionate.”
(Sapolsky, 2017, p. 675).

A typical human heart beats between sixty and a hundred times a mnute. In the moern world, where we are the beneficiaries of advanced medicine and nutrition, humans live on average for about twice as long as West’s scaling laws would predict. Call it 3 billion heartbeats. Three billion isn’t such a big number. What are you going to do with your heartbeats?
(Sean Carroll, The Big Picture, p. 389)

Closing time
Time for you to go out to the places you will be from.
Semisonic, Closing Time

Lecture XXIII: Positive Psychology

Positive Psychology

Positive Emotions

Other topics frequently considered within area of positive psychology

Critiques of positive psychology

A last thought