Positive Psychology (Exam 1 Content)

Flashcards for Positive Psychology studying!

Positive Psychology is not…

• A guide to happiness.

• An easy step-by-step process.

• Nonsense. (empirical data to support)

• The negation of sadness.

Disease Model of Psychology (Traditional Psychology)

Neurosis, anger, anxiety, depression, psychosis.

• Focus on weakness

• Overcoming deficiencies

• Avoiding pain

• Running from unhappiness

• Neutral state as ceiling

• Tensionless as ideal

Health Model of Psychology

Well-being, satisfaction, joy, excitement, happiness.

• Focus on strengths

• Building competencies

• Seeking pleasure

• Pursuing happiness

• No ceiling

• Creative tension as ideal

Evidence of a focus on the negative!

The ratio of negative to positive psychology research is 14:1.

(Abstracts scored on negative and positive emotions.)

Our working definition (and one interpretation) of positive psychology.

The study of human potential/seeing and realizing human potential.

Before and after Roger Bannister breaks the 4-mile barrier in the one mile run (previously thought impossible by doctors).

Is perspective important in psychology?

Yes! The way we think about things is very important!

“There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” -William Shakespeare

Does money guarantee happiness? How else can we measure happiness?

No. Money does not guarantee health, happiness, character traits.

Gross National Happiness!

Goodness and how to live the good life: Plato (Ancient Greece)

Morality is essential for happiness (psychic harmony between the three parts of the soul).

Passive view of happiness: lifelong pursuit of an ideal state.

Goodness and how to live the good life: Aristotle

Eudamonia = human flourishing. Active, dynamic happiness.

Happiness is an activity, not a state of being. Living the good life is living well.

Goodness and how to live the good life: Dr. Martin Seligman

Dr. Seligman founded positive psychology.

More in line with Aristotle’s views than with Plato’s.

Three different happy lives that correspond to the three desires.

The Pleasant Life: about positive emotions/subjective experiences (ex. happiness, pleasure, graitification, fulfillment).

The Good Life: about positive individual traits (strengths, virtues, talents, interests, values).

The Meaningful Life: about positive institutions (ex. democracy, strong families, free inquiry).

Bottom supports above!

Goodness and how to live the good life: Epicurus (Ancient Greece)

More nuanced view of pleasure than presented by some (justification for hedonistic activities).

Happiness is relief from suffering, peace of mind, and the company of friends.

Goodness and how to live the good life: Christianity

The Ten Commandments (things to do/not do)

The Seven Heavenly Virtues (prudence, justice, temperance, fortitude, faith, hope, charity)

Goodness and how to live the good life: Confucianism

Attainment of virtue is of primary importance.

By striving to engage all five virtues, one achieves the good life.

• Ren (humanity)

• Yi (duty to treat others well)

• Li (etiquette, understanding of others’ feelings, not causing suffering to others)

• Zhi (wisdom)

• Xin (truthfulness)

Goodness and how to live the good life: Buddhism

Nirvana is freedom from desire (goal state).

Brahma Viharas (Universal Virtues).

• Maitri (love)

• Karuna (compassion)

• Mudita (joy)

• Upeksa (equanimity)

Goodness and how to live the good life: Hinduism

Focus on living a correct (virtuous) life in order to avoid repeating life again.

Karma as a corrective device; good action leads to good results.

Focus on self improvement (Aristotelian) in pursuit of a state of harmony/enlightenment (Platonic).

Goodness and how to live the good life: Islam

The Quran and the Hadith.

Focus on moral qualities.

• Love for God and God’s creatures.

• kindness

• charity

• forgiving offenses

• respecting parents and elders

• justice

• being honest

• controlling one’s anger

Goodness and how to live the good life: American Society

Declaration of Independence: “the pursuit of happiness”

(Originally “pursuit of property” but changed to avoid use of the Declaration to justify slavery)

Ben Franklin’s chart of virtues and daily pair of questions.

(AM - What good shall I do today?)

(PM - What good have I done today?)

Pros and Cons of Psychology

Pros: Greater understanding of mental illness leads to symptom relief for millions.

Cons: Psychology seen as a disease (something that is wrong with a person). “Victimology.”

What would a shift to a more balanced study of psychology entail?

Abraham Maslow’s Humanistic Psychology

Focus on goals and a conscious awareness of striving toward them.

Focus on self-actualization.

Self-Actualization

Fulfilling one's potential and activating all the capacities of the organism.

(master everything you can do)

(becoming your best self)

Psychology Pre-/Post-WWII

Pre:

• Focus on curing mental illness

• making lives of all people more fulfilling

• identifying and nurturing high talent

Post: Disease model begins.

The Pleasant Life

Positive emotions about the past, present, and future.

The Good Life

Positive traits and signature strengths to find gratification, connection, and flow.

Engagement with self and others.

The Meaningful Life

Positive institutions and the search for something larger than oneself.

Engagement with a higher purpose.

Dr. Seligman’s Happiness Formula

H = S + C + V

S = biological setpoint (genetics), 50%

C = conditions of your life (not in your control, like the family you’re born into), 10%

V = voluntary activities (more voluntary make something more V), 40%

PERMA Theory of Well-Being

A way to achieve human flourishing!

P = Positive Affect (Positive Emotion)

E = Engagement: deploys their skills, strengths, and attention in an attempt to complete a challenging task

R = Relationships: connections to others

M = Meaning: sense of meaning/purpose/serving something larger than oneself

A = Accomplishments: achievement, competence, success, and mastery

Each element is pursued for its own sake and measured independently of the others.

Measures of Subjective Well-Being (Convergent Measures)

A bunch of factors (subjective and objective) contribute to well-being!

Measures of subjective well-being:

• self-report: how happy you say you are

• experience sampling

• informant report: how happy someone else says you are

• biological measures

• objective behavior

First-World Problems

Even the rich need help (have reasons to be unhappy)!

Bhutan’s Gross National Happiness

GNH guides Bhutan’s development process.

Development must serve a purpose. Its role is not simply to promote continuous and limitless economic growth (promoted by GDP and other conventional economic models). Development must be human-centered and enable people to achieve what is important to them (happiness).

College Students & Depression

In 2011, 30% of college students reported feeling “so depressed that it was difficult to function sometime in the past year. 7% seriously considered suicide, 6% intentionally injured themselves, and 1% attempted suicide. Suicide is the leading cause of death for 18-24 year olds.

2011 ACHA-NCHA Survey:

86% felt overwhelmed by all they had to do within the past year. 54% within the past two weeks.

In the past 2 weeks: 17% felt things were hopeless, 31% felt overwhelming anxiety, and 25% felt very sad.

The most common things that were “very difficult to handle” within the past year included: academics, intimate relationships, personal appearance, and sleep difficulties. Almost half of students reported difficulties with three or more things.

What is depression, and what is it not?

Depression is an illness. It does not connote failure and should not be viewed as an embarrassment, and should be treated with as much care as a physical ailment.

Depression is a syndrome (a group of signs and symptoms that form a pattern). Sets up a downward spiral.

Depression is NOT a passing sad mood. It involves your whole physical and psychological state.

In this sense of the words…

Illness - more medical, treat with medication

Syndrome - more cognitive & emotional, treat with therapy

What are the nine classic symptoms of depression?

1) Sad mood for most of the day (feeling down, anxious, empty, or tense/irritable)

2) Being less interested and finding less pleasure in almost all hobbies or activities that you used to enjoy (including sex).

(ANHEDONIA)

3) Feeling excessively guilty, worthless, or helpless.

4) Having little energy and feeling fatigued much of the time.

5) Having a hard time concentrating, remembering, or making decisions.

6) Having trouble sleeping (insomnia, early-morning awakening, or oversleeping).

7) Having trouble eating: overweight/weight gain OR losing appetite/weight.

8) Feeling either agitated or slowed down.

9) Having thoughts of death or suicide; making suicide attempts.

Bold = most diagnostic of depression.

Depression & Gender

Women often have reverse vegetative symptoms.

(more likely than men to increase weight gain, increased appetite, and increased need for sleep)

Men often experience the opposite.

(angry, discouraged, not hopeless or helpless)

1 in 20 women have depressive symptoms that appear the week before their menstrual periods.

1 in 10 adults (both genders) have depressed moods that cycle with the seasons (winter = worst).

Causes of Depression (Factors)

1) Heritability: 20-45% of milder forms of depression are hereditary. There often needs to be a trigger. More severe forms of depression are more heritable. (greater likelihood in mid 20s)

2) Cognitive Vulnerability: a dysfunctional way of thinking about negative life events that makes it likely that a person will become depressed. Dysfunctional attitudes include perfectionism and basing self worth on the acceptance and approval of others.

3) Cognitive Theory of Depression (Aaron Beck): If we have dysfunctional cognitive attitudes, then we develop and focus on negative thoughts about ourselves, our present experiences, and our futures.

Aaron Beck’s Cognitive Behavior Therapy

Cognitive Domain: patients learn to apply cognitive restructuring techniques so that negatively distorted thoughts underlying depression can be corrected. The way they think.

Behavioral Domain: techniques are applied to remediate behavioral deficits that contribute to and maintain depression (ex. social skills training, assertiveness training, etc.). The way they behave.

Physiological Domain: patients with agitation and anxiety are taught to use imagery, meditation, and relaxation. The way they act.

GOAL: stop downward emotional spiral and replace it with a positive emotional spiral. (self-talk!)

Reasons to Seek Treatment for Depression

1) Comorbidity of Depression: if you experience depression, you are very likely to be experiencing one or two or even more other physical or emotional problems (ex. tension, panic, nightmares, substance abuse, etc.).

2) Depression is Far-Reaching: depression takes a toll as great as that of a chronic physical disorder (ex. diabates, arthritis, high blood pressure). The average age of depression development is the mid-20s; this is an important time of life, and depression can have a profoud negative effect on life transitions suchas finishing college, starting a career, or having relationships.

Cohen & Doyle (2006): A Positive Thought a Day…

The happiness levels of subjects was measured.

The subjects were injected with a cold virus.

Those who had been identified as happier fought off the virus much better.

These individuals showed fewer subjective (feeling bad) AND objective (sneezing, coughing) symptoms.

Danner Nun Study (2001)

The handwritten biographies of 180 nuns from the 1930s (average age = 22) was scored for emotional content, and positive emotional content was strongly associated with longevity 60 years later. Nuns whose journals had overtly positive content lived nearly 10 years longer than the nuns whose entries were negative or neutral.

“Optimistic and cheerful people live _____ than pessimistic people. That’s about the equivalent of ______.” - Martin Seligman

8-9.5 years smoking 3 packs of cigarettes per day

How many years does it take the typical depressed person to seek treatment after experiencing their first symptoms?

9 years

Countering Everyday Pessimism

Bringing awareness to our self-talk can allow us to identify aspects of it that could be more positive and supportive. We can focus on improving these aspects to improve our overall well being.

Learned Helplessness Study (Seligman, 1972)

Three groups of dogs:

1) not shocked ==> immediately jumped over a wall to escape a shock

2) recieved shocks and could stop them by pressing a lever ==> immediately jumped

3) recieved shocks that would only end if another dog in another box pressed a lever (the shock seems to be out of the control of the dog being shocked) ==> laid down and did nothing to try to stop the shocks, even though the wall partition was visible.

Learned helplessness results from the percieved absence of control over the outcome of a situation.

The “cure” for the learned helplessness was directive therapy/guided help (picking up the dogs and putting them on the other side).

Optimism and pessimism are positive/negative about…

• ourselves

• our present experiences

• our futures

Optimists and pessimists worry about the same factors but with different polarities.

Tal Ben-Shahar’s Hamburger Model of Happiness

Bottom Left: present detriment & future detriment

Top Right: present benefit & future benefit

Resignation (double detriment): unhealthy, awful tasting burgerr

Rat Race (present detriment & future benefit): healthy “cardboard burger”

Hedonism (present benefit & future detriment): fast food burger

Happiness (double benefit): ideal “happy burger”

The happy burger doesn’t have to always exist.

Diener View of Well-Being & Happiness

Well-being as a subjective evaluation of one’s current status in the world.

Happiness is subjective well-being.

Our pleasure and appreciation of life’s rewards depends on our lens and our self-talk.

Optimism vs. Pessimism: Bad Events

Pessimism: Bad events will… (this is how optimists think about good events)

• caused by the person (INTERNAL)

• Permanence: them and their causes will affect the person forever/for a long time (STABLE)

• Pervasiveness: affect (undermine, not enhance) everything they do (GLOBAL)

Optimists are unfazed by defeat and view difficulty as a challenge to which they will rise.

In the face of setbacks, they often try harder.

Optimism: Bad events are… (his is how pessimists think about good events)

• the fault of circumstances, bad luck, or other people (EXTERNAL)

• Permanence: them and their causes are temporary (VARIABLE), resisting helplessness.

• Pervasiveness: are caused by specific factor unique to this case (SPECIFIC)

Pessimists are rattled by defeat and view it as part of a continuing series of setbacks that may not end.

In the face of setbacks, they give up more easily and get depressed more often.

Ironic Mental Processing

Is becoming an optimist as simple as repeating “I will not be pessmistic”? No.

Produced whenever people try to control their thoughts.

Expecially strong when people are under stress.

“Don’t think about a white bear.”

When you try to reject something from your mind, it refuses to leave.

How to Become More Optimistic: Self-Efficacy

Bandura, 1977: the belief in one’s capabilities to organize and execute the courses of action required to manage prospective situations. In other words, one’s perception of their own competency and ability to create change.

“People’s beliefs in their capabilities to produce desired effects by their own actions.”

Too much self-efficacy can be a bad thing.

Self-efficacy can be conditional:

• outcome expectancies (what needs to be done to reach a desired goal)

• efficacy expectancies (a person’s belief in their ability to meet outcome expectancies)

Self-efficacy can be developed. It comes from…

• Previous success in similar situations

  • (WRITE to build: identify TRANSFERRABLE EXPERIENCES)

• Modeling on others in the same situation

  • (ACT to build: conduct INFORMATION INTERVIEWS with others and identify SALIENT LESSONS to learn from their experiences)

• Imagining oneself effectively securing one’s goals

  • (CONSIDER to build: meditate or journal from a positive perspective about the process of reaching and what it will feel like to succeed in your goals)

• Verbal persuasion from trusted (expert, powerful) sources

  • (DEVELOP to build: find a supportive group (ex. family, friends, classmates, colleagues), and eventually a MENTOR who can support you through the process.

Self-efficacy consistently predicts:

• lower anxiety

• higher pain tolerance

• better academic performance

• more political participation

• effective dental practices

• continuation in smoking cessation treatment

• adoption of exercise and diet regimes

Internality vs. externality with wearing a helmet while riding a motorcycle. (argument against irrantional optimism)

Gilbert’s Tenure Study & what it demonstrates

Non-tenure professors were asked how long they thought they would feel bad if they didn’t recieve tenure. The professors who did not recieve tenure did not feel bad for as long as they predicted they would.

Durability Bias: the tendency to overestimate the duration of an emotional response to a future event.

Focalism

The tendency to just focus on one negative thing and forget about all of the other things that will also happen (thinking about the thing in a vacuum).

Immune Neglect & Psychological Immune System

The state of being unaware of our ability to adapt to change and recover from difficulty.

Our ability to recover from difficult situations faster than we might assume we can.

Optimism vs. Pessimism: Hopefulness

Hopefulness = Permance + Pervasiveness

Art of Hope:

• Finding permanent and universal causes of good events.

• Finding temporary and specific causes of bad events.

Art of Despair:

• Finding permanent and universal causes for misfortune.

• Finding temporary and specific causes of good events.

Hope and Optimism

Snyder: Optimism is agency.

Hope = Willpower + waypower + goals = what’s in your power + pathways + the thing you want.

Willpower is agency (optimism), and waypower is pathways.

High-hope individuals have clear goals, are driven to reach them, and have clear pathways (chosen and alternative) to said goal. Matches the formula!

Rational Optimism (vs. Irrational Optimism)

Three Incorrect Assumptions:

1) “Optimist as an insult.

• the irrational optimist is the danger: housing bubbles, impossible loans

• refusal to accept reality is irrational optimism; but an acceptance and understanding of reality, coupled with hope and the drive to make changes, is rational optimism.

2) Optimists are unrealistic.

• Pessimists see problems as “permanent and pervasive;” optimists see problems as “local and temporary.” Problems are only one part of reality. Pessimism may be less realistic.

3) Pessimists are needed to help identify problems.

• Pessimists and optimists have equal ability to identify problems but use a different locus of control. Pessimism causes paralysis. Irrational optimism causes delusion. Only rational optimism allows one to take effective, positive action.

Stockdale Paradox

The optimists in the POW camp (“out by Christmas”, then “out by Easter”, then “out by Thanksgiving”, then back to Christmas again) died of a broken heart.

“You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end… with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.”

Optimism Bias

The tendency to underestimate the chance that something negative will happen to us.

“The belief that the future will be much better than the past and the present.”

Example: A survey conducted in 2007 found that while 70% thought families in general were less successful than in their parents’ day, 76% were optimistic about the future of their own family.

Explanatory Style: Scales

A psychological attribute that indicates how people explain to themselves why they experience a particular event (positive or negative).

How you interpret things.

Permanent: How long will this last?

Pervasive: How much will this affect me in other arenas of my life?

Personal: Is this who I am overall?

Changing your explanatory style is called…

Learned Optimism

P: Negative events are constant and/or due to personal failure.

O: Negative events are temporary and/or due to external causes.

P: External locus of control. At the whim of your emotions. Decisions based on irrational beliefs.

O: Internal locus of control. In control of your emotions. Decisions based on realistic optimism.

Langer and Rodin’s Nursing Home Study (1976)

Nursing home residents were either given a message aligned with helplessness (the plant will be cared for by a nurse, and the movie day is assigned) or aligned with self control (you can take care of the plants as you like, and residents can choose which day to watch the movie).

The helplessness (being controlled) group was less engaged; health did not stabilize or increase but got worse.

The self control (in control) group was more engaged; health increased.

Bargh’s Word Scramble Study (1996)

Subjects played a word scramble game.

Subjects who played a game with words relating to the elderly walked down the hallway while leaving the room much more slowly than those who did not play a game with words relating to the elderly. Questioning revealed that participants were unaware of the PRIMING.

CAUTION: Some reported FAILURES TO REPLICATE.

Dijksterhuis’ Professor/Hooligan Study (1998)

People primed to think about PROFESSORS performed significanlty better on trivia questions than those primed to think about SOCCER HOOLIGANS.

CAUTION: Some reported FAILURES TO REPLICATE.

Langer’s Vision Study (2010)

People primed to feel and act like a pilot (by wearing a flight suit and participating in a flight simulation) demonstrated better eyesight than when asked to just take a standard eye examination.

NO REPLICATIONS YET.

SUGGESTIVE BUT NOT DEFINITIVE.

One (supportive) summary of the results of the PRIMING STUDIES reads.

The influence of perception on behavior does not seem to be restricted to desirable behavior, and the magnitude (duration) of the perceptual input is positively related to the magnitude of the resulting behavioral effects.

Rosenthal’s Pygmalion Study (1968)

1. students given an aptitude test

2. teachers informed of scores (which students are growth learners and which students are not)

3. teachers asked to keep the results confidential an teach as they normally would.

The test was an IQ test, and the results were randomly assigned.

The students who had been chosen as growth learners ended up becoming growth learners. While priming may make small changes to our state, others’ perceptions (in this case, the teachers’ perceptions of the students) can lead to long-term change.

Priming studies became very popular…

Caused a replication crisis!

Science only has replication crises because science cares about replication!

Healthy science!

Dweck’s Mindsets

Fixed Mindset: talent as a gift. intelligence is static. => desire to look smart => plateau early and achieve less than their full potential

Growth Mindset: talent as a skill to be cultivated. intelligence can be developed. => desire to learn => achieve higher levels of achievement

Growth mindset needed for change.

Tend to…

Challenges: avoid vs. embrace

Obstacles: give up easily vs. persist in the face of setbacks

Effort: fruitless vs. path to mastery

Criticism: ignore useful feedback vs. learn from criticism

Success of Others: threatening vs. inspirational

Dweck’s Hong Kong Study (1997)

At the University of Hong Kong, all classes are in English.

Students were given an English proficiency test and mindset questionnaire at the beginning of the year (as part of a bunch of paperwork). Then, the school advertises free English classes.

Will students with bad scores sign up for remedial English classes?

What happened: only those with a growth mindset signed up for help.

“Students who hold a fixed view of their intelligence care so much about looking smart that they act dumb, for what could be dumber than giving up a chance to learn something that is essential for your own success.” Risk of being revealed as not having a gift.

Where do mindsets come from?

• Parental responses to failures.

• Parental responses to successes.

• Challenges and reinforcements throughout structured activities (ex. classroom, sports, clubs).

Research:

• Parents’ response to a child’s success is more important than their response to a child’s failure.

• Praising a child’s effort is better than praising a child’s success.

If your mindset has been affected by these past experiences, what can you do?

1. Recognize your voice (self-talk).

2. Realize that you have a choice.

3. Talk back.

4. Move toward growth.

How and when to change?

Don’t tell yourself that you will “change tomorrow.”

Begin now, holding with peace the experiences you experience. And, there are methods for doing this that researchers are studying…

Approach to Change/Failure: Tal-Ben-Shahar’s PRP Approach

Book: Optimalist

Optimalists do not think “everything happens for the best,” but rather that they will make the best of everything that happens.

P = Permission to be Human - accept the faillure/what happened and the emotions you feel as a result of it.

R = Reconstruction - put the failure and your emotions in a positive light and learn from the experience.

P = Perspective - take a step back and ask yourself how much the failure matters/put the failure in perspective. give your emotions the appropriate weight.

Approach to Change: Dr. Seligman’s ABCD & Es

A: Adverse Event or Situation

• Identify adverse situations or events that you encounter on a daily basis.

• Learn to identify other similar situations as they occur.

• Write down your objective descriptions of these events (not your feelings about them).

B: Beliefs about these events.

• Take note of your beliefs about these events.

• Write down your subjective interpretation of events, or learn to hear your own subjective “self-talk” narration.

• How are you interpreting these events? Consider the PRP model.

C: Consequences of Beliefs

• How did your interpretation make you feel? Were you upset? Happy? Stressed?

• How did your interpretation (and in turn, your feelings) affect your behavior? Was this a positive or negative effect?

D: Disputation and Distraction (MORE DIFFICULT)

• Is there evidence of this belief?

• Change your thought process (pessimistic view to optimistic view, three-letter combos).

• Decatastrophize, and evaluate usefulness and actionable options.

• Employ simple techniques to “snap out of it.” (ex. rubber band on wrist, reminder cards, make an appointment with your negative thoughts, write down your concerns)

E: Energization (MORE DIFFICULT)

• Notice effects of new positive beliefs on your energy.

• Notice effects of new, positive beliefs on your behavior.

• Eventually the disputation and distraction will become automatic (you will become accustomed to the process and it will speed up).

• Goal: automatic positive explanatory style.

What is success?

• Wealth? => based on the stats, only a small # of people are successful (bad definition).

• Fame? => many famous people have fallen into downward spirals.

• Being an icon? => some icons didn’t live beyond their 20s.

• Helping/giving to others?

There are many ways of defining success.

Success comes after positive change.

Progress Paradox (Easterbrook)

Almost all aspects of Western life have vastly improved in the past 50 years/century.

…but people today aren’t happier than people 50 years ago. Young adults today are almost 10 times more likely to have a full-blown depressive episode than their grandparents were.”

Why?

More diagnoses due to advances in technology cannot fully account for this statistic.

Hedonic Treadmill: adaptation changes in life, return to relatively stable happiness level/baseline, regardless of whether the change is positive or negative.

Consequence: overestimating how long you will be happy for if something good happens to you We’re never satisfied with what we have. We always want more.

Lottery Study (1978)

• 22 lottery winners rate their past, present, and expected future happiness

• 22 non-winners from the same neighborhood as one of the winners do the same.

Lottery winners were barely happier and had less pleasure in their daily activities than non-winners.

• 29 victims of accidents resulting in paraplegia or quadriplegia were surveyed as well.

Lottery winners were no different from accident victims for pleasure in daily activities and for predicted future happiness.

$$$ has a very low correlation with happiness above a certain point. Income has a very low correlation with life satisfaction once GDP per capita is above a certain point. Why? Adaptation (Hedonic Treadmill).

The correlation is stronger in poorer countries. Households in the red zone account for some of the weak correlation in rich countries.

Lottery Study (2018)

Does winning the lottery increase your subjective well-being?

4,000+ Swedish lottery winners were surveyed.

Relative to controls, large-prize winners experienced sustained increases in overall life satisfaction that persisted for over a decade and showed no evidence of dissipating with time.

The effects on happiness and mental health are significantly smaller, suggesting that wealth has greater long-run effects on evaluative measures of well-being than on affective ones.

The jury is still out on this paper. It has NOT been subjected to peer review.

How to spend your money to buy some happiness.

Spend money to get oneself out of a negative experiences (ex. chores)/buy oneself time. (CBS)

Spending on others makes us happier than spending on ourselves. (Michael Norton)

1) Success: Flexibility

Do our perceptions of success change as we grow?

Yes. We grow and change, and so do our perceptions of success.

2) Success: Optimism

“If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life he has imagined, he will meet with success unexpected in common hours.” Henry David Thoreau

Self-efficacy is SUPER IMPORTANT!

Explanatory Style: CAVE

Content Analysis of Verbatim Expressions

Researchers analyzed all comments of NL players between April and October 1985 in Sporting News and in hometown sports sections and scored them for optimism. The most positive team won the World Series in 1986, and the most negative team lost more than they won.

Explanatory style has a great impact on one’s beliefs about success.

3) Success: Grit & Passion

“Success is almost totally dependent upon drive and persistence. The extra energy required to make another effort/try another approach is the secret of winning.” - Denis Waitley

“The need for grit is generally hidden from the young until they head off to college or enter the workforce. That’s when it first become necessary to chart one’s own course and set one’s own goals.” - Peter Koskoch

4) Success: Right Place, Right Time

Groups of high-achievers born around the. same time period.

(Rockefeller, Carnegie, Morgan in the 1830s & Gates, Allen, Jobs in the 1950s)

Opportunities arise, and talented people use them to achieve success.

Values in Action (VIA) Strengths (Peterson & Seligman, 2004)

Provide common language to discuss human strengths.

The antithesis of the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders)

Evidence of validity.

• Nominations of strengths by friends and family correlate at abour 0.50 level with matching scales’ scores for most of the 24 strengths.

• The majority of the scales correlate positively with scores on measures of LIFE SATISFACTION.

• Factor analyses provide support for the existence of six virtues (wisdom/knowledge, courage, humanity, justice, temperance, transcendence).

Strengths of (one of the six virtues)!

By exercising all six virtues, one can achieve the three happy lives.

The six virtues are:

• Courage - will to accomplish goals in the face of opposition.

  • ex. bravery, persistence

• Wisdom & Knowledge - acquire + use info for the good life.

  • ex. creativity, curiosity, love of learning

• Temperance - protection from excess.

  • ex. forgiveness, humility, prudence

• Transcendence - forge connections + create meaning.

  • ex. gratitude, hope

• Humanity - (tend + befriend)/caring relationships

  • ex. kindness, love

240 items. Top 5 strengths are designated “signature strengths.”

Counterclockwise Study (Langer, 1979)

Can mindfulness change everything? (ex. mindsets about aging)

A group of men in their 70s and 80s who applied for a “reminiscing study.”

They were given baseline psychological and physical tests.

Went on a retreat in Peterborough, New Hampshire: all of the decor was from 1959 (the motel was redesigned to look like a 1959 motel), films and movies from 1959 were shown, and present-tense discussions of 1959 events were held twice a day.

By the end of the week, the subjects…

• Vision, hearing, cognitive abilities, grip, manual dexterity, and joint flexibility improved.

• fingers lengthened, gained three pounds, photos taken before and after suggested that they looked younger.

• They played touch football with Langer!

What is mindfulness?

Mindfulness is not attitude or pretending. It is less than that.

Mindfulness is not mind-FULL-ness. It is “watchful,” “observing what is.”

Mindfulness is the power of our attention to change what we experience.

Mindfulness is the awareness that emerges through paying attention on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally to things as they are.

Mindfulness is NOT paying MORE attention. It is paying attention differently, more wisely, and with the whole mind and heart. Using the full resources of the body and senses.

Demonstration: Peter Tse illusion. (awareness/attention changes an experience)

Characteristics of Mindfulness

• Intentional: purposely done, heightening of experience, puling away from dulling distractions.

• Experiential: you are fully aware of your present situation/current experience.

• Non-Judgmental: things will jump into your mind while you’re meditating. accept the presence of those things. affectionate attention. being open.

Cornell Campus Study (Simons & Levin, 1998)

How aware are people as they walk through campus?

A confederate of the experiment carrying a campus map asks random people for directions to a nearby building. Halfway through talking, two more confederates of the experiment walk between the experimenter and the random person while carrying a door, and the person is changed. The new person is wearing different clothes, is a different height, and has a different voice.

1st Study: 47% noticed the change.

2nd Study: 33% noticed the change.

Change blindness! The mindless state screens only for information relevant to meeting the goal (directing the person to the building) determined during doing mode.

Three Types of Mindlessness

Categorical Thinking (grouping things into classes)

• Can be helpful in a world where we have so many choices/information to deal with on a daily basis.

• Is prone to stereotyping and mislabeling. Exaggeration of differences.

• Snap judgements are sometimes necessary, sometimes harmful.

“Zoning Out”/”Not Thinking”/”Not Paying Attention”

• A good way for people to save mental energy when in familiar spaces.

• People in this state do not shift perspectives or weigh their options.

• People in this state are vulnerable to new situations.

Performing routine tasks automatically!

• Can make tasks faster.

• Problems arise if there is a better alternative to habitual action.

• People need to realize when they are on autopilot and shift their attention to a task when they really need to focus on it.

Why should we be mindful?

Mindfulness may be important in disengaging individuals from automatic thoughts, habits, and unhealthy behavior patterns and thus could play a key role in fostering informed and self-endorsed behavioral regulation.

By adding clarity and vividness to experience, mindfulness may also contribute to well-being and happiness in a direct way.

Is mindfulness difficult?

“Mindfulness is neither difficult nor complex; remembering to be mindful is the great challenge.”

Meditation may simply be the act of intentionally creating a space & time to practice mindfulness.

Types of Creativity

Cruel Creativity: creativity isn’t always purely positive

Diverse Creativity: creativity comes from all kinds of people and all kinds of feelings

Torrance Tests for Creative Thinking (TTCT)

• 90-minute series of tasks administered by a psychologist.

• Has been taken by millions worldwide and is available in 35 languages.

• Correlation to lifetime creative accomplishment is more than 3 times stronger for childhood creativity than childhood IQ. (longitudinal studies; subjects followed)

• Test takers measured on…

  • Fluency (number of ideas)

  • Originality (rarity of ideas)

  • Elaboration (detail of ideas)

  • Abstractness of Titles (beyond concrete labeling)

  • Resistance to Premature Closure (openness)

Kyyng Hee Kim’s Creativity Crisis (2011)

Cross-sectionally measured 272,599 children in the U.S. in several years (1966-2008).

Creativity amongst children has decreased since 1990.

Elaboration since 1984, Fluency + Originality since 1990.

Good for creativity: collaborative play w/ simple objects (ex. building toy house out of various objects), contemplative play (ex. fishing).

Good or bad for creativity: memorization (good if paired with expansive discussion + idea generation, bad if paired with mindless memorization without understanding)

Bad for creativity: unhealthy screen time.

What stops people from focusing on creativity?

• lack of financial means to do so

• burnout (no motivation or time to focus on creativity)

• formulaic life (predictability, having a sense of control, but the formula doesn’t include creativity)

• societal structure not conducive (creativity isn’t as valued as wealth or fame in human society)

• internal factors (things internal to an individual)

Kim’s Myths of Creativity

1. People love creativity. (counterexample: disruptive innovation were not initially valued by the mainstream and catered to small emerging markets before becoming extremely popular)

2. Creativity is for the arts and artists. (Mark Runco’s Art Bias)

3. Creativity is for crazy people: when we think of creativity, we tend to think of people who look (externally) eccentric, but in reality, most creative people do not (externally) look eccentric.

4. Only something new is creative: using an object in a new way is also creative.

5. Creativity comes from flashes of inspiration.

6. “I am not creative.” People underestimate their own creativity/creative abilities.

Six Myths of Creativity in Business

• Creativity comes from creative types.

  • even in accounting: consider activity-based costing

  • creativity comes from everyone, especially if you have intrinsic motivation

• Money is a creativity motivator.

  • pay-for-performance makes people risk averse (avoid taking risks, includes making creative decisions/choices)

  • engaging and fulfilling work fosters creativity

• Time pressure fuels creativity.

  • time pressure stifles/reduces creativity by robbing attention (“I must finish by _____”)

• Fear forces breakthroughs.

  • image of depressive genius does not match the data. positivity and love are associated with creative moments during the event and the day before the breakthroughs occur.

• Competition beats collaboration.

  • sharing information is crucial to creativity

  • competition => no sharing of information => nobody has all the answers

• A streamlined organization is a creative organization.

  • stress and disengagement from competition and downsizing crushes creativity for months.

Provocative First Study

Medical residents doing grand rounds were divided into 3 groups.

1. Control Group

2. Neutral Affect-Induction (reading humanistic quotes about medicine)

3. Positive Affect-Induction (given a little package of candy to eat)

The residents were asked to “think aloud” while they solved a case, and their words were rated for flexible thought and diagnostic speed.

Residents in the positive-affect induction group showed:

• superior reasoning

• more flexible thinking

• faster diagnoses

“affect” approx. “emotion”

Broaden and Build Theory

positive emotions (broadens awareness) =>

novel thoughts, activities, relationships =>

building enduring resources =>

positive long-term outcomes =>

MORE OPPORTUNITIES FOR positive emotions

Joy, at any age, induces playfulness, leading to the acquisition of necessary resources.

Juvenile play develops creativity, and develops brain connections.

Play in Rats and Children

Rats and Children: Play leads to bigger and more interconnected brains.

Rats Only: Play leads to broadening the social repertoire and more success in mating.

Spirals (Experiencing and Responding to Stress)

Downward:

1. attention narrowing

2. stress appraisal

3. negative emotions + increased stress

4. sensitization to threat

5. repeat

Upward:

1. stress appraisal

2. decentering

3. state of mindfulness

4. attentional broadening

5. positive reappraisal

6. positive emotions and decreased stress

7. repeat