Exam 1 Review

Early missions of psychology

1. cure mental illness

2. make lives of all people more productive and fulfilling

3. identify and nurture high talent

APA president who named positive psychology a goal

Seligman

Pillars of positive psychology

1. positive subjective experiences

2. positive individual traits and practices

3. positive social institutions

What fields of psychology contribute to Pos Psych?

Health, Clinical, Developmental, Social & Personality

Two reasons we need positive psychology

1. provides a counter balance to natural tendency to attend to negative information

2. Understanding what makes life good is valuable in its own right

3 types of well-being

hedonic, subjective, eudaimonic

Hedonic well-being

experiencing high levels of pleasure and low levels of displeasure

Subjective well-being

high levels of positive affect + low levels of negative affect + life satisfaction

eudaimonic well-being

actualizing potential or finding a sense of meaning or purpose

PERMA

positive emotions, engagement, relationships, meaning, accomplishment

cultural considerations: eastern vs western world views

EAST: self transcendence, harmony, contentment, value suffering

WEST: self enhancement, mastery, satisfaction, avoiding suffering

Empirical research base

conclusions based on systemically collected data

randomization

participants randomly assigned to treatment groups. controls for confounds that can impact the DV

Mediator

the mechanism explaining the HOW in why two variables are related to each other

• IV → Mediator Variable → DV, so therefore IV → DV

Moderator

for whom, in a causal relationship. relationship is different at different levels

Generalizing results

taking results from a study and applying them to a population

Only stupid people are happy - MYTH

Evidence: IQ and happiness usually no relationship, but when there is it’s positively correlated.

We can’t do anything about our happiness - MYTH

Evidence: happiness and related constructs can be changed within a window (older people happiness > younger people’s)

Pos Psych is only about happiness - MYTH

Pos Psych includes forgiveness, gratitude, love, kindness, hope.

Psychological health associated w/ positive and negative emotions.

• hedonic vs eudaimonic well-being

Pos Psych only for privileged - MYTH

Some truth to this (freedoms, racial differences, stable living) BUT:

• people from all backgrounds report searching for love and meaning, engaging in kindness and generosity.

Happiness Pie Chart estimates

Set point = 50%. Genetics and early influences

Circumstances = 10%. Money, job, relationships

Intentional activity = 40%. Purposeful goals, actions, and choices

Dimensions of affect (emotion)

Valence and Arousal

Valence dimension

pleasant to unpleasant (positive to negative)

• attractiveness/appetitiveness = positive

• aversiveness/ avoidance = negative

Arousal dimension

activation of physiological systems (high or low activation/arousal)

affect circumplex

interaction of valence and arousal produces subjective experience

• Discrete affective experiences = emotions

• Emotions = characteristic pattern of physiological arousal, thoughts, and behaviors

sensations

seconds long. Pleasure; often in response to sensory input such as taste, touch, smell, sight, and sound. Very quick. Typically high arousal

emotions

minutes to hours. Joy, pride, love. Example: sadness spiral (re-firing an emotion to keep it going). We don’t do this as much with positive emotions (not wanting to be egotistical or arrogant)

Mood

Hours to weeks. Cheery, good humor, depressive.

Traits

decades. Positive affectivity, extraversion. Big 5: openness to experience, neuroticism, extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness

Characteristics of pleasure

• can result from addition or subtraction of stimuli. multidimensional

• “raw” and associated with skin senses

• pleasure may have some evolutionary bases (mating, eating, child-rearing)

• experiential quality vs quantity

Peak-End

Pleasure memories impacted by the most intense period and last period of the experience

Duration neglect

we overestimate how long our emotions are going to last

Positive affectivity

one’s tendency to experience positive emotions

The Nun Study (2001)

Relationship between positive emotions and longevity in 180 nuns. Those with more positive words in their autobiographies at 22 lived significantly longer lives. 

• meta-analytic results later show link between mortality and subjective well-being

UK Million Women Study

Women self report on their happiness: 39% happy most of the time, 44% usually happy, 17% unhappy. Unhappy group had higher rates of mortality.

• time frame not long enough to span women’s life spans

Mills College Yearbook Study

1958 and 1960 yearbook pictures. All but 3 women were smiling. Ranked smiles on Duchenne level scale.

Found: Duchenne level predicted marital status and happiness in marriages

• Attractiveness did not predict satisfying relationship

Does money make you happier?

Weak relationship between income and happiness. More strongly related to life satisfaction.

• At lower levels of income, income is more strongly related to positive affect

• Wealthy nations > poor nations

Easterlin Paradox

More people have more money over time, but happiness scores aren’t changing. (adjusted for inflation). Happiness has stayed pretty stable even though income has changed a lot. 

Does how you spend your money matter?

Spending money on things = shorter happiness boost (hedonic adaptation) than spending money on experiences 

Hedonic adaptation

Emotional experiences will return to baseline emotional state (for positive and negative emotions) 

• We adapt to things more quickly than we adapt to experiences.

• spending money on other people and buying back time associated with happiness

Cheerfulness, Income, and Parental Income

Parental income at 18 affects the strength of the relationship between your cheerfulness at 18 and how much money you make at age 37

Why do we have emotions?

1. May help integrate information

2. May be important to survival

Somatic marker hypothesis

 bodily sensations give you information about what’s important in our environments

Facial feedback hypothesis

your emotions come from feedback from your face (smiling could cause you to be happier)

Behavioral action tendencies

what your body wants to do in response to an emotion. prolongs emotions.

Broaden and Build Theory

positive emotions → expansive awareness, thinking broadly → building resources → better equipped to handle later stress and threats

Broaden (b&b theory)

Positive emotions broaden thinking about possible actions, opening awareness to a larger range of thoughts and actions

• have global and broadened thinking about your environment

Build (b&b theory)

Positive emotions related to survival and reproduction on a larger time scale because it allows you to build resources that help you.

Undoing hypothesis

Induction of positive emotion after induction of negative emotion associated with faster return to baseline physiological function.

• positive emotion helps “undo” the effects of negative emotion

Transcendence

moving beyond the ordinary state

self-transcendence

move beyond egocentric concerns and basic needs. Connecting with something larger than yourself

What are the four theories of meaning in life?

Logotherapy, terror management theory, sense of coherence, four needs for meaning

Logotherapy

a theory of life purpose and meaning developed by Viktor Frankl.

• Existential vacuum: a perception that the universe has no meaning. meaning only exists objectively in the world and is found through acting on values

Noogenic neurosis

Logotherapy theory. a mental illness caused by lack of meaning or purpose.

• Three values: creative, experiential, and attitudinal.

Terror Management Theory

theory linking meaning in life to culture and self-esteem (ex: religions that promise a sense of “immortality”)

• Putting our minds at ease to distract us from the reality that we don’t know how long our lives will be. 

Sense of Coherence (SOC)

people seek to establish a sense of coherence in order to cope and achieve desired outcomes in life.

• three components: meaningfulness, comprehensibility, and manageability.

Four needs for meaning

there is no single reason people seek meaning - Instead, people have four basic needs for meaning:

• purpose, value, efficacy, self-worth

Religion

a fixed system of ideas or ideological commitments. institutional.

Spirituality

refers to a personal, subjective, and transcendent experience

Possible mechanisms linking R/S to Mortality

1. healthier behavior

2. coping

3. social support

4. psychological states

Morality

 the principles and values that guide what people “should” do; internalized guidelines for what is right and wrong

Intrapersonal values

basic values that exist as part of a sense of self

Interpersonal values

values based on social context (shared morals outside of yourself)

Morals foundation theory: 6 values

care, fairness, liberty, loyalty, authority, sanctity

Care

cherishing and protecting others

Fairness

rendering justice according to shared values

Liberty

loathing of tyranny

Loyalty

standing with your group, family, nation

Authority

obeying tradition and legitimate authority

Sanctity

abhorrence for disgusting things

Affective Primacy

argument that affect (emotion) precedes cognition both situationally and phylogenetically (rational).

• Emotional parts of our brains are older than rational, thinking parts of our brains. Situationally, emotionally comes first.

Moral intuition

fast, automatic, affect-laden processes in which evaluative (good/bad, like/dislike) appears in consciousness without any awareness of having gone through reasoning. 

Moral reasoning

 controlled, “cooler” process, conscious mental activity. THINKING.

Evidence for affective primacy

1. nearly instant implicit reactions

2. affective reactions usually predict later judgments and behaviors

3. manipulating emotions can influence judgments

4. experience of “moral dumbfounding”

5. Medial prefrontal cortex (including ventro-medial pre-frontal cortex and medial frontal gyrus) important in morality – integrate affect and reason/decision/plans

Three routes to happiness

The pleasant life, the engaged life, the meaningful life

the pleasant life

Involves doing things that bring pleasure, such as eating a favorite food, watching a movie, or shopping. However, these moments can be fleeting, and the brain adapts to repeated sensory input.

The engaged life

Involves being interested in activities and connected to others, such as in work, parenting, love, or leisure time.

The meaningful life

Involves feeling like what you do matters, and belonging to and serving something larger than yourself.

Intrinsic religious orientation

people who sincerely believe in their religions and attempt to live their lives accordingly. One of the most important aspects of their life.

Extrinsic religious orientation

people who treat religion as a means to other ends. They may sincerely believe in certain aspects of their religion, they don’t see the beliefs as primary ends in themselves.

Quest religious orientation

people who tend to openly face existential questions, treating religion as a continuous quest for answers rather than a set of already answered questions. 

phenomenology

the study of subjective human experience

positive psychology

the study of optimal human functioning