Positive Psychology: Wisdom, Courage, Altruism, Gratitude, Attachment, Love, and Forgiveness

Vocabulary flashcards covering positive psychology concepts including wisdom, courage, altruism, gratitude, attachment styles, forms of love, and forgiveness frameworks.

Dialectical Operations Stage/Wisdom (Riegel, 1973)

A form of postformal operational thinking built on Piaget's work, characterized by logical argumentation in pursuit of truth or reality.

Sagacity

Profound knowledge and understanding, identified by Sternberg (1985) as one of the six qualities of wisdom.

Perspicacity

Acuteness of discernment and perception, identified by Sternberg (1985) as one of the six qualities of wisdom.

Balance Theory of Wisdom (Sternberg, 1998)

A theory proposing wisdom as specifying the processes of balancing interests and responses to environmental contexts in relation to achieving the common good.

Berlin Wisdom Paradigms (Baltes & Smith, 1990)

A framework defining wisdom as the ways and means of planning, managing, and understanding a good life, evaluated across five criteria of performance.

Physical Courage (O’Byrne et al., 2000)

The attempted maintenance of societal good by the expression of physical behavior grounded in the pursuit of socially valued goals.

Moral Courage (O’Byrne et al., 2000)

The behavioral expression of authenticity in the face of the discomfort of dissension, disapproval, or rejection.

Vital Courage (O’Byrne et al., 2000)

Perseverance through a disease or disability even when the outcome is ambiguous.

Psychological Courage

The strength displayed in facing one's own destructive habits.

Civil Courage

Brave behavior accompanied by anger and indignation that intends to enforce societal and ethical norms without considering one's own social costs.

True Courage (Rachman, 1984)

Being willing and able to approach a fearful situation despite the presence of subjective fear.

Altruism

Behavior that is aimed at benefiting another person, which can be motivated by personal egotism or pure empathy.

Reciprocity-Based Altruism

Prosocial behavior motivated by the likelihood of reciprocity from the person in need.

Care-Based Altruism

Prosocial behavior motivated by feelings of empathy for the recipient of the help offered.

Kin-Based Altruism

Prosocial helping behavior directed toward family.

Empathy-Altruism Hypothesis

The proposition that having empathy for another leads to a greater likelihood of helping, driven partly to avoid aversive arousal and negative emotions resulting from not helping.

Gratitude (Robert Emmons, 2005)

An emotional state emerging upon recognizing a positive outcome from another individual who acted in a way that was costly to them, valuable to the recipient, and intentionally rendered.

Benefit Finding

The process by which an individual comes through a major medical crisis or problem and discovers positive benefits in that experience.

Naikan

A Japanese practice where an individual meditates daily on three questions: what did I receive, what did I give, and what troubles and difficulties did I cause to others?

Innocent Bystander Effect

A social psychological phenomenon where residents of large cities diffuse their sense of personal responsibility for helping others.

Attachment System

A behavioral system regulating proximity-seeking behaviors that connect infants and caregivers across physical and emotional space.

Strange Situation (Mary Ainsworth, 1979)

A classic behavioral assessment strategy where a child is exposed to a novel situation with their caregiver, experiencing two separations and reunions to evaluate attachment quality.

Secure Attachment

An attachment pattern in the Strange Situation characterized by a balance between exploration of the environment and contact with the caregiver.

Insecure-Avoidant Attachment

An attachment pattern where children avoid the caregiver upon being reunited during the Strange Situation.

Insecure-Resistant/Ambivalent Attachment

An attachment pattern where children passively or actively show hostility toward the caregiver while simultaneously desiring to be held and comforted.

Attachment Anxiety (Brennan et al., 1998)

An adult attachment dimension marked by a compulsive need for closeness during distress, hyper-activating emotion regulation strategies, fears of abandonment, and a negative view of self.

Attachment Avoidance (Brennan et al., 1998)

An adult attachment dimension marked by a compulsive need for self-reliance, avoidance of intimacy, and a tendency to push partners away.

Passionate Love

The intense arousal that fuels a romantic union.

Companionate Love

The soothing, steady warmth that sustains a long-term relationship.

Consummate Love (Sternberg, 1986)

The most durable type of love, manifested when passion, intimacy, and commitment are present at high levels and in balance across both partners.

Minding (Harvey et al., 2001)

A reciprocal knowing process involving the nonstop, interrelated thoughts, feelings, and behaviors of persons in a relationship.

Forgiveness (McCullough and Colleagues)

An increase in prosocial motivation toward a transgressor, resulting in less desire for avoidance or revenge and an increased desire to act positively toward them.

Forgiveness (Enright and Colleagues, 1998)

A willingness to abandon one's right to resentment, negative judgment, and indifferent behavior toward an unjust offender while fostering compassion, generosity, and love.

Forgiveness (Tangney and Colleagues)

A cognitive-affective transformation where the victim realistically assesses harm, acknowledges the perpetrator's responsibility, and freely chooses to cancel the debt.

REACH Model (Everett Worthington)

A five-step forgiveness model consisting of Recall the hurt, promote Empathy, Altruistically give forgiveness, Commit verbally to forgive, and Hold onto forgiveness.