Positive Psychology

Understanding

• Positive Psychology focuses on positive aspects of human life.

• Scientific study of happiness, strengths, and growth.

• Emphasizes improving individual quality of life and well-being.

Introduction

• We typically focus more on the negative rather than positive things.

• Positive psychology focuses on virtues, character strengths, happiness, leading to achieving a meaningful and enriching life.

Meaning of positive psychology

• 'Positive psychology is the scientific study of what makes life worth living' - 'Peterson, 2008'.

• Focuses building on the personal strengths and all the positive qualities and experiences in life.

• Martin Seligman officially introduced Positive Psychology as a subfield.

• importance to studying things like joy, courage, happiness rather than stress, anxiety, illness, disorders, conflicts, frustrations etc.

• Seligman defined positive psychology as "The scientific study of positive human functioning and flourishing on multiple levels that include the biological, personal, relational, institutional, cultural and global dimensions of life".

Importance and Need of Positive Psychology

• Research suggests that the greater weight and attention is given to the negatives in human behavior compared to the positives.

• Studies strongly suggest that one negative comment can undo many acts of kindness and one bad trait can undermine a person's reputation leading to a downfall.

• Positive psychology believes that a person can overcome many psychological problems by adopting a positive approach.

Life above zero

• Positive psychology emphasizes study of life above zero.

• Here zero is the line that divides illness from health and unhappiness from happiness.

• Life below zero indicates life which contains stress, problems in life, physical and mental diseases, unhealthy social relations etc. These factors negatively influence human life.

• There are positive deviations in the upper section and negative deviations in the lower section

• The upper section indicates positive characteristics, In the lower section there are negative characteristics which are called characteristics below zero.

• It also shows that what is near zero. i.e. -1 to +1 indicates neutral characteristics.

• According to DSM classification as we go down below zero, we see disorders and dysfunction. But major objective of positive psychology is to take human life above zero.

• Life above zero covers a large area of positive aspects of human behaviour like happiness, optimism, hope, trust, character strength, compassion,empathy, mindfulness, resilience etc. these are the areas that positive psychology focuses on.

Positive emotions – Broaden and Build theory

• According to Barbara Fredrickson’s Broaden and Build theory of positive emotions, we can think of positive emotions as being a way to be open to positive things in our life.

• When we are happy or experience positive emotions, we tend to think more positive thoughts. This is reflected in our behaviours too.

• For example, being in a positive frame of mind, we want to be around people and socialize. Thus we have effectively increased or built our social and psychological resources.

• When we experience a positive emotion it leads to broadening (increasing) the number of actions we can think of performing. These actions help strengthen our psychological resources which improves our well being.

• This is the way in which we can manage our emotions by trying to experience greater number of positive emotions, which will increase and strengthen our psychological and social resources. This enables us to lead a more fulfilling life.

Happiness

Definition of happiness.

• Happiness is a positive emotional state that is subjective for each person.

The definition makes it clear that there are subjective differences in experience of happiness e.g. some people are very happy when they get sweets and there are some who just hate sweets!

Theories of Happiness

Determinants of happiness

TIP:- To learn the six determinants remember, ‘ O ROSE GM’

O - Optimism

R -Relationship

O - Opportunity

SE - Self esteem

G - Goals

M -Meaning in life

Strong and intimate social Relationships

• Robust and intimate relationships within as well as outside the family help an individual to build better support system to rely on at the time of difficulties.

• It also produces greater positive contacts adding to overall happiness.

Optimism

When a person is more hopeful about the future, he/she will experience more positive emotions thereby reducing negative emotions like stress and anxiety.

Self Esteem

• Having a positive evaluation of one’s own self is positive self esteem.

• This enhances the confidence level of the individual and their ability to approach challenges more constructively.

• This results in greater incidences of being successful, thus adding to his happiness level.

Achieving challenging Goals

• When a person adjusts the goal according to his capacities it becomes a challenging goal.

• Achieving such challenging goals leads to happiness.

• On the contrary if the goals are much higher than the capacity of the individual to reach, it leads to frustration and stress.

• Similarly if the goals are too easy to achieve it may lead to boredom.

• Thus the trick to maintain happiness level is to find out and achieve a goal which is neither too easy nor too difficult.

Perceiving Meaning in life

• Research shows that an individual who does not experience meaning in life tends to experience more negative emotions like boredom, frustration, depression, loneliness etc.

• Therefore it is the responsibility of each individual to create a unique meaning and have a purpose in his own life to ensure happiness.

Perspective of looking at the world as an Opportunity rather than a threat

• Each individual can look at the challenges of life either as an opportunity to develop his potentials or as setbacks creating damage in his life.

• As we’ve seen earlier achieving challenging goals leads to happiness. That means our perspective of looking at the world matters for our level of happiness.

Optimism

Meaning of Optimism

• Optimism is a mental attitude that includes feelings of hopefulness and a belief that the future will be positive, favourable and desirable and that negative events are temporary setbacks to be overcome.

• There are two components of optimism – feeling and thinking.

• Optimism involves feelings like being hopeful, confident and positive about the future.

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1. It is seen that the optimist tend to view the present adverse events as not stable (temporary)

2. An optimist does not blame himself as solely being responsible for the negative outcome.

3. An optimist does not generalize failure for the future events.

Optimist versus Pessimist

Empathy

Empathy is the capacity to understand and feel what another person is experiencing from within their frame of reference, that is the capacity to place oneself in another’s position.

Simon Baron- Cohen (2004) believes that empathy consists of three components:

Cognitive empathy

It means knowing how the other person feels and what they might be thinking. It is sometimes called perspective-taking.

Emotional reactivity

• It means directly feeling the emotions that another person is feeling.

• It’s a deep-seated, gut reaction that often feels like a visceral human response.

• Connecting with another human in this way is intimate and can form a strong bond.

Social skills

With this kind of empathy we not only understand a person’s predicament and feel with them, but are spontaneously moved to help, if needed i.e. how easily individuals engage with others.

• Most research on empathy has revealed that practice of empathy builds trust and increases feeling of safety.

• It is also a key to successful relationships.

• It supports the social connections required for communication and shared activities.

• A world with empathy is nurturing and supportive – it creates an environment where people can be creative and take risks.

How can empathy be nurtured?

There are some methods which can help us to promote the empathy.

Increase social interactions

• Simple method is to have a person interact more frequently with people who need help.

• With such frequent contacts the individual truly begins to understand the perspectives and motives of the people who are being helped.

Connecting through similarities

• point out similarities with another person e.g same type of work, having same type of problem or goals, growing up in the same part of country, etc.

• This may lead to realize that we all are the part of the same world.

Ask yourself what you are feeling:

• The first step towards understanding others is understanding yourself.

• Research shows that people who are more accurate in judging their own motives and emotions are able to empathize better.

Challenge yourself:

When you undertake something which is quite challenging and you have to struggle hard to achieve goal, you are more likely to be humble and humility is a key enabler of empathy.

Cultivate your sense of curiosity:

• Try replacing the habit of judging by the new habit of curiosity.

• You tend to ask more frequently when curious, leading you to open up and develop stronger understanding of people around you.

Widen your circle

Empathy, especially for strangers, starts with exposure to people who are different than us.

Mindfulness

Meaning of mindfulness

• This highlights the significance of an important positive aspect of human behavior known as Mindfulness.

• Mindfulness refers to a state of awareness.

• It is a type of mental alertness and plays an important role in increasing the accuracy of performing any task.

• It is a significant concept related to the attention process.

• Mindfulness is the basic human ability to be fully present, aware of where we are and what we’re doing, and not overly reactive or overwhelmed by what’s going on around us.

• Self-regulation and self control of our behavior increases due to mindfulness. This results in growth and happiness.

• Mindlessness is the opposite of mindfulness mentioned earlier. Mindlessness means performing a task with less concentration and little awareness of what is going on in the present moment.

Mindfulness Meditation:

Mindfulness meditation is a significant concept related to mindfulness. In Buddhist philosophy, mindfulness practice is a form of meditation which has a long tradition. Life’s problem can be seen more clearly through a clear mind. Meditation is one of the ways in which mindfulness can be increased.

Resilience

Meaning of Resilience

• Resilience is the act of “bouncing back” or resisting cracking under pressure.

• According to the American Psychological Association, resilience is the process of adapting well in the face of adversity, trauma, tragedy, threats or significant sources of stress — such as family and relationship problems, serious health problems or workplace and financial stressors.

When people are faced with an adverse condition, there are three ways in which they may approach the situation.

1. They may react with anger and consider themselves as victims.

2. They may collapse and get overwhelmed by negative emotions like fear, anxiety, distress etc. This may weaken their resilience and also increases their vulnerability to physical and psychological diseases.

3. They may simply become upset about the disruptive change. Rather than just waiting for things to happen, they actively try to make their goals a reality. Instead of falling into despair or hiding from problems with unhealthy coping strategies, they face life's difficulties head-on.In many cases, they may emerge even stronger than they were before. They are Resilient individuals.

Importance of Resilience

• Resilience helps us recover from setbacks and move ahead with our life.

• Some people who are low on resilience tend to get overwhelmed by the challenges and experience emotional distress. It is seen that in such times they do not feel confident about their abilities and might feel bitter, angry or anxious with life.

• On the other hand individuals high in resilience after a period of disturbance are able to recover and regain their confidence to move forward in life.

The 7 C’s of Resilience:

Types of Resilience

There are Four types of resilience, they are, Psychological, Emotional, Physical, and Community.

Psychological Resilience

• Psychological resilience refers to the ability to mentally withstand or adapt to uncertainty, challenges, and adversity.

• People who show psychological resilience develop coping strategies and capabilities that enable them to remain calm and focused during stressful situations and move on without prolonged negative consequences.

Emotional Resilience

• Emotional resilience refers to the ability to cope emotionally with stress and adversity.

• Managing their emotions by using internal and external resources rationally.

Physical Resilience

• It is the body’s ability to adapt to challenges, maintain the stamina and strength, and recover quickly and efficiently.

• It’s a person’s ability to function and recover when faced with illness, accidents, or other physical demands.

Community Resilience

Community resilience refers to the ability of groups of people to respond to and recover from adverse situations, such as natural disasters, acts of violence, economic hardship, and other challenges to their community.