Positive Psychology: Potency of Positive Emotions

The Potency of Positive Emotions

Dr. Alice Isen

• in experiencing mild positive emotions, we are more likely to
  • help other people
  • be flexible in our thinking
  • come up with solutions to our problems

Dr. Barbara Fredrickson

• ^^Broaden and Build Model^^

• explain the social-cognitive effects of positive emotional experiences

  • Negative Emotions: physical reactions (fight/flight)
  • Positive Emotions: cognitive reactions

• The experience of joy expands to the realm of what a person feels like doing at the time

  • the person who is happy listed more possibilities than a person who is in a negative state

• joy (positive emotions) appears to open up to many new thought and behaviors

  

Theories of Happiness

Need-Goal Satisfaction Theories

• Reduction of tension leads to happiness (psychoanalytic, humanist theories)
• ^^We are happy because we have reached our goals^^
• Happiness as a target of our psychological pursuits

Process-Activity Theory

• ^^Engaging in particular life activities generate happiness^^
• People who engage in FLOW in daily life tend to be happy
  • Flow: engagement in interesting activities that match or challenge task related skills
• Engagement in activity produce happiness
• Process of pursuing goals generate energy and happiness

Genetic-Personality Predisposition

• Costa and McRae (1988)
• ^^biologically determined happiness^^
• genetic-factors contribute to positive emotionality (40%) and negative emotionality (55%)
• happiness dependent on temperament since individuals may vary in the type of adaptation to positive or negative external experiences
• more research is needed to strengthen the connection between happiness and personality

Emotional Experiences

Emotion-Focused Coping

• intense emotions were seen dysfunctional and opposed to rationality
• linking with maladaptive outcomes in life
• Stanton (1994) posits the potential of emotion-focused coping
• Emotional approach involves active moving towards, rather than away, from a stressful encounter
• Emotional Processing
  • ^^attempts to understand emotions^^
  • Examples
  • I realize that my feelings are valid and important.
  • I take time to figure out what I am feeling.
  • I acknowledge my emotions.
• Emotional Expression
  • ^^free and intentional displays of feeling^^
  • Examples
  • I feel free to express my emotions.
  • I take time to express my emotions.
  • I let my feelings come out freely.
• Benefits
  • most people benefit (short term) from ^^expressing their emotions^^ in a meaningful way
  • Emotional processing seem to be more adaptive as people learn more about what they feel and how they feel it

Emotional Intelligence

• array of non-cognitive capabilities, competencies and skills that help us deal with the demands of the environment
• measures personality and mood variables such as
  • self-regard, empathy, tolerance, happiness
• ^^“higher form of intelligence”^^
• the ability to perceive and express emotions
• to use emotions and emotional understanding to facilitate thinking
• to understanding complex emotions, relationships among emotions and behavioral consequences
• to manage emotions

Socioemotional Selectivity Theory

• older adults are more able to
  • focus less on negative emotions
  • engage more deeply with emotional content
  • savor the positive in life

Emotional Storytelling

• written disclosure of emotional upheaval
• useful means to process intense negative emotions

Positive Cognitive States and Processes

Positive Thinking and Management

• The positive thinking that usually comes with optimism is a key part of effective stress management and effective stress management is associated with many health benefits

Advantages of Positive Thinking

• Research shows that people who feel confident in themselves can ^^problem solve and make better decisions, take more risks, assert themselves and strive to meet their personal goals^^
• Advantages of positive thinking include ^^less stress, better overall physical and emotional health, longer life span, and better coping skills^^

Self-Efficacy

• ^^the belief that one’s skills and capabilities are enough^^ to accomplish one’s desired goals in a specific situation
• what I believe I can do with my skills under certain conditions
• Learned Human Pattern
• Social Cognition Theory: humans actively shape their lives rather than passively reacting to situations
• S-E Components
  • performance accomplishment, vicarious learning, verbal encouragement, and emotional states
• Performance Appraisal: previous successes in similar situations
• Vicarious Learning: modeling on others in the same situations
• Verbal Encouragement: undergoing verbal persuasion by a powerful, trustworthy expert (or an attractive person)
• Emotional States: how level of arousal and state of emotion can be attached with the activity

Neurobiology of Self-Efficacy

• Frontal and Pre-Frontal Lobes: facilitate prioritization of goals and the strategic thinking that is crucial for self-efficacy
• Problem Solving: the ^^right hemisphere^^ reacts to the ^^dilemmas^^ as related by the linguistic left hemisphere
• Realistic self-efficacy can lessen ^^cardiac reactivity and lower blood pressure^^ -- which facilitates coping

Measures of Self-Efficacy

• Occupational Questionnaire (Teresa, 1991)
• Career Counseling Self-Efficacy Scale (O’Brien & Heppner, 1997)
• Hurricane Coping Self-Efficacy Survey
• Cultural Self-Efficacy Scale (Briones et.al., 2009)

Influence of Self-Efficacy

• building on successes through goal-setting and the incremental meeting of these goals
• allowing the person to imagine himself/herself behaving effectively
• teaching techniques for lowering arousal and to increase the likelihood of a more adaptive self-efficacious thinking

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