Positive Psychology: Resilience

Intro to Positive Psychology

• %%Positive psychology%%: “the scientific study of what makes life most worth living” (Peterson, 2008)
    * the scientific approach to studying human thoughts, feelings, and behavior, with a focus on strengths instead of weaknesses, building the good in life instead of repairing the bad
• Positive psychology focuses on the positive events and influences in life, including:
    * $Positive experiences$ (like happiness, joy, inspiration, and love).
    * Positive $states and traits$ (like gratitude, resilience, and compassion).
    * Positive $institutions$ (applying positive principles within entire organizations and institutions).
• As a field, positive psychology spends much of its time thinking about topics like character strengths, optimism, life satisfaction, happiness, wellbeing, gratitude, compassion (as well as self-compassion), self-esteem and self-confidence, hope, and elevation.

Resilient Responding

• %%Resilience%%: refers to “processes or patterns of positive adaptation and development in the context of significant threats to an individual’s life or function.” (Masten and Wright)
    * “The psychological quality of resetting oneself after significant setbacks, and of returning from adversity relatively unscathed, and perhaps even stronger.” (Tugade)
• Desirable events can help to offset stressful events w/ two drives:
    * The first is to protect against harm.
    * The second is to move forward, learn and grow.
      * To their mind, resilient responding depends on using the motivations to: ==Cultivate recovery==, %%Maintain the recovery once acquired%%, and ^^Use the experience as a mechanism for growth^^
• The best indicator of potential for resilience is the ability to experience positive emotionality, even the face of dire stressors
• $Genetic factors$ contributing to resilience:
    * Heritability studies have shown significant genetic influences on positive emotions, cognitive flexibility, mental toughness, and active coping.
      * %%Cognitive flexibility%%: the ability to adapt our behavior and thinking in response to the environment.
      * %%Active coping%%: a more controlled process of resilience in which a person directly works to deal with a stressor.
      * %%Mental toughness%%: the ability to push past failures by remaining positive and competitive.
• Genes thought to be related to various aspects of resilience are the ==COMT gene==, which is involved in dopamine processing, the %%5-HTTPLR gene related to depression%%, and the ^^BNDF and NYP genes related to anxiety disorders^^.