Positive Psychology: Positive Cognitive States and Processes

Fixed vs Growth Mindset:

• Fixed Mindset: intelligence is ^^static^^
  • Leads to a desire to look smart
• Growth Mindset: intelligence ^^can be developed^^
  • Leads to a desire to learn
• Tyranny of Now: cheat on a test, run from difficulty, find someone who has it worse
• Discover the Power of Yet
  • ^^Process^^ the error by learning deeply from it
• ^^Reward the use of effort, strategy and process^^ instead of results alone
• Every time students are pushed out of their comfort zones, neurons form stronger connections that can make one smarter, wiser.
• Basic human abilities can be cultivated and nurtured.

Mindfulness, Flow, and Spirituality: In Search of Optimal Experiences

• Life Pursuits

  • Intentional, moment-to-moment searches for optimal experiences give us joy and fulfillment.
  • Mindless pursuit of less than meaningful goals or unchallenging ones leaves people bored and empty.

• Many walk through life unaware of the significance of our lives and its relation to our experiences and emotional selves.

• Daniel Kahnenman

  • There are about 20,000 moments in 3 seconds in a 16-hour day, so this is what life consists of a sequence of moments. 
  • Each moment is very rich in experience. There is a goal, a mental content, a physical state and even an emotional arousal.
  • Many things are happening.
  • And then you can ask, “What happens to these moments?”

• Mindfulness

  • State of active, open attention to the present. This state is described as observing one’s thoughts and feelings without judgment.
  • Awareness + Acceptance
  • Flexible state of mind
  • Here and now
  • Context and perspective
  • Active search for novelty > mindlessness involves zoning out to everyday life.

• This requires us to

  • Overcome mind wandering to reduce uncertainty in everyday life
  • Override the tendency to engage in automatic behavior
  • Engage less frequently in evaluations of self, others and situations.

• Openness to novelty and sensitivity to context and perspective. 

• Cultivating awareness of everyday happenings and physiological and psychological sensations.

• Qualities

  • Non judging
  • Non striving
  • Acceptance
  • Patience
  • Trust 
  • Openness
  • Letting go
  • Gentleness
  • Generosity
  • Empathy
  • Gratitude
  • Loving
  • Kindness

• Living with Mindfulness

  • Being mindful of emotions
  • Being mindful of eating
  • Mindful stretching exercises
  • Mindful breathing and sitting

• Benefits of Mindfulness

  • Successful treatment of chronic pain and anxiety
  • Stress-reduction
  • Affiliative trust towards others (mindful parenting)
  • Change in perspectives and outlook
  • Increased cultural sensitivity

• Mindful Brain and Rejection

  • Part of the human experience is being rejected
  • Mindful individuals report less distress during reaction because they don’t attempt to suppress the experience in the first place
  • Mindfully accepting, rather than suppressing goes a long way towards healing from social injuries.

  

  

Flow and Mindfulness

• Mindfulness and flow involve deep concentration, flow involves goal-directed behavior

• Mindfulness channels concentration toward the present moment, flow channels concentration toward skill and goal achievement which includes past and future and assessment of these thoughts

• Flow

  • A person can make himself happy or miserable, regardless of what is actually happening outside just by changing the content of consciousness
  • State which a person involved perceived that nothing else matters
  • ^^Intense concentration^^, no attention for problems or anything else
  • Where one loses oneself in the process, time gets distorted 
  • ^^“Can do” attitude^^
  • Happiness is something that individuals can conjure themselves
  • Happiness was a function of our degree of engagement with whatever we choose to do
  • Start doing more of what you love
  • ^^Optimal state of engagement^^ 
  • A person perceives challenges to action as neither underutilizing nor overwhelming his or her existing skills.
  • Has clear attainable goals and immediate feedback about progress

• Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

  • Intrigued by the stories about artists who “^^lost themselves in their work^^”
  • Similar activities that causes this single-mindedness state
  • State of “full-capacity” living that is believed to be directly linked to optimal development and functioning.

• Finding your Flow

  • Why do people pursue particular goals with great fervor in the absence of rewards?
  • Conditions of flow appear remarkably similar across work settings, play settings and cultures, which include:
  • Perceived challenges and opportunities for actions that stretch
  • Clear proximal goals and immediate feedback about progress.

• What happens during flow?

  • Intense and focused concentration on what one is doing at the present moment
  • Merging of action and happiness
  • Loss of reflective self-consciousness
  • A sense that one can control one’s actions.
  • Time has passed faster than normal
  • Experience that activity as intrinsically rewarding, end goal just an excuse for the process.

• Benefits of Flow

  • Mastery of skills
  • Flow in workspaces
  • Optimal experiences
  • Flow influencing the environment and the individual
  • Work becomes “serious play”

• Autotelic Personality

  • Cluster of traits exhibited by a person who enjoys life and generally does things for his/her own sake rather than in order to achieve something later.

• Concept of Flow

  • Optimal experiences and its role in development
  • Focus, attention and the self
  • Flow, complexity and development
  • Measuring Flow and Autotelic Personality
  • Consequences of Flow
  • Nature and Dynamics of Flow 
  • Obstacles and Facilitators of Flow 
  • Autotelic Families
  • Interventions and Programs to Foster Flow

Spirituality: In Search of the Sacred

• Thoughts, feelings and behaviors that fuel and arise from the search for the Sacred.
• Spiritual strivings, which include personal goals associated with the ultimate concerns of purpose, ethics and recognition of the transcendent.
• Although specific content of spiritual beliefs varies, all cultures have a concept of an ultimate, transcendent, sacred and divine force.
• Belief in God
• Value of Prayer
• Religion 
• Aid in human functioning
  • Mental health 
  • Marriage and Family Life
  • Stress and Grief