LECTURE 1-CHAPTER 1
→Today:
1. What is positive psychology?
2. What are important themes in positive psychology?
3. What is the history of well-being and happiness?
4. What is the reproducability crisis?
1. What is positive psychology?
Positive psychology is the scientific study of what enables individuals and communities to thrive” Mission statement
of International Positive Psychology Association, 2010
“Scientific study of ordinary human strengths and virtues (..) Positive psychology urges psychologists to adopt a more
open and appreciative perspective regarding human potentials, motives, capacities” Laura King, 2001
• increase research on psycho-logical well-being and strengths
• use of psychological theory, research, and intervention techniques to understand the positive, the adaptive,
the creative, and the emotionally fulfilling elements of human behavior
Positive psychology also relates to other disciplines:
2. What are important themes in positive psychology?
→Dimensions of positive psychology
In order to nurture talent and make life more fulfilling, positive psychology focuses on three general areas of human
experience:
-Positive subjective states (positive emotions)
• Lecture on positive emotions
• Lecture on life satisfaction
• Lecture on love
-Positive individual traits (positive behavioral patterns seen in people over time)
• Lecture on creativity
• Lecture on virtues
• Lecture on thankfulness
-Positive institutions (societal level)
, • Lecture on positive institutions
Positive psychology, then, is the scientific study of positive human functioning and flourishing at a number of levels,
such as the biological, personal, relational, institutional, cultural, and global dimensions of life.
→ Positive psychology is concerned essentially with the elements and predictors of the good life. The Good Life is a
combination of 3 elements (factors that lead to well-being):
-Positive individual traits
• Sense of integrity
• Ability to be creative
• Virtues (courage, humility)
-Positive connections to others
• Ability to love
• Altruistic concerns
• Ability to forgive
-Life regulation qualities
• Sense of autonomy
• Self-control
• Wisdom
→Positive emotions matter
• Research on positive emotions has taken a back seat until recently
• Positive emotions are important can help fight psychological problems
Evidence:
• A lack of positive emotions can set the stage for depression 10 years later
• Therapy: Improvement in positive emotions induces improvement in negative emotion
• Positive emotions are linked to greater success in life: job, relationships, health, satisfaction
(Wichers et al,2008; Geschwind et al, 2011)
,→Flourishing: what do people do correctly in life?
Despite life’s difficulties, most people adjust quite well and some people adapt extraordinarily well. How do they
manage?
Flourishing: a model of complete mental health (Keyes & Lopez, 2000)
In their system, people who score high on well-being and low on mental illness are flourishing. As we will see, the
term flourishing is used in many areas of positive psychology to describe high levels of well-being. In con-trast,
someone who exhibits both high well-being and high mental illness is struggling. This refers to someone who is
generally doing well in life but is currently experiencing significant distress about some issue. People who are low on
well-being but high on mental illness symptoms are floundering. Obviously, floundering describes a difficult
situation. When someone shows signs of low well-being but also scores low on mental illness they are languishing.
This would describe someone who has no significant mental health issues but is also dissatisfied or unfulfilled in life.
These classifications may be especially important in understanding the lives of college students today.
• 2 relatively independent dimensions: 1) well-being (positive), 2) illness (negative)
• eliminating mental illness does not automatically enhance well-being!
• complete mental health is a combination of high emotional well-being, high psychological well-being, and high
social well-being, along with low mental illness
→other core themes
-positive social relationships are important for well being
-strengths and values are important, as they determine how one lives his life
-cooperation, empathy and compassion are innate in humans
-positive and negative emotions are independent from each other: they tend to have distinct causes and can even
occur at the same time. Therefore eliminating negative emotions does not imply an increase in positive emotions
-negative emotions are still recognized as important
-scientific study of well-being
3. What is the history of well-being and happiness?
-Ancient Greeks: Hedonism
• Pleasure is the basic component of the good life
• The pursuit of well-being is fundamentally the pursuit of individual sensual pleasures and the avoidance of
harm, pain, and suffering
, - Aristotle: The golden mean (384-322 BCE)
• Virtues as golden mean: Good, moral behavior is the moderation between two extremes
• state of balance, harmony, and equilibrium, which leads to a life lived in accordance with the principle of
eudaimonia
Aristotle: Eudaimonia (384-322 BCE)
• From hedonism to eudaimonia: a condition of meaning and self-realization, of flourishing and completeness,
of enduring joy
• Innate in every person: recognizing and cultivating our innate potential can lead to happiness (virtue theory
of happiness)
-Christianity: love and compassion
• Way to happiness is the message of the life of Jesus: Love and compassion
• Virtue theory in the middle ages: struggle between spirit and flesh
• Seven deadly sins: anger, envy, sloth, pride, lust, intemperance, greed
-Renaissance (1400-1600): value of independent thought
• Creativity and the rise of the artists:
✓ Artists possess a special gift (that others lacked); the rise of individualism
• The rise of science (end of 17th century)
✓ Idea: rational persons can decide for themselves what is true
✓ Tools to seek truth: Logic, objectivity, and empiricism
• The rising importance of the social world (18th and 19th century)
• Utilitarianism: happiness for all people is the ultimate aim of all human actions and should be used as the
standard by which actions should be evaluated as right or wrong
-Romanticism (19th century)
• Growing importance of emotional experience for living a full live
• Rising individualism and growing importance of love
✓ Marriage should be based on affection between two people
✓ Two people voluntarily enter into this commitment
✓ Autonomy (from family, friends, institutions)
-20th century: Before World War II
• Curing illness
• Making life more fulfilling
• Nurturing talent
• William James (1842-1910):
✓ The Emotions
✓ How to awaken human potential?
• Alfred Adler (1870-1937):
✓ Individual Psychology
✓ Any child can learn anything
✓ Compassion, friendliness, nurturance, and altruism are innate in every child but are invariably affected
by social support and discouragement
• Carl Jung (1875-1961):
✓ Analytic Psychology
✓ Capacity for personal growth in second half of lifespan
✓ Healthy personality as one that integrates the different components of the self, such as the persona
(social self) and one’s striving for meaning.
