Final Exam Flashcards
● Know the root meaning for “hap” (core of the word English word “happiness”) and “felix” (core of the Spanish word “felicidad” which translated in English is “happiness”)
○ Hap: luck, chance, or fortune
○ Felix: pleasure, joy, contentment, fate or luck
● Self-esteem and “sociometer” hypothesis:
○ Sociometer hypothesis: Low self-esteem is an alarm indicating that one’s group acceptance is not secure
■ Social rejections are especially potent at reducing self-esteem
■ Individuals are more easily influenced by social pressure when self esteem is low
■ When self esteem is low, higher susceptibility of peer pressure because you behave in a way that makes you feel like you will fit in with the group. If you are not in a secure position within a group, you are not in a good position
● 1QThis hypothesis shows that low self-esteem experience says we have a built in signal that tells us we are not in a secure, long term position when we are not accepted by a social group
■ Partly dependent on attachment style
● Happiness formula
○ Happiness = S + C + V
○ S = biological Set point, C= life conditions, V = voluntary activities
○ C that matter: noise, commuting, lack of control, shame, relationships
○ V that matters: increasing both pleasures (food, sex, backrubs, etc) and gratifications (can lead to flow)
■ flow/”being in the zone” AKA a “task that is challenging yet closely matched to one’s abilities” can be more satisfying than “Chocolate after sex” (Haidt 95)
● NB: Nothing is more satisfying than chocolate after sex, Haidt was being hyperbolic /s
■ Wise man chooses the tastiest food, not the most; variety spice of life
○ Experiences give more happiness than material goods because they often have a shared social value. “Activities connect us to others; objects often separate us” (Haidt 100).
○ The challenge is to find out exactly what kinds of C & V can push H to the top
■ The biggest part of (C) is LOVE, then pursuing right goals → create flow
● Meditation – basic idea of what it is, as discussed and demonstrated in section
○ What it is: intentional self regulation of attention from moment to moment
○ Attention training
○ Concentrative vs. mindful meditation
○ Benefits:
■ Decrease worry/anxiety
■ Change relationship to negative thoughts
■ Improve emotion regulation
■ Increase distress tolerance
■ Decrease impulsive, reactive behavior
■ Increase compassion and self acceptance
● Mindfulness
■ A mental state achieved by focusing one’s awareness on the present moment, while calmly acknowledging and accepting one’s feelings, thoughts, and bodily sensations, used as a therapeutic technique
■ Mindfulness is a form of meditation
○ 5 factors of mindfulness:
■ Observing ■ Describing ■ Acting with awareness ■ Non-judging of inner experience ■ Nonreactivity to inner experience
● Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT)
○ Most widely used evidence based method to treat mental health conditions
■ Effective
■ Particularly useful for depression, anxiety, phobias, mood problems
■ Many clinical studies indicate at least as effective as antidepressants; could even be a better long term solution
○ A distinct break from older psychoanalytic approaches that assumed that psychosocial problems are based in neuroses rooted in childhood
○ Simple idea: emotions are rooted primarily in thoughts and actions, and BOTH ARE BEHAVIORS
■ By changing thoughts, you can change emotions
○ Components it focuses on (the CBT triangle)- these 3 are locked together, so if one changes, then everything changes:
■ Physical behaviors (most voluntary)
■ Thoughts
● Can potentially find happiness or break from unhappiness by changing thoughts
■ emotions/desires (least voluntary)
● De-identification with emotions is a key part of CBT and meditation
○ Example:
■ Person says they are depressed because no one likes them and they have no friends
■ CBT: tell them to be friendly to 3 people today
● Goal : to demonstrate that people are friendly back in response to friendly behavior
● Over time: address the distorted thoughts that lead to negative emotions and behavior
● Change behavior to induce positive events, thoughts, and emotions
○ Cognitive distortions that can lead to negative moods:
■ All or nothing thinking ● If not perfect, then a failure ■ Overgeneralization ● Single negative event means a never ending pattern ■ Mental filter ● Focus on the negative
● Content Analysis of Verbatim Explanations (CAVE):
○ Each bad event and its explanation were written on index cards and given to four individuals to code
○ Coded for stability, globality and internality
○ CAVE-ing creates enormous opportunities for research by allowing them to assess explanatory style of populations that will not or cannot take questionnaires
○ CAVE-ing allows the researcher to travel back in time, analyze naturally-occurring verbatim materials in a non-intrusive way and predict various, already documented phenomena, including achievement and mental and physical health
○ With various populations, CAVE-ing is the only option
● Attributional style / Explanatory style: How we explain things that happen to us. Pessimism is internal, stable, and global.
○ Internal vs. External:
■ o Involves how one explains where the cause of an event arises. People experiencing events may see themselves as the cause; that is, they have internalised the cause for the event. Example: “I always forget to make that turn” (internal) as opposed to “That turn can sure sneak up on you” (external).
○ Global vs. Specific:
■ o This involves how one explains the extent of the effects. People may see the situation as affecting all aspects of life, e.g., “I can’t do anything right” or “Everything I touch seems to turn to gold”.
○ Stable vs. Temporary:
■ o This involves how one explains the extent of the cause. People may see the situation as unchangeable, e.g., “I always lose my keys” or “I never forget a face”
● Random Assignment:
○ Randomly assign which subjects go into which conditioned groups for experiments (active and waitlist control)
○ Training weekly for 2-3 hours per class, with a silent seven-hour retreat held during week 6
○ 1 hour per day, 6 days per week with the aid of audio guide
○ Results
■ Decreased anxiety for treatment group
■ More left-side prefrontal activity relative to right side
■ Increased responsivity of the immune system
● Flow:
○ State of immersion, total engagement, harmony, state of experience very important to good life
○ Being able to concentrate on what we are doing, concern for self disappears, concentration provides immediate feedback, sense of duration is altered, confronting tasks that we have the ability of completing
○ Being in the zone
● Job, career, calling:
○ Job- a necessary way to make money, but not a positive and fulfilling activity
○ Career- an opportunity to advance from one position to a better one
○ Calling - a fulfilling and socially useful activity
● Contact comfort (Harlow):
○ Basic need for young mammals to have physical contact with their mother.
○ The kind of cuddling baby does w/ mother suggests there is some direct social drive to be close to another
○ Contact with cloth had calming effect (animal comes to world ready to have attachment with mom – gets that from snuggling with diaper)
○ Wire mother vs. Cloth
■ Wire mother: un-fuzzy, uncomfortable, milk-dispensing
■ Cloth: fuzzy mother-like shape, never gave any milk
■ Nurturing > Sustenance
■ Comfort + Love > Food
■ In a fearful situation, monkey moves to fuzzy mom
● Attachment Theory:
○ Two basic goals guide children’s behavior: Safety and Exploration
○ Two needs are opposed and regulated by a kind of thermostat that measures the level of ambient safety.
○ E.g:
○ •“Strange situation”
○ –Infant and caregiver enter room with toys
○ –Stranger walks in and engages child
○ –Caregiver leaves for 3 minutes & stranger tries to comfort child
○ –Caregiver returns & stranger leaves
○ –Caregiver leaves – child is alone
○ –Stranger returns and tries to comfort child
○ –Caregiver returns and comforts child
○ When safety level is adequate, child plays and explores; when it is not, child stops playing and moves toward mom. If unreachable child cries and seeks touch or reassurance upon her return.
● Spirituality, know the 3 common features of it we discussed (early in class #22 slide titled “Spiritual Experience”) and their connection to evolves mechanisms of altruism:
○ Three common features:
■ Experience (feels like something)
■ One-ness- sibling/family/ close relationship
■ Gratitude
○ One-ness and gratitude lead to altruism bc tit for tat ( you feel grateful to them so you are good to them)
