Intro to Positive Psych Midterm Chapter 1 Flashcards
The Rising Importance of the Social World (The focus)
- Focus on empiricism, rationalism, and mechanism created an image of human nature that appeared simple, understandable, and clear.
The Rising Importance of the Social World (Reformers) Basic need…
- Reformers such as Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill believed that basic needs of people to seek pleasure and avoid pain could be used to create a more stable society.
The Rising Importance of the Social World (Utilitarianism)
If you want to know whether a certain behavior is right or ethical or fosters the good life, then you must show that it leads to the enhancement of happiness for the greatest number of people.
Aim of Utilitarianism
According to this philosophy 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.
Hedonic Calculus
Jeremy Bentham asserted that was possible to quantify happiness by examining the ratio of positive to negative experiences in one’s life.
John Stuart Mill (Stance)
Agreed with many ideas of utilitarianism but disagreed with Bentham’s belief that all pleasures should be given equal value - a notion that is central to hedonic calculus.
John Stuart Mill (Belief)
He contended that crucial differences exist among pleasures in terms of their quality. Intellectual pleasures are far more important to human happiness than biologic pleasures, which humans share with other animals.
John Stuart Mill (Famous Saying)
It is better to be a human dissatisfied that a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied
Hedonism
The oldest approach to well-being and happiness
Hedonism (Focus)
Focuses on pleasure as the basic component to the good life.
Hedonism (Definition)
In its basic form is the belief that the pursuit of well-being is fundamentally the pursuit of individual sensual pleasures and the avoidance or harm, pain, and suffering.
Hedonism (Does it work?)
Has been seen as self-defeating and unworkable by most societies throughout history.
Hedonism (Why Doesn’t It Work?)
Sensual pleasures are transient and require and constant struggle to be sustained. When focused on too exclusively the hedonistic drive produces no lasting benefits to personality or personal growth
Hedonism (Behavior vs Reality)
The idea that we behave in order to increase physiological pleasure and avoid physiological pain is violated frequently enough that it cannot serve as the ultimate basis for any seriously inquiry into the good life or well-being
Positive Psychology
Seeks to investigate what people do correctly in life. People adapt and adjust to life in creative ways that allow them to feel good about life.
Psychological Bias
Psychological research has displayed bias that people are pawns to their biology. Argues that people are driven by their past, their biology, their cultural conditioning, or unconscious motives.
Basic Premise of Positive Psychology
Human beings are often, perhaps more often, drawn by the future than they are driven by the past.
Corey Keyes & Shane Lopez (Classification System)
- People who score high on well-being and low on mental illness are flourishing. -People who score high on well-being and high on mental illness are struggling. - People who score low on well-being and low on mental illness are languishing
- People who score low on well-being and high on mental illness are floundering
Corey Keyes & Shane Lopez (Complete Mental Health)
-Argued that systems of classifying mental health and well-being are incomplete because they focus on only a portion of what it means to be mentally healthy.
-Instead they suggest Complete Mental Health which a combination of high emotional well being, high psychological well-being, and high social well-being, along with low mental illness.
High Emotional-Wellbeing
Present when people are happy and satisfied with their lives
High Psychological Well-being
Found when people feel competent, autonomous, and self accepting- have a purpose in life- exhibit personal growth and enjoy positive relationships with others
High Social Well-being
People have positive attitudes towards others, believe that social change is possible, try to make a contribution to society, believe the social world is understandable, and feel part of a larger social community.
Measuring Social Well-being
Further measured with the following five dimensions: social acceptance, social actualization, social contribution, social coherence, and social integration. Complete model could include 12 basic classifications of well-being.
Aristotelian Ideal
Did not favor the intuition of eternal forms in search for higher truth and well-being.
-Valued poise, harmony, and the avoidance of emotional extremes.
-Believed that emptions were to be tamed by rigorous self-discipline to accept the dictates of reason.
Aristotle’s Goal
Find the golden mean that existed between the extremes of life.
Eudaimonia
- State of balance, harmony, and equilibrium.
- Condition of flourishing and completeness that constitutes true and enduring joy and well-being.
- Not a set of pleasures or creature comforts.
Central Idea of Eudaimonia
Person who is truly happy has what is worth desiring and worth having in life.
Though certain goals or objectives in life may produce positive emotions, these do not necessarily lead to eudaimonia.
Ideal toward which one strives
Aristotle (Virtues)
- He considered certain virtues to be dispositions of character that lead a person to eudaimonia.
Nicomachean Ethics
-We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then is not an act but a habit
Aristotle’s 12 Virtues
(Golden Mean Between Extremes)
- Courage, liberality, pride, friendliness, wittiness, justice, temperance, magnificence, good temper, truthfulness, shame, and honor.
Virtue Theory of Happiness
-cultivation and development of certain virtues leads a person toward the greatest well-being and good life.
Aristotle (Behavior Belief)
- He did not list specific behaviors that must be avoided.
- Whether any single behavior is a virtue or a vice depends on the specific situation in which it occurs.
Aristotelian Circle
-Well-being, virtue, and practical wisdom are all interrelated such that each continuously influences the other
Humanistic Psychology
-Studies what is healthy, adaptive, and creative and address the full range of human potential.
Humanistic Psychology vs. Positive Psychology
- Positive Psychology places greater emphasis on traditional empirical research
-Humanistic Psychology is based on theories of optimal personality development such as self-actualization. - Positive Psychology places greater emphasis on the well-being and satisfaction of the average person.
Humanistic Psychology vs Positive Psychology (Cont)
- Positive psychology focuses more on the benefits of happiness and positive emotions such as gratitude
- Humanistic psychologists tend to me more comfortable with types of research studies not based on statistical analyses such as case studies.
-What differences remain tend to be about philosophical assumptions rather than competing approaches to science.
The Dimensions of Positive Psychology
Three Levels of positive psychology
Subjective
Individual
Society
