Lecture 1/Aristotle Flashcards
Asking old questions
Things like: what is a good life, how can people become happier and healthier, how can we create a good society. These questions are as old as Aristotle, Socrates, Confucius, Aristotle, etc. Aristotle was kind of the beginning of positive psych
Positive psychology: a young field
1988 APA president Martin Seligman challenged the field to go beyond mental illness. He pointed to the three original missions of psychology: to cure mental illness (what most of the field did), make lives of people productive and fulfilling, and identify and nurture high talent. Seligman pointed to the last 2.
The neglected missions
Success in treating mental illness - 14 mental illnesses are treatable w/ psychotherapy, pharmacotherapy or both. Neglected the missions of making people’s lives better and nurturing genius. Mostly just getting people back to normal functioning.
Humanistic Psych
PP regards both the good and bad about life as genuine whereas humanists assume people are inherently good. PP is strongly committed to the scientific method, relies on evidence-based inferences and experiments, but humanists are skeptical of science as the basis for individual improvement (focus on individual experience). PP believes that cultures and situations (as well as genetics and neurochemistry) partially determine well-being, not just individual choices and free will. Humanists believe self-actualization is based in free will and individual choice (and that it is a fundamental motive).
Pop Psychology
PP can be this when it’s bad. 3 pillars of positive psychology rest in scientific understanding of positive experiences (contentment in past, happiness in the present, and hope for the future), positive individual traits (nurturing strengths and virtues like courage, compassion, resilience, curiosity, integrity, and wisdom), positive institutions (creating communities that foster positive individual traits and experiences - in schools, families, religious groups, and civic institutions).
Past 20 years of research
It has mostly been focused on individuals rather than on positive institutions. Subjective well-being has a large genetic component (set point), but this point can be shifted through intentional activities (50% genetic, 10% life circumstances like CEO vs 3rd world country, intentional activities are 40%). Well-being is more than happiness (three fundamental components of individual wellbeing): positive emotional experiences (feelings of happiness, gratitude, compassion, wonder, emotional resilience after stress or trauma), mental engagement (cognitive presence and engagement in work and life, flow and mindfulness, self-regulation and grit/cognitive resilience), meaningful life (virtue and purpose, feelings of purpose, spirituality, and social connection).
Aristotle’s definition of the good life
Ethics: what is the good life? Politics: what is the good society? Aristotle’s ethics are important to positive psychology because the three major tenets of his good life have been used as guides for research - happiness and pleasure are not the same, happiness is best thought of as virtue in action, happiness is also found in true friendship and community.
What is the greatest good? Happiness
How do we know what the greatest good is? We choose things for the sake of happiness. Why is it important to know? Influence on life, better figuring it out
Two kinds of happiness studies in positive psych
Hedonic happiness: arises from pleasant activities and positive emotions (like Aristotle’s discussion of pleasure). Eudaimonic happiness: arises from self-actualization, growth, and meaning (engaged life, meaningful life). Aristotle’s eudaimonia entails identifying one’s highest potentials, cultivating them, and living in accordance with them.
Hedonic happiness and meaning are distinct
Baumeister et al. (2013), examined the differential antecedents and consequences of hedonic happiness (which they called happiness) and eudaimonic happiness (which they called meaning). Being able to afford needs and wants was uniquely related to hedonic happiness but not meaning. Positive social relationships and a sense of love and belonging was important for both. Giving to others was uniquely related to meaning (not hedonic), stress and worry were positively related to meaning and negatively related to hedonic happiness, boredom (lack of engagement) negatively related to both. Feeling good and eudaimonia don’t necessarily go together.
Pleasure, engagement, and meaning: which wins?
Vella Brodrick et al (2009), 12,000 respondents. Scales, pleasure (life is too short to postpone the pleasures it can provide), engagement (I seek situations that challenge my skills and abilities), meaning (I have a spent a lot of time thinking about what life means and how I fit into the bigger picture). Pleasure, engagement, and meaning all predict happiness, but pleasure has a smaller relationship. Long-term happiness is more important.
Eudaimonia entails reflection and reason
Can get distracted by pleasure
Is choosing what is pleasant deceiving?
Steger et al (2008) examined the extent to which people engage in high eudaimonic behaviors - volunteering, donating money, persevering to reach a difficult goal, vs hedonic ones - eating food for the taste, watching TV/sleeping/playing video games, buying something for the self etc. Then tracked their well-being (positive emotions and overall life satisfaction) on the same day and the next day. Both hedonic and eudaimonic behaviors predicted positive emotions on the day they were done but only the eudaimonic behaviors predicted people’s sense of overall life satisfaction on the same day and on the next day. Can get deceived by pleasure in the moment.
Happiness: the eudaimonic view
Not as state of pleasure vs pain but a state of living well. Being actively engaged in excellence, being engaged in virtues/what you’re excellent at, reflectively (rather than impulsively) making decisions, expressing inner self rather than being influenced by external control or ignorance, eudaimonia is made not born. Can be eudaimonically happy while low in pleasure.
Toward a unified theory of eudaimonia: Carol Ryff
(go back and look at chart) - but distilled all the things that make a good life, elements you should have – self-acceptance, purpose in life, environmental mastery, positive relationships, autonomy, and personal growth
Self-Acceptance
high scorer: positive attitude towards self, accepts multiple aspects of the self including good and bad qualities, feels positive about past life. Low scorer: dissatisfied with self, disappointed or feels regret with what has occurred in past life, is troubled about certain personal qualities, wishes to be different than how he/she is
Positive relations with others
high scorer: secure attachment, warm, satisfying, trusting relationships with others, is concerned about the welfare of others, capable of strong empathy, affection, and intimacy, understands give and take of human relationships. Low scorer: has few close, trusting relationships with others, finds it difficult to be warm, open, and concerned about others, is isolated and frustrated in personal relationships, not willing to make compromises to sustain important ties with others
Purpose in life
high scorer: has goals in life and a sense of directedness, feels there is meaning to the present and past life, holds beliefs that give life purpose, has aims and objectives for living. Low scorer: lacks a sense of meaning in life, has few goals or aims, lacks sense of direction, does not see purpose of past life, has no outlook or beliefs that give life meaning
Environmental mastery
high scorer: has a sense of mastery and competence in managing the environment, controls complex array of external activities, makes effective use of surrounding opportunities, able to choose or create contexts suitable to personal needs and values. Low scorer: has difficulty managing everyday affairs, feels unable to improve or change surrounding context, is unaware of surrounding opportunities, lacks sense of control over external world.
Autonomy
high scorer: self-determining and independent, able to resist social pressures to think and act in certain ways, regulates behavior from within, evaluates self by personal standards. Low scorer: is concerned about the expectations and evaluations of others, relies on judgements of others to make important decisions, conforms to social pressures to think and act in certain ways
Personal growth
high scorer: has a feeling of continued development, sees self as growing and expanding, is open to new experiences, has sense of realizing his/her potential, sees improvement in self and behavior over time, is changing in ways that reflect more self knowledge and effectiveness. Low scorer: has a sense of personal stagnation, lacks sense of improvement or expansion over time, feels bored and uninterested with life, feels unable to develop new attitudes or behaviors
Eudaimonic wellbeing related to cardiovascular health
eudaimonic - positive relations related to weight, hip/waist ratio, glycosylated HG for example, only HDL cholesterol for hedonic well being
Eudaimonic wellbeing related to immune function
Eudaimonic is overall better
Eudaimonic wellbeing related to sleep quality
again eudaimonic demains (this plus immune and cardiovascular was in older adults)
Aristotle: happiness as virtue in action
Happiness is an activity in accordance with virtue. How you’re expressing your strengths
Aristotle was not the only philosopher interested in values
Aristotle- wisdom, Confucius - jen/benevolence, Cicero - gratitude, Aquinas - faith, hope, charity, Comte-Spoonville - love. Other philosophers elevated other virtues. Peterson and Seligman tried to come up with a DSM for pos psych with organizing and defining strengths instead of illness.
What is a character strength?
Criteria: ubiquity - widely recognized across cultures, fulfilling - contributes to individual fulfillment, satisfaction, and happiness broadly construed, morally valued - is valued in its own right and not for tangible outcomes it may produce, does not diminish others - elevates others who witness it, producing admiration not jealousy, nonfelicitous opposite - has obvious antonyms that are negative, traitlike - an individual difference with demonstrable generality and stability, measurable - has been successfully measured by researchers as individual differences, distinctiveness - is not redundant (conceptually or empirically) with other character strengths, paragons - is strinkingly embodied in some individuals, prodigies - is precociously shown by some children or youth, selective absence - is altogether missing in some individuals, institutions - deliberate target of societal pressures and rituals that try to cultivate it (in their young)
The core virtues and the character strengths they are associated with
Wisdom: creativity, curiosity, love of learning, perspective. Courage: bravery, persistence, honesty, zest. Humanity/benevolence: love, kindness, social intelligence. Justice: teamwork, fairness, leadership. Temperance: forgiveness, prudence, humility, self-regulation. Transcendence: appreciation of beauty, gratitude, hope, humor, spirituality.
Universal?
Confucianism, Buddhism, Taoism, Hinduism, Athenian philosophy, Christianity, Judaism, Islam all explicitly state or theoretically implied that courage, justice, humanity, temperance, wisdom, transcendence. Biswas Diener found that U Illinois students, Kenyan Masai, Greenland Inughit were similar in converging on and recognizing the character strengths as desirable in the self and others.
Signature Strengths in order of prevalence
Fairness, curiosity, love, judgment, kindness, honesty, gratitude, humor, love of learning, appreciation of beauty and excellence, creativity, religiosity, forgiveness, perseverance, teamwork, bravery, social intelligence, hope, leadership, perspective, prudence, modesty, zest, self-regulation
Nature/nuture?
Streger et al 2007, examined pairs of MZ and DZ twins to estimate heritability of the 24 strengths. All but 5 showed significant heritability (spirituality, as consistent with other studies, was the most heritable). 5 that didn’t - honesty, fairness, teamwork, humility, humor. Most open to environmental influences. However, all are malleable to some degree.
Correlational strength evidence
Lots of evidence correlating strength expression (or strength of fit with environment) and emotional well-being, engagement, and meaning. Workers who use SS’s at job are more productive, happier, and get promoted more often, and paid more. Students get better grades in school and are more academically ambitious. Therapists who start therapy with an exploration of client strengths show better therapy outcomes and higher therapeutic relationships. Adults who report using 4 or more of their signature strengths on a daily basis are happier, more engaged, and reported higher meaning.
Cultivating strengths interventions
Large body of published work examining strength building/expression interventions with pre/post designs. Increases in life satisfaction at the individual level, increases in work and academic engagement and productivity. Identifying strengths does little for wellbeing, it’s actually using them that matters.
Could the pre-post be a placebo?
Duan et al (2013) - randomly assigned college students to exercise strengths or write about their life experiences each day. Group 1 told improve well-being, group 2 told nothing. Assessed well-being after 1wk, 9w, and 18wk. Told for wellbeing was both good, but strengths a bit higher initially (although not after 18wk). Some effects from actually exercising strengths.
Placebo part 2
Some strengths are related to well-being, some are not. Poyer et al (2012), randomly assigned community members to exercise strengths strongly related to well-being, those weakly related to well being, or a wait list control. 5 session intervention, took satisfaction with life 2 weeks before and 2 weeks after. Post was up with strengths but not much difference for the weak strengths or control.
What strengths are least/most associated with life satisfaction?
In order from greatest to least: hope, zest, gratitude, curiosity, love, perspective/wisdom, persistence, self-regulation, spirituality, forgiveness, social intelligence, humor, leadership, bravery, citizenship, integrity, kindness, fairness, prudence, love of learning, judgment, appreciation of beauty, creativity, modesty/humility
Character strength at work
Workplace satisfaction correlates 0.5 with life satisfaction. Therefore, it’s important to understand wellbeing in the workplace. Why was the best job you’ve had the best job? Maybe able to express strengths in it, but can have positivity (emotions, engagement, meaning) in one’s work or at one’s work. Both matter. Positive in work: seeing work as a calling, high meaning derived from the work one is engaged in, opportunities to use strengths. Positivity at work: derived from institutional structures and norms that constrain or encourage enjoyment and engagement (more hedonic well-being). Ideally you get both.
Encouraging positivity in work - character strengths
Three ways to view work: as a job, as a career, and as a calling. Roughly 1/3 of people view our job as a calling and derive a sense of meaning from the work. More likely to think of the job as a calling when there is a sense of meaning and altruism in the work and a sense of fit between strengths and requirements of the job. But this also has to do with perspective/framing as much as the job itself. Frame job for others as more of a calling like with hospital admin and cleaning crew (patients safe vs mop the floor). Action ID: the way in which you frame your actions determines engagement. Are you laying bricks or building a cathedral? Workplace leadership matters: CEOs who can clearly frame the mission of the company in terms of greater meaning and acknowledge how employees are contributing to that mission have more employees view their work as a calling.
How to make a better workplace?
Fabick CAT case study. Only 16% of employees engaged when it first started measuring engagement (score put it in bottom quarter of companies Gallup studied). By 2006, engagement was up to 45%. Invested 500,000 to improve employee engagement and strength expression - 3million return. Top executives traveled to the 12 centers and sat in on team meetings to get feedback. Asked each workteam what was working and what wasn’t and also asked them to identify their own and each other’s strengths. Allowed them to jobcraft as a team: reorganized so that workers with high social intelligence interacted more with customers, those with high curiosity and love of learning did more software, etc.
Additional benefits of strengths interventions
Physical health: decreases in stress and better markers of physical health (e.g. sleep, immune, frontal lobe asymmetry). Social embededness: higher community participation (adults), more class cohesion (children).
Remaining controversies
Is there a best strength? Shwartz’s idea of practical wisdom as the meta-strength. This is knowing when to employ each of the other virtues. Should you want to work on SS or work on weaknesses? Evidence for both. Some find more expression of top strengths better. Some find balancing/cultivating all of the strengths is better.
