Positive Approach Flashcards
What was Martin Seligman’s motivation for forming the positive approach?
Other approaches focused on the ‘disease’ model of human behaviour (psychological illness) while he thought it better to understand and help people achieve a more positive state of mind and hence to flourish.
What are the assumptions of the positive approach (3)?
- Authenticity of goodness and excellence.
- humans are more robust and can recover quicker than general psychology would have us believe - Assumption that we have free will
- humanist notion that we have the ability to choose freely and hence pursue self-actualisation, which in turn reduces stress - Focus on the good life
- Drawing on Aristotle (384-322BC) Seligman’s three types of happy lives
(a) the pleasant life
(b) the meaningful life
(c) the life of engagement or the good life
NB: Aristotle also emphasised the importance of aretē, or the pursuit of excellence in life.
Describe the ‘pleasant life’
We live by generating as many positive emotions as we can and learning the skills to make this happen - aka ‘the pursuit of pleasure’
Describe the ‘meaningful life’
Knowing our key strengths and using them in the service of something bigger than our selves (e.g., entrepreneurs, composers, motivational speakers and educators, founders of charities)
Describe ‘the life of engagement’
The integrated life in which all of one’s values come together and whether we are at work, play, or engaging in a relationship we can be focused and ‘in the zone’ or ‘the flow’, thoroughly absorped in what we’re doing that time does not have any meaning. This can be reached through practice, calming the mind of distractions, and being engaged (100% conscious in what we do).
NB for your interest…
There are dozens of other writers, by the way, that the psychology books do not mention: start with Eckhardt Tolle, David Hawkins, Byron Katie, Jack Canfield … it’s a huge and interesting field (ed.)
Why is the pursuit of pleasure limiting?
Pleasure is subject to the law of diminishing returns -
the first glass of wine - lovely!
the second glass - nice!
the third glass - I’m being polite
the fourth glass - I’m feeling woozy
the fifth glass - I’m feeling sick
the sixth glass - doesn’t happen
(subjective review of drinking - put your own values in! - ed)
What is Seligman’s state of flow?
We are at one with what we’re doing (in the zone, pursuing a meaningful purpose)
this can happen in art, dancing, professionally engaging work, writing…
*Seligman argues that we can work towards the good life by identifying personal strengths (finding our purpose/niche) and then living for them -
(see it in action with top sports people or artists engrossed in their work - ed),
The flow is inhibited by TV and the multiplicity of ‘distractions’ in modern live
Cf. The War of Art book (Steven Pressfield), written by a writers fight to get to his desk to write…easy to read and very useful for students - ed.
Evaluate the positive approach assumptions
(free will, measurement of happiness, cultural bias)
FREE WILL -
FOR:supported by the justice system and we expect people to be responsible for their actions.
AGAINST: Diener and Biswas-Diener (2008) claim happiness is genetically determined and that 20-50% of our happiness is outside of our control - no matter how hard we try, happiness is never under our complete control (Reminds me of argumeents from karma - born to be miserable…- ed)
COUNTER: the pursuit of happiness can be learned; even if we start off with the odds stacked against us, learning to let go, forgive, pursue our purposes, live a life of integrity, we can grow - review stories of ex-drug addicts, troubled kids, etc. who have an ‘epiphany’ that they needed to change - John Asaraf, Byron Katie are two that come immediately to mind - ed.)
MEASUREMENT OF HAPPINESS
FOR: Neurological evidence from brain scans show that the prefrontal cortex is more active when we’re happy (I’d also add in the research of Dr Daniel Amen whose clinics have scanned thousands of people…traipses into the biological approach - ed)
AGAINST: many psychologists’ research is based on self-reporting and may not be accurate or be subject to demand characteristics. Hence subjective and not reliable.
COUNTER: brain scans are not subjective but can be reviewed objectively
CULTURAL BIAS:
FOR: Positive approach notes that contributing to our community enhances well-being, a cultural trait traditionally celebrated in many ‘collectivist’ or ‘socially minded’ cultures.
AGAINST: in Western societies, achievement is often seen as an individual endeavour - rather than something that contributes to others.
COUNTER: that’s a red herring argument, since the lack of personal contribution to others can be correlated with feelings of depondancy and depression, something western thinkers and counsellors have noted for a long time. Indeed, the pursuit of excellence typically involves being able to contribute to others either in the pursuit or afterward one’s peak (consider how many top sports people become coaches and top entrepreneurs seek to ‘give back’ either through mentoring or charity…).
What is the relationship between the good life and relationship formation?
Pursuit of the good life is one that covers all areas of your life. “How you do anything, is how you do everything,” is a common frame by such thinkers.
Myers and Diener (1995) note how important close relationships are to the good life to enable people to buffer themselves against the stresses and strains of every day life. They looked at the relationship to close friends that could be confided in.
(That is, if your friends are miserable and sarcastic and always pulling you down, you’ll find that’s not good for pursuing the better life! Ed)
What is the relationship of the good life to being alone?
Diener and Seligman (2002) found that people judged us very happy spent less time alone and more time socialising than individuals related as average or very unhappy.
COMMENTS: Nonetheless, the happy individual is not one who relies on being sociable, and sociability can be seen as an escape from depressive thoughts and the perceived futility of life (see independence).
But the research does suggest that the more and better quality friendships that people have, the happier and more satisfied they feel in life.
Friendships enable us to get more out of positive events by sharing the good times/news - eg., celebrating a birth, marriage, a promotion: such events cement the good life for us but also for our friends (who see and are reminded that happiness and good fortune are possible)
What is the role of independence in positive psychology?
A sense of independence has a positive effect on our well-being.
The forming of friendships can help us feel more independent by creating a network of friends whom we can rely on to help us progress in life and also to find our own purposes.
This is known as the ‘dependency paradox’ (Feeney, 2007).
Describe the therapy of mindfulness in the positive approach.
Mindfulness as a therapy derived from meditation and having origins in Buddhist thought.
Jon Kabat-Zinn in 1979 launched is Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction Programme.
The idea is to develop a sense of being in the here and now, to be aware of what is happening in the environment around us, in our body, and to be aware of the thoughts that passed through her mind. We do this without judgement, but merely acting as an observer.
A sense of unattachment (being “of the world, not in it”) can help an individual gain a more objective perspective of emotions and thoughts and not believe that emotions or thoughts identify them.
In turn this can help improve the sense of well-being and assist in improving relationships with others.
What is self-regulation of attention?
Focusing on the here and now enabling an ability to focus over long periods.
Breathing exercises can help bring one’s attention back (focus on breathing, the flow of air in and out, allowing thoughts to come and go like credits passing on a screen at the end of a film).
Acknowledgement of feeling or thought (like one acknowleedges the existence of a cloud in a sky) and letting it go - what can you do about a cloud, so what can you do about a thought?
(the brain presents thoughts, just like the heart presents beats - we don’t judge the latter, so why judge the former?
What is acceptance in positive approach?
Accepting a mindset, an attitude, emotion or string of thoughts as a scientist/observer would accept the results of an experiment - with a sense of detachment and with no desire to change them.
They are what they are. That allows painful and unpleasant emotions to be recognised rather than be repressed or avoided.
NB: ‘Pain’ and ‘unpleasant’ are also conditioned beliefs that we latch onto and impose on ourselves; would a scientist comment that these results are unpleasant or painful? He or she might if they disrupt their expectations, but the scientist must then accept that their expectations were ego driven and not one of acceptance.
NB2: For some thinkers, nly the ego would have us identity with such concepts such as ‘this upsettedness (anger, frustration, pain) is who I am’, rather than saying, oh, I am being upset (angry, frustrated, in pain) at the moment.
The ‘positive approach’ draws on Stoic philosophy as well as a verstion of Freud’s thoughts on the ego as a petty self, or an identity that believes itself to be godlike rather than - in some thinkers’ arguments - a cocktail of programmes and applications learned from others - ed)
How does Kabat-Zinn believe we live our lives?
On auto-pilot.
We do not stop to build any sense of awareness, so pains and insecurities (beliefs about the past, expectations about the future) become automatic responses and hence the self identifies with them.
