Positive Approach- component 1 Flashcards
assumptions, relationship formation, therapy, classic evidence
Describe the assumption ‘The Acknowledgement Of Free Will’
-This assumption states that humans are in charge of their own behaviour and have the free will to change how they direct their emotions.
- A good life can be experienced if humans use their personal strengths to enhance their lives
- According to Seligman, happiness is not a result from genes, but from recognising our own signature strengths and using free will to develop and work on these strengths to minimise negativity.
- stands on the free will side of the free will Vs. Determinism debate, opposing to other approaches such as the psychodynamic approach (states childhood experiences determine adult behaviour).
- RESEARCH: research by Ed Diener and Seligman (2002) looked at the ties students had to friends and family, measured in how much time they invested in these relationships. Students with strongest ties to friends and family were happier, than those with weaker ones (negative correlation between level of happiness and depression). This shows humans have free will to choose to engage in activities that increase happiness.
Describe the assumption ‘Authenticity Of Goodness and Excellence’
-Feelings of happiness and goodness are as natural as feelings of anxiety and stress, so psychologists need to give equal attention to these positive states of mind, as they do to negative ones.
-According to Seligman (2002) the belief that positive traits (virtue, happiness) are less authentic than negative ones (depression etc) has been an obstacle in psychological research.
- Seligman states humans have signature strengths, which are inherent traits. These include kindness, generosity, humour, etc. Humans need to nurture these traits .
- Traditional psychology has focussed on mental health problems and negative states of mind, positive psychology aims to change this and focus on celebrating positive states of mind, not magnifying the worst.
- Assumption influential in therapies based on the positive approach. When dealing with mental health disorders such as depression, therapies based on this approach focus on traits that produce goodness and excellence in the individual, and help them understand these traits are valuable and can be further developed. This will help protect individual from further mental illness.
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Describe the assumption ‘Focus on ‘The Good Life’’
- The good life can be achieved by focussing on factors that contribute most predominantly to a well-lived life.
- The pleasant life: happiness comes from pursuing positive emotions in relation to the past, present and future.
- The good life: happiness comes from pursuing activities that positively absorb and engage us.
- The meaningful life: happiness comes from a deep sense of fulfilment by living for a purpose much greater than oneself.
- To achieve the good life, humans should develop their strengths and virtues (wisdom, knowledge, courage, spirituality, love etc) as these are natural routes to gratification and help people function in difficult situations.
- Seligman suggests the good life is the combination of multiple elements:
1. positive connection to others- allows humans to love, trust, enjoy happiness, forgive and develop meaningful connections with ourselves and others.
2. positive individual traits- integrity, morality, creativity, bravery etc.
3. life regulation qualities- needed to regulate, monitor and control our behaviour to achieve goals. May include independence and wisdom to guide behaviour,
How does the assumption ‘Authenticity of goodness and excellence’ explain relationship formation?
positive psychology states that feelings of love, kindness, generosity and forgiveness, as well as other positive qualities are authentic, and so can explain why relationships are formed. Gaining and maintaining a relationship allows people to develop and express signature strengths. In turn individuals will strive towards a happier life during the relationship. According to approach, humans are socially programmed to work hard to find and build relationships, which contribute substantially to happiness, if positive.
How does the assumption ‘The good life’ explain relationship formation?
Seligman states that one way to achieve the good life is having a positive relationship with others. Positive relationships allow humans to love, trust, forgive and enjoy happiness, which are essential for the formation and maintenance of relationships. The good life comes from pursuing activities that are absorbing and engaging, so family, romantic and platonic relationships help achieve this. For example, the absorption and engagement that many experience in a relationship at the beginning may help individual to achieve the good life.
- Research has been done that suggests those in realtionships are ahppier than those who are not, some psychologists believe marriage is the answer to happiness. The Pew Research Centre (2005) reported that 43% of married respondents to be ‘very happy’ compared with unmarried respondents.
How do the positive assumptions apply to mindfulness?
-Positive psychology aims to promote human success and development. Mindfulness helps develop signature strengths and psychological wellbeing.
- The authenticity of goodness and excellence: positive traits as authentic as negative ones and individuals strive to achieve happiness by developing signature strengths. Mindfulness aims to enhance signature strengths through ‘acceptance based methods’ which encourage individual to develop core virtues such as gratitude, optimism and flexibility.
- Free will: An essential part of mindfulness is becoming consciously aware of present thoughts and feeling, which involves self regulation. Mindfulness enhances self regulation and encourages people to gain control of their thoughts and emotions to minimise negative thinking. Humans have free will to take control of feelings which is central to increasing happiness.
Main components of mindfulness
- GAINING CONTROL OF THOUGHTS: Human mind is normally too focussed on the past or future. Mindfulness teaches humans to focus on present thoughts and feelings and to accept them. Focussing on the present is done to gain greater awareness of negative thoughts to gain control of them and spend less time dealing with them.
- Negative thinking will lead to depression, so mindfulness will help individual to notice these feelings are occurring to reflect on them.
MEDITATION AND MINDFUL BREATHING:
- sitting meditation is most effective for developing mindfulness skills as it physically removes an individual from their daily interactions with life so it’s easier to focus on the mind.
- Guided meditation involves client sitting in a comfortable position, directing their attention to their breathing. They are then encouraged to pay attention to their body sensations, thoughts and emotions. This prevents the intrusion of unhelpful negative thoughts
- helps people reprocess internal experiences and helps them accept that thoughts and emotions are impermanent, so individual learns not to react in an automatic way to their thoughts.
INFORMAL PRACTICES OF MINDFULNESS:
- once learned, can be practiced throughout daily life, whilst doing other activities such as driving or cleaning.
- Involves paying attention to surroundings and is the opposite of multi-taking. Example: when in the shower an individual may notice the body sensation as water hits the skin, listening to the sound of falling water etc. When their attention begins to wander, they should being their attention back to the sensations.
- incorporated into daily life, to give a break from normal thought processes.
Evaluate the EFFECTIVENESS of mindfulness
INTEGRATION WITH OTHER THERAPIES:
- techniques of mindfulness becoming increasingly incorporated into other therapies such as CBT. Mindfulness based CBT (MBCT), is a 4 stage therapeutic approach. Traditional CBT aims to alter people’s unrealistic thoughts and beliefs, MBCT helps to change the process of thinking, not just the content of the thoughts.
APLLICATION IN MBCT:
- used to help prevent patients who suffer from recurrent depression from relapse.
- Teasdale et al. (2000) evaluated the effectiveness of MBCT in 145 recurrently depressed patients. Patients were randomly allocated to receive treatment as usual, with an additional 8 or more weeks of MBCT classes. Relapse/recurrence to major depression assessed over a 60 week period. Study found MBCT provided the greatest help to those who had suffered the most number of previous episodes. Had no effect on those with only 2 episodes of depression in the past, but substantially reduced the risk of relapse in those who had 3 or more previous episodes of depression.
APPLICATION IN MINDFULNESS BASED STRESS REDUCTION (MBSR):
- MBSR has been developed for use in general hospitals with patients suffering from conditions which may be painful, chronic, disabling or terminal
- Reibel et al. (2001) reported that MBSR decreased levels of anxiety and depression in 136 patients that participated in an 8 week mindfulness programme, involving 20 minutes of meditation per day. These results were seen after a 1 year follow up.
GROUP VERSUS INDIVIDUAL MINDFULNESS:
- for certain psychological problems, evidence shows it can be more helpful for people to practice mindfulness in groups.
- Mantzios and Giannou (2014) investigated group versus individual mindfulness in participants who were trying to lose weight. 170 participants were randomly assigned to practice meditation for 6 weeks within a group or by themselves. Researchers found participants in group setting lost more weight and lowered their levels of cognitive- behavioural avoidance (avoiding social activities), concluding the benefits of individual mindfulness practice need to be reviewed with caution.
Evaluate Mindfulness in terms of ETHICAL ISSUES
- Different to other therapies, as mindfulness does not try to use past events as an explanation for past behaviour, which avoids anxiety within patients. This lack of determinism is very positive for the individual.
- Teaches client acceptance, as the therapy does not focus on helping change the process of thinking, but encourages acceptance of the process of thinking, so is less frustrating for clients compared with other therapies such as CBT. CBT can result in patient feeling guilty about their thought processes, but mindfulness teaches acceptance of thoughts.
MINDFULNESS AND MORALITY:
- For those who practice mindfulness , it is seen as essential in maintaining moral and ethical standards. Mindfulness is being taught in organisations to enhance leadership skills, as the practice enhances decision making with the basis of free will.
- Ruedy and Schweitzer (2010) demonstrated how individuals who practiced mindfulness regularly were more moral in many aspects of life.
Classic Evidence: Myers and Diener (1995): METHODOLOGY AND PROCEDURES:
- Literature review of research on the topic of happiness.
- INTERVIEWS AND QUESTIONNAIRES: Subjective well-being is considered (SWB)- an individual’s sense of their own happiness/wellbeing. This is done by interviewing people using a CLOSED question, e.g. ‘How satisfied are you with your life as a whole these days?’- Are you very satisfied?/Not very satisfied?/Not at all satisfied? A questionnaire may be used instead. Both methods use a QUANTITATIVE measure to represent happiness.
-OBSERVATION: To discover what people are doing, observations can be done by the participants on themselves and they can report what they are doing at selected times. Researchers use beepers to remind participants to send messages saying what they are doing and/or thinking at a particular moment. This is a method to SAMPLE behaviour.
CORRELATIONS:
- Another way to understand happiness is to consider what factors may correlate with it.
- Some factors may contribute to happiness or are a consequence of being happy.
- Not always clear which is cause and which is effect. EXAMPLE: people with high SWB tends to have a positive general outlook on their life, but it may be that their positive outlook on life is the cause for their higher SWB.
REVIEWS:
- Study is a review of other research
- Some of research referred to is based on multiple studies (meta-analysis)
FINDINGS: Outline the findings of the study by Myers and Diener (1995)
Is happiness related to AGE?
- Survey of almost 170,000 people of all ages in 16 countries found no differences. People of all ages equally happy- mean score was 80% satisfaction with life (Inglehart, 1990).
- However, at different ages, different factors contribute to happiness, e.g. social relations and health become more important factors with age (Herzog et al. 1982)
Is happiness related to GENDER?
- survey by Inglehart of people in 16 different countries found that 80% of women said they were ‘fairly satisfied with life’
- Another study found that an individual’s gender accounted for 1% of global well-being (Haring et al. 1984)
- (Robins and Regier, 1991)- found women are twice as vulnerable as men to depression.
Is happiness related to RACE or CULTURE?
- (Diener et al., 1993) African Americans report nearly twice as much happiness as European Americans.
- Notable differences between countries: Portugal, 10% people reported they were happy, compared to 40% in the Netherlands (Inglehart, 1990).
- People in Individualistic cultures (people more concerned with their individual needs, so individual happiness matters more) report greater SWB than people in collectivist cultures (people focus on the needs of the group).
Is happiness related to MONEY?
- survey in 1993 found 75% American college students selected ‘being well off financially’ as an essential life goal, compared with 39% in 1970. (Astin et al 1970)
- Not everyone believes money buys happiness, but most agree having money would make them a lot happier.
- Rich people don’t report greater happiness- a survey of people on the Forbes rich list found that 37% were LESS happy than the average American (Diener et al 1985). Lottery winners only report brief increases in their happiness (Argyle 1986)
- The lack of importance of money does not apply to situations where people are poor. For example, in a poor country such as Bangladesh, people with money report higher SWB than those without money. Affluence does increase happiness, but only up to a point. Once a certain comfort level reached (basic needs for food and warmth), increased wealth has little effect.
FINDINGS: What did the study find to be the traits of happy people?
Not clear whether the traits cause increased happiness or if the traits develop because a person is happy:
- high self esteem: individuals like themselves and typically agree with positive statements such as ‘I am fun to be around’.
- Sense of personal control: Those who feel empowered rather than helpless do better in school, cope better with stress and are typically happier.
- Optimism: Those people agree with statements such as ‘When I undertake something new I expect to succeed’
- Extraversion: those who are more outgoing are happier when with other people but also when alone.
FINDINGS: What findings demonstrated how relationships affect happy people?
- For most, the benefits of relationships outweigh the strains. (Burt, 1986) people that can name several close friends are healthier and happier than those that can’t.
- Married people are happier than non-married people. (Lee et al. 1991) 39% of married people were happy compared to 24% of non married people.
FINDINGS: Are people happier when employed or unemployed, according to the study?
-Those out of work less happy than those in work, as employment gives one a sense of value and community (working with others)
-BUT work can be unsatisfying/stressful and is then associated with unhappiness.
- Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi introduced ‘flow’, which is the extent that we become so absorbed in an activity that other things don’t matter as much. He used beepers to question people in the day about what they were doing and whether they were happy. He found that people were happiest when they were engaged in mindful challenge and experiencing flow.
FINDINGS: What was found to be the faith of happy people?
Religious people in North America and Europe report higher levels of happiness (Poloma and Pendleton 1990).
