Positive - Comp debate Flashcards
Explain how positive psychology is relevant in today’s society using EDUCATION
One argument for the relevance of positive psychology in today’s society is its role in Education and that what we learn in school can be beneficial to our overall happiness and well-being.
Seligman, one of the leading proponents of positive psychology suggested that there are three main benefits to using a positive psychology curriculum on the education of children. Seligman et al 2009
1) The curriculum would promote valuable skills and strengths valued by most people including parents.
2) Produce clear and measurable improvements in the students well-being and behaviour and
3) Facilitate students engagement in learning and achievement, resulting in improved grades.
There is also proven effectiveness of this positive curriculum. For instance a positive psychology curriculum, the Penn Resiliency Program was tested in Gillham et al.
They found students showed heavily reduced symptoms of depression compared to a control group with no PPC. The results showed that 22% of the PRP group showed symptoms of depression in comparison to 44% of the control group showing that a positive psychology curriculum can up to half the symptoms of depression of children in Education.
Additionally, Seligman conducted research that randomly assigned 347 ninth grade students to either a PPC or a non PPC class. During the study, students, their parents and their teachers completed standard questionnaires.
The study’s results showed that the students in the PPC group were more cooperative and had better social skills in class than the control group.
Seligman et al claimed that increasing the skills of well-being does not antagonise the traditional goals of classroom learning but rather enhances them.
Explain how positive psychology is NOT relevant in today’s society using EDUCATION
However, it could also be argued that positive psychology is not useful in Education and therefore not relevant in today’s society.
For example, some argue most positive psychology programmes lack empirical evidence. Spence and Shortt argue that the research that does support PPC in education tends to be based on either small-scale or short-term inventions and as such, we should not have a sudden widespread dissemination (use) of positive psychology in schools without further, more long term research.
Additionally Seligman, who advocated and conducted research in support of a PPC in schools admitted that further research needs to be conducted in order to ensure that such PPC programmes are effective with students from a variety of socio-economic and cultural backgrounds.
A second issue of adding positive psychology to school curriculums is that it is likely to result in other courses being dropped. This is a disadvantage as schools have a limited budget and have many curricular demands and so cannot add positive psychology techniques without subtracting other essential subjects.
For instance, an editorial in the Financial Times suggested that the addition of a PPC may mean society may end up paying more for students to leave school with fewer academic achievements than otherwise.
Explain how positive psychology is relevant in today’s society using WORK
Another topic showing that positive psychology is relevant in todays society is someone’s work / employment.
Research by Mihalyi has shown that work can be a major source of our happiness. His ‘flow theory’ suggests that our experiences will be most positive when we have both high skills and high challenge as the person is not only enjoying the moment utilising their skills but also stretching their capabilities with the likelihood of learning new skills and increasing self-esteem.
Mihalyii and LeFerve found that when at work, people experience ‘flow’ situations more than three times as much than during leisure.
This suggests that our working environment generally offers more opportunity for positive experiences despite what many people think about their work.
Mihalyi and Leferve went onto comment that if workers admitted to themselves that work can be as or even more enjoyable than most of their leisure time then they might both work more effectively and improve the quality of their own lives.
Explain how positive psychology is NOT relevant in today’s society using WORK
Although positive psychology may report research findings that support the quote of ‘choose a job you love and you will never have to work a day in your life’ it is not a new idea by any means going as far back as 500BC. Therefore we have to question whether positive psychology in the workplace has really offered society anything more than empirical support for something which most of society already know.
Additionally, while work may make you happy, the other aspect of work like having more money does not appear to be relevant to happiness. Diener et al found a modest correlation of +0.12 between income and happiness. With 37% of those on the Forbes rich list being less happy than the average American and those who win the lottery only report brief increases in happiness.
However, in societies where people are poor, money is more important and work may only be important for money rather than happiness. In the Western developed work we may have the luxury of seeking happiness through work which may not be available elsewhere.
Explain how positive psychology is relevant in today’s society using Leisure and Lifestyle
Explain how positive psychology is NOT relevant in today’s society using Leisure and Lifestyle
Explain how positive psychology is relevant in today’s society using Health
Thurston (2007) research followed more than 6,000 men and woman aged 25-74 for 20 years.
They found than those participants with high levels of emotional vitality (a sense of enthusiasm, hopefulness and engagement in life) had reduced risk of coronary heart disease.
Therefore this would suggest for optimal health, medical professions should offer patients advice about how to increase their happiness in order to improve their health along with other lifestyle advice showing the importance of positive psychology.
Explain how positive psychology is NOT relevant in today’s society using Health
A counterargument to positive psychology being important in someone’s health is that it is difficult to prove a cause and effect relationship between happiness and health, we don’t know if being healthy causes happiness or if happiness causes them to be healthy meaning that positive psychology could be a significant influence in the heath sector however it perhaps isn’t taken as seriously because it has difficulty in conducting research that draws clear cause and effect conclusions.
Conclude an essay on the relevance of positive psychology in todays society.
To conclude, positive psychology has re-focused psychology on research and advice that will help people improve their lives and the society in which they live, rather than being concerned with the negatives. Such as aggressive behaviour or addiction, such a focus has led to some interesting lines of research and some new programmes in schools, work and leisure.
However, such programmes may only represent a small part of a persons life or only be available to a small number of people, and thus have little impact overall. The positive approach may also be something only relevant to the Western developed world.
The positive approach is relatively new and so it may take some time before its impact is felt. Perhaps the debate that really needs top be answered first is how positive psychology can be made more relevant in todays society.
