Science of Happiness & Well Being

Question 1

Subjective well-being

Answer 1

A persons own assessment of their happiness and satisfaction with life.

Question 2

What are the 3 common orientations to happiness

Answer 2

1. Meaning - having a larger purpose
2. Pleasure - pursuit of pleasure & excitement
3. Engagement - Pursuit of engagement with tasks, time passing by quickly because you are enjoying what you are doing

Question 3

Explanatory style

Answer 3

Ones habitual way of explaining life event, explains an event, what aspects the person focuses on (positive or negative aspects)

Question 4

Negative explanatory style

Answer 4

Attributes failure to state stable, global & internal causes

Question 5

Negative Stable cause

Answer 5

Issue that will last forever

Question 6

Negative Global cause

Answer 6

Will only affect an area of one’s life/ will affect all of the persons life

Question 7

Negative Internal cause

Answer 7

Situation, Context contributed to failure/self-blame

Question 8

Gratitude as a means of improving well being (2005)

Answer 8

Results: Those in gratitude (wrote down what they were thankful for over a 10 week span) reported feeling better about their lives, greater optimism about the future & less physical complaints.

Question 9

Broaden Build Theory (Fredrickson, 2002)

Answer 9

• Positive emotions:
  (a) enable people to think of more solutions
  (b) help you become more resilient

Question 10

Aerobic exercise & subjective well-being (Babyak, 2000)

Answer 10

• Overcoming depression

- Results: people who just exercised (no medicine, or combo of both) were less likely to be depressed

Question 11

Anticipation of future positive experiences & subjective well being (Macleod & Conway, 2005)

Answer 11

Results: The anticipation of positive experience & more anticipated positive experience was associated with better subjective well being.

Question 12

Presentation, decision making & happiness (Hsee, 2008)

Answer 12

• Separate or spread out the positive news & combine the negative news (good news tell on different days, bad news all at once)
• Tell people about positive events in advance & but not at all for bad (taking a kid to the dentist, just put the kid in the car, don’t tell them before hand)
• Many choices are actually bad for desirable options & good for undesirable options (choosing many good options can be debilitating & can cause anxiety = limit options)

Question 13

Problem focused coping

Answer 13

Cognitive & behavioral efforts to ALTER a stressful situation

Question 14

Emotion focused coping

Answer 14

Cognitive & behavioral efforts to REDUCE the distress produced by a stressful situation.

Question 15

Proactive coping

Answer 15

Upfront effort to get rid of or modify the beginning of a stressful situation.

Question 16

Social support

Answer 16

Coping resources provided by friends, family & other ppl.

Question 17

Stress

Answer 17

Unpleasant state in which people perceive the demands of an event as exceeding ability to meet those demands.

Question 18

Apraisal

Answer 18

Judgements people make about the demands of a potential stressful event & their ability to meet those demands

Question 19

Coping

Answer 19

Efforts to reduce stress

Question 20

Stressor

Answer 20

Anything that causes stress

Question 21

PTSD

Answer 21

Physical & psychological symptoms that occur after an extremely` stressful event.

Question 22

General adaption syndrome

Answer 22

3 stages of how the body responds to stress

1. Alarm (Physiological)
2. Resistance (Body remains aroused on alert)
3. Exhaustion (stress persisting)

Question 23

Learned helplessness

Answer 23

Experience of an uncontrollable event that creates passive behaviors.

Question 24

Depressive explanatory style

Answer 24

Tendency to attribute negative events to causes that are stable, global & internal.

Question 25

Self-efficacy

Answer 25

extent or strength of one's belief in one's own ability to complete tasks and reach goals