Task 5 - Cheer Up! Flashcards
Broaden & Build Theory (Frederickson)
refers to the purpose of positive emotions in life in terms of:
broadening cognition & action repertoires –> creating behavioural flexibility that helps
building personal resources over time (e.g. mindfulness, resilience, social connectedness…)
Broaden:
positive emotions broaden individuals’ thought-action repertoires, enabling them to draw flexibly on higher-level connection and wider-than-usual ranges of percepts, ideas, and action urges
Build:
Broadened cognition in turn creates behavioural flexibility that over time builds personal resources, such as mindfulness, resilience, social closeness and physical health
–> through incremental broaden & build processes positive emotions open the mind and nourish the growth resources
Core principles:
- repeated instances of positive emotions accrue into upwards spirals of sustained well-being
theory unites:
- hedonic well-being = experience of pleasurable emotions
- eudaemonic well-being = the striving towards one’s potential & purpose in life (facilitated by accumulation of psychological resources)
Original Hedonic Treadmill Theory (Brickman & Campbell)
- built on an automatic habituation model in which psychological systems react to deviations from one’s current adaptation level
- one all reactions are relative to one’s prior experience
- a model of subjective well-being, in which processes like sensory adaptation occur when people experience emotional reaction to life events
- one’s emotional system adjusts to one’s current life circumstances and all actions are relative to one’s prior experience
- -> adaptation is key to understand happiness
- people briefly react to good and bad events, but then return to neutrality –> happiness is merely a short-lived reaction
5 needed Revisions to the Hedonic Treadmill Theory (Diener)
- non neutral set points
- -> if ppl adapt & return to baseline, it is rather a happy than neutral one - individual set points
- -> ppl do vary in their set-points as consequence to inborn and personality-based influences - multiple set points
- -> happiness is composed for several well-being variables which can move/change in different directions - happiness can change
- -> long-term levels of happiness do change for people as they can adept to some life events - individual differences in adaptation
- -> ppl who chronically experience positive events may gain less from another one; people who chronically experience negative events may not be strongly affected by another one
- -> happens can be increased
- -> happiness is more variable than we thought
Upward Spiral Theory of Lifestyle Change (Fredrickson)
- emphasis on automatic, nonsconscious motives and sellable resources rendering people more sensitive to subsequent positive experiences
- understand mechanisms through which positive emotions alter people’s future health behaviours e.g. health behaviours experienced as pleasant more likely to be maintained (intrinsic motivation task 1)
- combines broaden-and build theory and incentive salience theory
Inner Loop &
Outer Loop
–> outer loop in turn strengthens inner loop (interaction)
Upward Spiral Theory (Garland)
self-perpetuating cylcles that can be triggered by positive emotions and lead to optimal functioning and enhanced social openness
- lead to increased openness to others & novel or spontaneous exploratory activity
- are more open, flexible & social
- repeated induction of positive emotional states may gradually shift negative affective styles & potentially lead to development of lasting positive dispositional traits
- initial positive emotional experience predict future positive emotional experiences
- one increasingly attends to opportunities to engage in pleasurable events and encounters
–> upward spiral can counter downward spiral
Downward Spiral Theory (Garland)
Self-perpetuating and demanding cycles that can be triggered by negative emotions
- during downward spiral of stress sensitisation, repetitive exposure to a stimulus (e.g. rejection from peer) can come to elicit progressively more intense emotional and behavioural responses
- stressors may progressively and covertly lower affective thresholds
- leads to narrowed self-focus and rigid or stereotyped defensive bahaviour
- can be triggered by negative emotions
- may be partially mediated by affective plasticity in the brain
e.g. repeated exposure to aversive stimuli = chronic excitation of PFC & amygdala –> eliciting progressively more intense negative emotional & behavioural responses
Main Effect Model of Positive Affect and Heath (Pressman)
- postive affect has a main effect on health
- effects health through different pathways
Mediators:
- health behaviours (physical activity, healthy diet, medication adherence)
- physiological functioning (immune function, stress hormone level, CV function)
- social, physiological and physical resources (social support, relationships, coping, achievement, success)
Stress Buffering Models of Positive Affect
hypothesises that health benefits arise out of ability of positive affect (PA) to reduce stress and its detrimental effects on body (consistent with broaden-and-build)
- health benefits come from PA reducing stress
two broad predictions:
Moderation: PA moderates the link between stress and health behaviours/physiological functioning by weakening the stress-health behaviour/physiological connection
- naturally occurring trait PA predictive for faster wound healing in stress group
- PA moderates link between stress C-reactive protein levels (marker for inflammation) such as higher stress levels
- higher PA predictive of lower C-reactive protein
Mediation: PA may reduce occurrence of stress in an of itself, thus leading to more desirable health behaviours/physiological functioning
- PA directly reduces self-reported stress
- increases in PA associated with decreases in stress, which eventually associated with increases in beneficial health behaviour change in patients with chronic cardiopulmonary disease
–> stress mediates association in PA in health-relevant variables either directly or indirectly by the reaource accused through PA
Sustainable Happiness Model (SHM)
Three Influences
- Inherent genetic predisposition (50%)
- current life circumstances (10%)
- current intentional activities (40%)
- -> critically viewed by researchers)
- happiness is dependent on circumstances and set point (genetics)
- BUT happiness can be changed via intentional behaviour
Eudiamonic Activity Model
Engaging in eudiamoinc (growth promoting goals and intentional behaviours helps people to satisfy their basic psychological need, which results in elevated subjective well-being
- involves trying different kinds go goals, values, behaviours and activities to find out which ones. ring happiness
- should try activates we enjoy
- psychological needs as mediator
Eudiamonic activities: values, motivations, goals (wellbeing)–> mediator: psychological need satisfaction (autonomy, competence, relatedness) –> subjective wellbeing
- needs steady steam of success or positive feedback
Hedonic Adaptation Prevention Model
Hedonic Adaptation is preventable
Two Routes help “preserving” well-being
- Bottom-up route: person needs to continue to interact with the change (i.e. after moving using the space for dinner parties)
- Top-down route: avoid the temptation to believe that one should have even more of the original change (e.g. thinking you should have gotten an even better apartment) & reminding oneself of the value of it
- needs steady steam of success or positive feedback
Positive Activity Model
describe moderators and mediators for well-being promoting activities
- activities impact on well-being is based on person-activity fit
> person features (motivation & effort, efficacy beliefs, baseline affective state, personality, social support)
> activity feature (across: dosage, social support, variety, trigger;
between: present vs future vs past, others vs self-oriented, social vs reflective)
- makes predictions about the condition under which various positive practices may be more (or less) successful in promoting well-being
Darkside/Criticism od happiness
- wrong degree of happiness: engage in risky behaviour, neglect danger, associated with undesirable outcomes
> excessive degrees pf happiness may serve as a marker for mania - wrong time of happiness: physiological (prepare body to prepare for threat –> might have negative outcomes), social (interpersonal consequences–> laughing at funeral, or other people think you are well but you are not)
> attentional bias is different, in cheerful ppl may be slower (than fearful) to detect potential threats
> can create fundamental attribution errs - wrong ways to pursue happiness:
the more prople strive for happiness, the more they were disappointed, acceptance of negative emotions –> beneficial outcomes
e.g. academic success
> acceptance of negative emotion exhibit slower levels of anxiety & depression - wrong types of happiness:
1. social functioning - hubristic pride (too proud) = leads individuals to exhibit aggressiveness & antisocial behaviour
- negative social consequences, absence of negative emotions like guilt
- not aligned with cultural values
- positive research just a hype?
- cannot divide emotions into positive and negative
Dialectics of Wellbeing
- Principle of Appraisal
- Principle of co-valence
- principle of complementarity
Principle of Appraisal
Dialectics of Wellbeing
Difficult to categorise particular phenomena (e.g. emotions) as positive or negative, as such appraisals are fundamentally contextually dependent
