The positive Approach Flashcards
Describe the assumption of ‘Acknowledgment of free will’ In the positive approach.
Believes that humans are in charge of their own emotions and have free will to change how they direct their emotions.
‘Seligman’, happiness is not a result of good luck or genes. Recognising our strengths and weaknesses and working to minimise negativity.
Describe the assumption of ‘Fauthenicity of goodnedss and excellenc’ In the positive approach.
Feelings of happiness and goodness are as natural as feelings of anxiety and stress. Therefore, psychologists need to assign these positive states of mind equal attention. Seligman believes that we have inherit traits ‘signature strengths.’ Kindness, generosity and humour. We need to nurture these traits in order to transform our lives.
Describe the assumption of ‘Focus on thr good life’. In the positive approach.
- Focus on the good life- factors that can contribute most predominantly to a well viewed life.
- The pleasent life, pursuing posotive emotions in relation to the past,present and future.
- The good life, pursuing activites that positively absorb and engage us.
- The meaningful life, deep sense of fulfiliment by living for a purpose much greater than oneself.
-Pleasent life is a starting point, seligman encourages people to go further than the good life and seek. meaningful life in their continuous quest for happiness.
Using your knowledge of the positive approach explain how a relationship is formed
- Authnecity of goodness and exclessence, feelings of love,kindness, generosity and forgiveness are natural and authentic. Which can explain why relationships are forned. Entering into and mintining a relationship allows individuals to develop and express their ‘signiture strengths.’
- The good life, individuals strive towards ‘a good life’. One of the elements of a good life is a positive connection to others.
Describe the main components of mindfulness
- Gaining control of thoughts, being mindful trains us to focus our present thoughts,emotions and feelings. Minds are too focused on the past or future, mindfull teaches us to focus on the present. By becoming aware of all incoming thoughts and feelings and accept them. Goal = gain greater awareness of unhelpful or negative thoughts. Negative thinking cn lead to anxiety and depresseion.
- Meditation and mindful breathing, art of meditation, formal training. eg, sitting = most effective. For develping mindfulness skills, guided meditation is usually learned through a mixture of guided instruction and personal practice. Eg, getting the client to sit in a comftrable position, encourged to pay attention to their body sesnasitons and emotions. Preventing the intrusion of negative thoughts.
- Informal practices of mindfullness, once learned mindfullness can be practises throughout our daily life. Amid activities such as driving, cleaning or having a shower. Opposite of multitasking, making the concious decisison to focus on one hting. Should be incorpeted into daily life to give us a break from our normal surroundings.
Evaluate the mindfulness in terms of effectiveness.
- Integration with other therapies, thechniques of mindfullness are becoming increasingly incorpeted into other therapies. eg, psychoanalysis and CBT. Offers a new and effective/alternative perspective in therapy.
- Application in MBCT, used to prevent patients who suffer recurrent depression from relapse. ‘Tesbal et al (2000) evaluated effectivness. It did not have any effect on those who had only 2 episodes of depression in the past, substainally reduced the risk of relapse in those who had 3 or more episodes of depression.
- Application in mindfullness- based on stress reduction, used in general hospitals with patients suffering from conditions which may be chronic, disabling or terminal. Reibel et l 2001, reported that MBSR dcreased levels of anxiety and depression in 136 patients participated in a 8 week mindfullness programme.
Evaluate the mindfulness in terms of ethical issues
- A posotive approach to therapy, does not involve dragging up the past. Clinic anxiety is avoided, lack of determinist is and for the individual. It encourages the acceptance of the process of thinking=less frustrating for clients compared with other therapies such as CBT.
- Minfullness and morality, is seen as essential in maintiaing moral and ethical standards. ‘Rudy and Schweiter (2010), demonstarted how individuls were less likely to cheat on a task if high in minfulness.
Describe the aims of ‘Myers and Diener (1995)’
who is happy?
Evidence for what makes people happy.
Describe the Methodology and Procedures of ‘Myers and Diener (1995)’
-literature review on the topic of happiness.
* Interviews + Questionnaires (self report -methods), considered a persons self well being, subjective well being. Done by interviewing people. ‘How satisfied are you with your life as a whole these days?’. A quantitive measure is produced to represent happiness.
* Observation, asking people to report what they are doing at selected times. Researchers use beepers to remind a pp to send a message saying what they are doing/thinking at that moment. = sample peoples behaviour.
* Correltions, understnd hppiness by considering what factors may co-vary with it. Not always clear which is cause + what is effect.
* Reviews, is a review of other research + some of the research reffered to is also based on multiple studies.
Describe the Findings of ‘Myers and Diener (1995)’
- The myths of happiness, who are happy people?
- is happiness related to age?= no difference (170,000 pp). 80% satisfaction mean.
- Is happiness related to gender/= 80% of men and 80% of women ‘faitly satisfied’ with life. Research has found women are twice s vulnerable to depression than men.
- Is happiness related to race?= no notable differences Portugal 18% of people reported they were hppy in comparison to 40% in the Netherlands.
- Is happiness related to money?- correlation between wealth and wellbeing is +47.
-Most people agree money would make them a little happier.
money does increase happiness, but only up to a certain point. Once certain level is reached increased wealth makes little difference. - Happy people, some people ae simply happieer than others regardless of lifes ups and downs. Traits of happy people include, high self esteem, sense of personal cotrol, optimisation and extrersion.
- The relationships of happy people, for some people relationships create more stress and unhappiness. Most people benefits of relationships outweigh the strins.
- Work satisfaction effects happiness,people out of work = less happy. Work provides a personl identity.
Describe the conclusions of ‘Myers and Diener (1995)’
- The importance of adaptation- the effects of positive and negative circumstances are short lived. Therefore it is the individuals ability to adapt to these circumstances that consider their SWB.
- Cultured world view- people are predisposed to view life events based on their culture, this can have a significant impact on Swb.
- Values + Goods, people with high SWB have goods and other factors such as money only matter if they are part of these gols.
- Future, a persons happienss is not preditable from their age gender or affluence. It does appear to be associated with race and culture. People who are happy poccess certain traits; close relationships, enjoy work + religious.
- Psychologists can help build. world that enchances human well being.
Critically evaluate ‘Myers and Diener (1995)’ in terms of methodology and procedures.
- Self report- data collected about SWB is inevitbly subjective. No wy of confirming, respondents may be lying. Questionnares = socially desirable scores to appear in a good light. But produced quantitive data = easy to anlyse + compare.
- Correltions, many of the findings are correlational so we cannot assume that a particular factor is a cause of happiness. eg, marriage and happiness may be due to other things than the relationship, like 2 incomes.
- The samples, data is based on Western samples as researchers are American. Roots of happiness may be different in other cultures.
Critically evaluate ‘Myers and Diener (1995)’ in terms of ethical issues.
- Psychological harm- + as very little risk of harm to pps as behaviour is not being manipulayed. - some people who are unhappy may not welcome being asked about their happiness=more depressed
- Socially sensitive research, may make us more likely to think about a certain group of people, such as a particular cultre, in a particular way.
- Myers and Diener draw conclusions about the happines sof particular cultral groups.(Portugal + Netherlands).
- Alternative eviedence- Sonja Lyubomirsty (2013) argues that happiness is 50% due to genetic and 10% due to curcumstances. 40%= self control.
What are the advantages of the positive Approach?
- Strengths, a shift in focus for psychology, moves the focus of psychology beyond explaining and treating disorders annd ilness to celebrating the human character. How our authentic strengths can be developed to ensure we experince a greater life. Looking at the past instead of the indivduals future.
- Applications, has been applied in many fields of life in order to help individuals. eg, in education, stress managment nd therapy. Resilience training for the US army, improved ascpects of resillience. By building mental toughness and identifying signiture strengths. Soldiers can return home without serious mental health issues.
- Free will approach, unlike other approaches it does not propse a deterministic account of human behaviour, individuals are neither pre-determined nor restricted. Personal freedom to grow and develop their nature. Recognises that humans are self-regulating and are not victims of their past.
What are the weaknesses of the positive Approach?
- Not a new idea, posotive potential of human beings was first celebrayed by Abraham Maslow. ‘Seligman’ ignores the work of psychologists who were among the first to critise existing approaches in Psychology. So positive psychology is not unique or novel in recoginsing the deficit in Psychological research.
- Can happiness be measured?, can we define nd measure happiness scientfically? Each individual has a differnt idea about what happiness is about. 2 people could say they are happy and refer to 2 completely differnt states of mind. Problem in scientific research.
- Ignoring individual differences, ignores individual and cultural differences, proposes a ‘one size fits all’ philosophy. ‘ethnocentric approach’, based on culture bound western ideas. America is a culture preoccupied with the idea that posotive emotions, attitudes and essentials for a ‘good life’. Negative emotions are generally considered to be avoided or controlled. Ignores genetic factors and biological.
