Week 1: Key Principles in Positive Psychology

Question 1

The cycle to builds a character/personality

Answer 1

1. Thoughts
2. Words
3. Actions
4. Habits
5. Character

Question 2

What is Positive Psychology?

Answer 2

The study of what makes life worth living.

Question 3

As opposed to focusing on people’s faults, what does positive psychology focus on?

Answer 3

People’s strengths.

Question 4

What makes something good for you though? Wellbeing, etc?

Question 5

Percentages that make up Life Satisfaction. What are the three categories and their percentages?

Answer 5

50% Personal Qualities
40% Intentional Activity
10% Life Circumstances

Question 6

From Mental Wellness to Mental Illness, what are the four stages?

Answer 6

Meaningful Life
Engaged Life
Pleasurable Life
Struggling

Question 7

Martin Seligman

Question 8

What is the Disease Model?

Question 9

The Three “Happy Lives”

Answer 9

The Pleasant Life
The Good Life (Engagement)
The Meaningful Life

Question 10

The Pleasant Life

Answer 10

To chase pleasure and the ability for one’s person to achieve that.

-Pleasant emotions are 50% heritable
-An indiviudal can maximise 20-30% of pleasant emotions
-Habituates

Question 11

The Good Life

Answer 11

How one uses their strengths everyday to bring abundant gratification and authentic happiness.

-Flow, can’t feel anything. Is it the reward?

Question 12

The Meaningful Life

Answer 12

Using your signature strength to serve something/cause larger than oneself.

Question 13

PERMA

Answer 13

Positive emotions
Engagement
Relationships
Meaningful
Accomplishment

Question 14

Various Interventions

Answer 14

Have a beautiful day.
Gratitude visit
Strengths Date
Fun vs Philanthropy

Question 15

Is pop psychology similar to positive psychology?

Answer 15

Yes, just with a scientific basis

Question 16

Why the instinctual negative focus on psychology?

Answer 16

-Negative beliefs around the basis of human nature. Freud and Altruism
-Scepticism around the science behind abstract concept of positivity and wellbeing.

Question 17

Positive vs Negative, which creates a lasting effect/impression?

Answer 17

Generally negative, this can be evidenced through higher remembrance in impression formation, ‘trait negativity bias’, relationships, comments, etc.

Question 18

Which is more pronounced and carried through in our daily lives? Negative or positive?

Answer 18

Positive experiences are likely to happen frequently and form our expectations. Which is why when a negative experience occurs the remembrance is far more prominent (Gable & Hadit, 2005)

Attending more to the bad than the good may show a survival adaptive response (Reis & Gable, 2003)

‘Attention-grabbing power of negative social information”- Pratto and John 1991

Question 19

The Disease Model- Martin Seligman

Answer 19

Treating illnesses vs building strengths. Perpetuates the idea that humans are broken. We work perfectly fine for what we were made for. Although, has been rather advantageous in advancing psychopathology.

Question 20

Would eliminating mental illness give way to a healthy person?

Is there truly a neutral state.

Answer 20

No

Question 21

What is ‘subjective wellbeing’ (SWB)?

Answer 21

Subjective wellbeing is one of the ways Positive Psychology is measured. Understanding what Positive Psychology means to different people.

Evidence of the study of subjective wellbeing dates back to the 1920s.

Question 22

George Gallup and others introduced what technique which formed the back

Answer 22

Polling techniques

Question 23

How much does positive psychology interact with other fields of psychology?

Answer 23

Positive psychology reveals the potential for research into the positive side of any field.

It is interesting how the presence of something

Question 24

The interaction between health psychology and positive psychology

Answer 24

Negative emotions make you sick and positive ones heal. Suggesting a linkage from positive wellbeing to physical health.

Question 25

Broaden and build Fredrickson’s (2001) theory - Health Psychology

Answer 25

“Positive emotions have the ability to broaden people’s thought-action repertoires and build their enduring personal resources.”

Question 26

The Nun study

Answer 26

Expressions of positive emotion led to longevity and a sense of fullfilled being

Question 27

Clinical pschology and positive psychology

Answer 27

Finding words that describe the presence of mental health, and not just mental illness.

Prevention of mental illness and promotion of mental health.

Question 28

Developmental Psychology

Answer 28

Despite initial suppositions that positive psychology is defined entirely by pleasureable vice chasers, this is found to be a relatively closed in perspective as findings in Developmental Psychology broaden our understanding through the concept of resilience.

It was appealed that adversity may cause debilitating growth in children. However, an observation of resilience found those capable of thriving beyond such experiences.

Posttraumatic stress disorder to Posttraumatic growth.

Human strength and positive coping abilities

Question 29

Ed Diener 2000

Answer 29

Studies happiness through subjective wellbeing (SWB)

Question 30

What does SWB measure?

Answer 30

SWB measures life satisfaction and frequency of positive/negative emotions

Question 30

Much of positive psychological research is focused on what two things?

Answer 30

Traits. Prevailing patterns of behaviour that form a character. Something a person is endowed with.

To give an example…
-Self-esteem
-Physical attractiveness
-Optimism
-Intelligence
Extraversion

States. A current snapshot of life.

To give an example…
-Work situation
-Involvement in religion
-Number of friends
-Marital status
-Quality of relationships

Question 31

Social psychology

Answer 31

Cultures have sensitized particular groups as to what makes them happy.

Question 31

Consumer culture is the willingness to sacrifice what for what?

Answer 31

Sacrifice life satisfaction and own happiness for fame and fortune.

Question 32

Positive psychology and the problem with psychology mentioned by Kuhn.

Answer 32

The problem with psychology is the instantaneous pigeon-holing into various fields. Martin Seligman intended for positive psychology to encompass many fields.

Question 33

Positive psychology is the study of…

Answer 33

optimal mental functioning and happiness

Question 34

Positive institutions

Question 35

How do you transcend?

Answer 35

Just a question on how to get yourself above neutral on the mental illness mental health scale

Question 36

Culture allows positive psychology to study what?

Answer 36

The idea of universal happiness, the differences or commonalities between

Question 37

Paradox of Affluence, emergence in the 1990s

Answer 37

Despite the general populations affluence going up, so is the subjective reports of distress

Question 38

Zeitgeists

Question 39

Misery Index

Question 40

Negative life circumstances that do effect positive psychology, or are very likely to.

Answer 40

Economic discomfort

Question 41

“No one should have to show that they are miserable and unhappy to justify fair treatment or equal opportunity.”