Week 4

Question 1

Into the 21st Century

Answer 1

• governance of psychologic life performed by lay people
• Maximizing human potential
• New ideas justified through appeals to scientific legitimacy
• Demedicalization?

Question 2

Early 20th C behaviourism

Answer 2

• informed by positivism
• should adopt scientific method
• behaviour as learned

Question 3

Mid 20th C behaviourism

Answer 3

• behaviour is filtered through thoughts
• new treatments emphasizing reshaping thought

Question 4

Ellis (Human Behaviour)

Answer 4

Distress arises from thoughts about an event

Question 5

Beck (Human behaviour)

Answer 5

Automatic thoughts are identifiable and treatable

Question 6

Martin Seligman Epiphany

Answer 6

• In his garden
• his poor mood was a choice
• people can be trained to be happier

Question 7

Emergence of Positive Psychology

Answer 7

Seligman promised to revolutionize psychology by turning away from “the negative” to study the “universal science of happiness”
- Positive psych merges study of experience, strengths and virtues

Question 8

Csikszentmihayli

Answer 8

Interested in how people remain happy in the world of chaos
- Developed “flow”: people come happily immersed in a experience losing track of time

Question 9

Key Tenets of Positive Psych

Answer 9

• Positivity is good for you, negativity is bad
• Happiness is result of cognitive outlook
• Inverts Freudian theory
• Thoughts create emotions

Question 10

Explosion of Positive Psychology

Answer 10

• Running through media and academics
• Importance of happiness and optimism
• Positive psych infiltrates everyday practice

Question 11

How has pos psych infiltrated everyday life

Answer 11

• Gratitude exercise, strength focused business meetings
• New industry of life coaches, self-help books, happiness economists

Question 12

Mindfulness

Answer 12

• Drew from buddhist mysticism
• helps guard against mental health problems
• People are in control of their fate
• Reinforces idea that distress can be avoided

Question 13

The Happiness Turn

Answer 13

• the intellectual and cultural shift that PosPsych created
• Defining norms around what is good and healthy
• Belief people who don’t pursue right happiness will be punished (moral judgements - guilty pleasures)

Question 14

Social Critiques of PosPsych

Answer 14

• our fate is simply a product of our choices
• lack of accountability
• universal truths are grounded in individualism
• Binkley: people must insulate themselves against harm. it is both a response to (and enabler of) neoliberalism’s tendency to do away with the social safety net

Question 15

Scientific Critiques of PosPsych

Answer 15

• Perez-Alvarez: use social capital to mask our character
• Wilson: mindfulness uses the rhetoric of science to shift expertise (on things like how to live a meaningful life) from the religious realm to a medical one
• PosPsych has flawed methods that have hurt the credibility of discipline
• Study that defensive pessimists make better decisions than optimists

Question 16

Happiness as Imperative

Answer 16

Held: we live under the “tyranny of positive attitude,” being told we must be happy at all costs or face the consequences
Ehrenreich (Smile or Die): how society deals with illness and suffering, particularly how people often impose a “positive” narrative on those struggling with serious health conditions