Week 6: Positive Psychology Flashcards
This embraces a realistic and balanced view of human nature (include strengths and virtues without denying evil)
positive psychology
What is negative psychology associated with?
Self-serving, negative motives lurk beneath the surface (eg. Freud)
Why the focus on negative psychology?
Evolutionary reasons - negative behaviours represent threats and so deserve more attention.
Who coined the term positive psychology?
Martin Seligman
What is ‘The disease model’ of psychology?
Treating mental disorders as illness moves away from building on psychological strength and prevention.
We know more about mental illness than…
mental health
Negative emotions make us sick, wheras positive emotions are beneficial in fighting illness and as an immune suppressant. This type of psychology is referred to as…
health psychology
Describe the nun study by Danner and colleagues
- 180 nuns, average age 22 and then followed until death.
- Had the emotions in their transcripts coded.
- Those with expressed positive emotions correlated with longevity
eg. every 1% increase in positive emotion resulted in a 1.4% decrease in mortality rate.
What is Post-traumatic Growth (PSG)?
A greater appreciation of loved ones and life after experiencing traumatic events.
Happiness can be described as…
subjective well-being
Active involvement in activities has been correlated with happiness. This is referred to an an…
engaged life
Going beyond our own self-interests and preoccupations in life (eg. those who involve themselves in charity work) is referred to as leading a…
meaningful life
What is the ‘Paradox of affluence’?
Increased affluence in western society corresponds with increasing subjective distress.
What does ‘The Misery Index’ tell us?
You are 10 times more likely to be depressed if you are twice as rich as the average person.
In affluent families, divorce, child abuse and suicide occurs at an increased rate.
People consistently overestimate the impact that positive and negative events would have on their lives. This is called…
Affective forecasting.
Restricting your attention to an event on questin and ignoring the other life factors that exist is called…
Focalism
We often forget how the own power and hardiness of our psychological immune systems. This is called…
Immune neglect
The same patterns of subjective well-being (SWB) are evident in people, regardless of their..
emotional experiences
What are the 2 types of positive affect in a person’t life?
- Pleasant affect- a positive emotional state and low negative emotional arousal levels (self-centered in focus)
- Positive involvement - a high positive arousal state (other-oriented in focus)
People at different ages have different indicators for happiness. This is called the…
Eudynamic Perspective
What does Carstensen’s Socioemotonal Selective Theory indicate?
There are no general age-related declines in well-being. In fact, it tends to increase with age.
Why does well-being tend to increase with age?
- The elderly shift their focus from the future to the present
- Thy invest in people or things that matter most
- They avoid emotionally negative situations
- They are more resiliant
- They have an increased awareness of their time left living
what is ‘Life above zero’?
Zero is the line that divides unhappiness from happiness.
Traditional psychology has focused on life below zero.
Positive psychology focuses on life above zero.
What is the ‘Focusing Illusion’?
We make a summary judgement about an event without appreciating all the factors involved.
eg. predicted happiness of living in California
predicted happiness of students living in different types of dorms
People appear to inherit a ‘set point’, which is…
stablises our response to events (SWB will usually return to the same set point) despite circumstances like divorce etc
A dramatic decline is high arousal emotions appears with…
age
What differences are reported between the happiness of men and women world wide?
none
In regards to emotional experience, women are more likely to experience internalising disorders, which are…
Intense negative emotional states such depression and anxiety.
Men have higher rates of acting out their emotions, which are called…
externalising behaviours
eg. drug abuse, antisocial personality disorders and uncontrolled anger and aggression.
The possibility that people who marry are simply happier befor they get married, rather than because of being married, is called the…
selection effect
If you are quite happy, how much happier can you get?
If you are miserable, it doesn’t take much to cheer you up.
When this simplified comncept is applied to marriage, it is called…
hedonistic leveling
One of the strongest predictors of SWB is…
marriage
What sort of happiness:
Feels good = good
hedonic happiness
What sort of happiness?
Does good = good
eudynamic happiness
