Week 8 Flashcards
What is the traditional focus of positive psychology?
- Focus on distress as a cause of suffering
- Focus on preventing and alleviating human suffering
What is negativity bias ?
- We tend to focus more on the “negative” than the “positive”
- awareness of threat in our environment is adaptive, but largely misplaced in society today
What did Barbura Fredrickson propose ?
- 3:1 Positivity Ratio for Flourishing
- 3 positives for every 1 negative emotion (a sense of flourishing)
- 80% of Americans don’t meet this ratio
- Similar work: Losada 3:1 ratio for team performance; Gottman 5:1 ratio for relationships
- Eustress -> prompts us to grow psychologically
What is positivity psychology ?
- the field of study in psychology that focuses on examining and promoting well-being
- Examines what people doright rather than what goes wrong
What are the 3 pillars of positive psychology?
- Positive Experiences (e.g., joy, happiness, love, hope)
- Positive States and Traits (e.g., hratitude, resilience, compassion)
- Positive Institutions (e.g., application of positive principles)
What are the antecedents to positive psychology?
- Divine Command Theory
- Aristotle’s Virtue Theory of Happiness
- Buddhism beleifs
What is the Divine Command Theory ?
- Those who are happy follow the commands of a supreme being and live in accordance with divine laws and morals
- today’s notion of religiosity, spirituality and meaning making
What is Aristotle’s Virtue Theory of Happiness?
- Eudaimonia (“happiness possessed of true wellbeing”) is not a goal to pursue but a byproduct of living the virtuous life (e.g., courage, good temper, honour)
- Contrats with hedonisitic happiness: happiness is acheived through pleasurable experiences and enjoyment
What does Buddhism state regarding happiness?
Happiness is acheived when a person can perceive the true nature of reality, unmodified by the mental constructs we superimpose upon it
What compromises the basic dimensions of emotional experience ?
Postive and negative affect compromise the basic dimensions of emotional experiences
What is negative affect?
- withdrawl-oriented, important for survival or protection from harm (e.g., FoF)
- sadness, anger, fear, anxiety, resentment, jealousy
- evolutionary adaptive
What is positive affect?
- approach-oriented, leads the person to experiences that yield pleasure
- joy happiness, amusement, love
- evolutionary adaptive? connections (social)
What does Fredrickson’s Broaden-and-Build Model explain ?
Explains the adaptive and evolutionary value of our positive emotions
What does the B&B model propose ?
- Negative emotions tend to limit our options, positive emotions tend to broaden them
How are negative and positiveemotions seen in the B&B Model?
- Negative emotions can make a person act quickly (specific action tendencies)
- Positive emotions broaden our thought-action repetoires (non-specific action tendencies) which leads to resource-building action (responding skilfully with thought)
- Adaptive for short-term survival gains (negative; automatic; e.g., run out of burning building)
- Adaptive for long-term survival gains (positive; social connections)
What did Frederick state about positivity?
- “Positivity doesn’t just change the contents of your mind…It widens the span of possibilities that you see”
- creating spaciousness; widening our window of tolerance
- move away from narrow focus
What does Fredrickson’s Undoing hypothesis state?
- positive emotions help us recover more quickly from detrimental effects of negative emotions (e.g., laugh after being startled - helps relieve tension and regain equilibrium)
- Regain equilibrium and then broaden attention to resources (e.g., social support)
What did Fredrickson et al., 2000 show?
- provoked anxiety in participants (speech anticipation task) and then showed a film clip (positive or neutral)
- The positive clip resulted in greater cardiovascular recovery relative to the neutral clip (offset negative affect helping participants come back to baseline)
What are the 5 things that occur in the B&B Model?
- Positive emotions
- Broadening of Thought-Action Repertoires (possibillities, problem-solving, activities I can engage in)
- More flexible thoughts and behaviours (more creative, more skillfull decision making)
- Build personal resources (cultivating skills)
- More social support and greater life satisfaction
What was found when Fredrickson & Branigan (2005) tested the broaden hypothesis?
- Participants underwent a mood induction of positive, negative or no mood induction via video clips
- Later asked: “what do you feel like doing right now?”
- Results: Positive emotions resulted in listing more things they would like to do (i.e., potential actions) and the list was more varied (broad focus). Negative emotion induction resulted in listing fewer potential actions (less felxible;more narrow)
What was found when Fredrickson & Cohn (2009) tested the broaden hypothesis?
Visual attention study: The negative emotion induction correlated with attention to detail (local bias); the positive emotion induction correlated with global bias (narrow vs. broader focus)
What was found when testing the build hypothesis (Fredrickson et al. 2008) ?
RCT (7-week loving kindness meditation vs. waitlist control): Engaging in loving kindness mediation associated with improved resource building (e.g., seeking more social support) and greater life satisfaction and reduced depression compared to WLC
What are the two competing views of happiness and well-being?
- subjectivisit view
- prescriptive view
What does subjectivist view state?
states that happiness is defined by subjective well-being (most prevalent)
What are the general components of subjective wellbeing?
- Life satisfaction (global judgement about how good one’s life is)
- Satisfaction with important life domains (e.g, work, family, health)
- Positive affect
- Low negative affect
What does the perspective view state?
- states that certain factors must be present for a person to experience happiness and well-being
- less prevalent and parallel’s Aristotle’s virtue theroy of happiness (i.e., eudaimonia)
What are the 6 dimensions in Carol Ryff’s model of psychological wellbeing?
- Autonomy: ability to think independently and make decisions
- Self-aceptance: balanced realistic view of self
-
Positive relations with others: ability to love, empathize, and connect
4.** Environmental mastery**: self efficacy in shaping experiences - Purpose in life: direction in life, set of aims that guide behaviour/decisions
- Personal growth: ability to learn and evolve, tapping into potential
What does the happiness set point state?
- 50% biology
- 40% personal actions
- 10% circumstances
What is happiness set point ?
- when we are too happy or too unhappy, our internal biological regulators try to bring happiness levels back to a genetically determined set point
- Assertion: We each have a happiness set point
- can’t control or change it; set point; fixed; stable across time; ex: thermostat that is locked into position
What did Lykken and Tellegen(1996) find ?
study in regards to happiness set point
- Examined identical twins at age 20 and then again at age 30
- Well-being scores were very stable across time
- Genetic variation accounted for 44%-52% of the variance of well-being
- Happiness set point probably determines about 50% of our long-term stable happiness levels (Lyubomirsky et al., 2005)
What is hedonic adaptation ?
novelty of a new stimulus (i.e., buying a new car) wears off and happiness levels return to baseline (habituation)
What did Luca’s (2007) study find?
- Archival panel data from Germany and Britain, spanning 14-21 yrs
- Findings suggest that hedonic adaptation is more likely to occur for marriage, widowhood, and divorce and is least likely to occur for disability and severe disability
- Happiness levels are moderately stable over time, howver happiness levels do change, adaptation is not inevitable, and life events do matter
What does resilience mean?
- People not only cope with a negative event, but they are transformed by the experience
- Resilient people may show positive growth and thrive after negative life experience (i.e., post-traumatic growth)
What does substantial changes in one’s set-point depend on?
- Personality traits (extraverion (+), neuroticism (-), internal locus of control (+)
- Choice of life goals (materialism (-), family life (+), altruism (+)
What did Deaton & Kahnemen (2010) find?
Does money buy happiness?
- The magic number: $75,000 US
- Distinction b/w emotional wellbeing vs. life evaluation
- Income and education are more closely related to positive life evaluation BUT health, caregiving, loneliness, and smoking are relatively stronger predictors of daily emotional wellbeing
- Emotional well-being also rises with income, but there is no further progress beyond and annual income of ~$75,000
What did Galbraith et al (2023) find?
Does money buy happiness?
- 2,966 participants from Indigenous and local communities across 19 sites worldwide, revealed an average life satisfaction score of 6.8/10
- Only 64% of surveyed households had any cash income, yet some communities reported happiness levels exceeding those of wealthy nations
- **Income/wealth is not a universal predictor of happiness **
- Why? Family and social support, spirtuality, and connections to nature may be important factors on which this happiness is based
What is invovled in Maslow’s hierachy of needs ?
- Self actualization: desire to become the most that one can be
- Esteem: respect, slef-esteem, status, recognition, strength, freedom
- Love and belonging: friendship, intimacy, family, sense of connection
- Safety needs: personal security, employment, resources, health, property
- Physiological needs: air, water, food, shelter, sleeo, clothing, reproduction
What is a society of consumerism ?
excessive focus on pursuing material goods can lead individuals to neglect other factors necessary for high well-being such as intimate relationships and life purpose
What are bottom-up theories of happiness?
life’s circumstances influence happiness (i.e., the sum of our positive experiences)
What are top-down theories of happiness?
happiness levels begin in ourselves and they effect how we view life’s circumstances
What is flow?
An experience of merging one’s consciousness with an event in the present moemnt. The experience of complete absorption in the present moment.
What are the conditions to enter flow?
- Perceived challenge that stretch but do not overextend existing skills
- Clear proximal goals and immediate feedback about progress being made
What is invovled in the subjective state of flow?
- Intense and focused concentration in the present moment
- Merging of action and awareness and loss of reflective self-consciousness
- Temporal distortion
- The process is intrinsically rewarding
What did a study find in regards to flow and wellbeing?
- Prospective longitudinal study of 474 univeristy students in Southwest China during COVID-19
- Measures: Flow experience, well-being and psychological resilience measured across 3 waves of data collection
- Results: Flow -> well being which is explained by PR
1. Flow T1 and T2 predicited subsequent WB at T2 and T3
2. WB T2 predicted Flow T3
3. Flow T1 and WB T3 was mediated by PR and T2
4. PR T1 and T2 predicted Flow T2 and T3
