UNIT 1: Introduction to Positive Psychology (LOPEZ)

- What is Positive Psychology

- Eastern and Western perspectives on Positive Psychology
- The theoretical background of positive psychology.

UNIT 2: Concepts in Positive Psychology (LOPEZ, BUMGARDNER)

- Positive emotions
- Happiness
- Subjective well-being
- Optimism and hope
- Wisdom and courage.

Unit 3: Spirituality and Altruism

- Mindfulness, flow and spirituality, (Old Snyder Ch 11) Spirituality (Baumgardner Ch 10) -
Altruism, Gratitude and Forgiveness. (Old Snyder Ch 12)

Unit 4: Promoting Positive Relationships

- Attachment and Love; Interpersonal relationships (Old Snyder Ch 13) -
Love (New Snyder Ch34)
- Close Relationships (Baumgardner Ch 11)
- Character Strengths and Virtues. (Baumgartner Ch10)

Unit 5: Applications of Positive Psychology

- Positive Schooling (Old Snyder Ch 16)
- Work and Communities. (Old Snyder Ch 17 and Chapter 18)
UNIT 1
CH 1: WHAT IS POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY

● Positive psychology focuses on wellbeing, happiness, flow, personal strengths, wisdom,

creativity, imagination and characteristics of positive groups and institutions. ● The focus is
not just on how to make individuals happy, thereby perpetuating a self-centeredd ,
narcissistic approach, but on happiness and flourishing at a group level as well. ● Positive
psychology is not simply the focus on positive thinking and positive emotions. - It is
focused on what makes individuals and communities flourish, rather than languish.
● Flourishing is defined as a state of positive mental health; to thrive, to prosper and to
fare well in endeavors free of mental illness, filled with emotional vitality and function
positively in private and social realms.
● However, the costs of adopting this disease model included the negative view of
psychologists as victimologists‘ and pathologisers‘, the failure to address the
improvement of normal lives and the identification and nurturance of high talent.
 ● The Western world has long overgrown the rationale for an exclusively disease model of
psychology. Perhaps now is the time to readdress the balance by using psychology
resources to learn about normal and flourishing lives, rather than lives that are in need of
help.

Assumptions and Goals

● The aim of positive psychology is to catalyze a change in psychology from a
preoccupation only with repairing the worst things in life to also building the best
qualities in life.
● To redress the previous imbalance, we must bring the building of strength to the forefront
in the treatment and prevention of mental illness.
● Positive psychology concentrates on positive experiences at three time points:
1. The past: centring on wellbeing, contentment and satisfaction
2. The present, which focuses on concepts such as happiness and flow experiences;
3. The future, with concepts including optimism and hope.
● Not only does positive psychology distinguish between wellbeing across time points but
it also separates the subject area into three nodes:
1. The subjective node: encompasses things like positive experiences and states
across past, present and future (for example, happiness, optimism, wellbeing) 2.
The individual node, which focuses on characteristics of the good person‘ (for
example, talent, wisdom, love, courage, creativity);
3. The group node, which studies positive institutions, citizenship and communities
(for example, altruism, tolerance, work ethic)
From the negative to the positive
● Before World War II, psychology had three distinct missions: curing mental illness,
making the lives of all people more productive and fulfilling, and identifying and
nurturing high talent. Right after the war, two events— both economic—changed the face
of psychology.
● In 1946, the Veterans Administration was founded, and thousands of psychologists found
out that they could make a living treating mental illness. At that time the profession of
clinical psychologist came into its own.
● In 1947, the National Institute of Mental Health was founded, and academics found out
that they could get grants if their research was described as being about pathology. - This
arrangement brought many substantial benefits. There have been huge strides in the
understanding of and therapy for mental illness: At least 14 disorders, previously
intractable, have yielded their secrets to science and can now be either cured or
considerably relieved.
● But the downside was that the other two fundamental missions of psychology— making
the lives of all people better and nurturing genius—were forgotten. It was not only the
subject matter that altered with funding but also the currency of the theories underpinning
how we viewed ourselves.
● Psychology came to see itself as a mere subfield of the health professions, and it became a
 Victimology. We saw human beings as passive foci: stimuli came on and elicited
responses. External reinforcements weakened or strengthened responses, or drives, tissue
needs, or instincts. Conflicts from childhood pushed each of us around.
● Psychology‘s empirical focus then shifted to assessing and curing individual suffering. ●
Practitioners went about treating mental illness within the disease-patient framework of
repairing damage: damaged habits, damaged drives, damaged childhood, and damaged
brains.
But now...
● Psychology is not just the study of disease, weakness, and damage it also is the study of
strength and virtue.
● Treatment is not just fixing what is wrong; it also is building what is right. ●
Psychology is not just about illness or health; it also is about work, education, insight,
love, growth, and play.
● Positive psychology tries to adapt what is best in the scientific method to the unique
problems that human behavior presents in all its complexity. At its best, positive
psychology has been able to give the scientific community, society and individuals a new
perspective on existing ideas as well as providing empirical evidence to support the
phenomenon of human flourishing.
● Above all, though, positive psychology has challenged and rebalanced the deficit
approach to living while connecting its findings to many different disciplines.
View of human functioning
● In the last decade psychologists have become concerned with prevention. ● This has
largely come from a perspective focused on systematically building competency, not
correcting weakness.
● We have discovered that there are human strengths that act as buffers against mental
illness: courage, future-mindedness, optimism, interpersonal skill, faith, work ethic, hope,
honesty, perseverance, the capacity for flow and insight, to name several.
● Much of the task of prevention in this new century will be to create a science of human
strength whose mission will be to understand and learn how to foster these virtues in
young people.
CH 2: WESTERN PERSPECTIVES ON POSITIVE
PSYCHOLOGY

Religious Hope in Western Civilization

● The history of Western civilization parallels the histories of Judaism and Christianity. -
Christianity's doctrines hold that God's kingdom on Earth is not only awaited-it is
anticipated.
- Thus, it is logical that the belief in hope would influence secular intellectual
assumptions and ideas.
● Impressive human endeavors can result from a hopeful disposition. In each case, an active
verb is connected to a noun that refers to an outcome- achievement, achievements
 because they are achievements along a road out of a period that is sometimes referred to
as the Dark Ages.
● Before the Renaissance, certainly were enveloped in the shadows of oppression and
ignorance; inertia and intellectual lassitude were the norms. This intellectual and social
immobility reflected a paralysis of curiosity and initiative.
● From the years of the Middle Ages (500-1500), such paralysis precluded the purposeful,
sustained planning and action required by a hopeful, advancing society. The fires of
advancement were reduced to embers during this dark millennium and kept glowing only
by a few institutions such as the monasteries and their schools.
● As the Dark Ages were ended by the brightness of the Renaissance and its economic
growth and prosperity, hope was seen as more relevant to present life on Earth than to the
afterlife. Therefore, the religious hope that focused on a distant future, after life on Earth.
● The philosopher Immanuel Kant decided that the religious nature of hope precluded its
inclusion in discussions of how to bring about changes on Earth. With this shift, the religious
conception of hope faded as the primary motivation for action. Strengthening and hastening
this change was another aspect of religious hope, identified by what Farley (2003) called
"wishful passivity," a perspective that still influences religious hope today.
● The religious hope that is oriented to the afterlife can become an unconscious barrier to
taking action in this life. The problem with this kind of religious hope as described by
Farley is that it may give a sense of delayed comfort about future conditions.
● In focusing on a desired future state instead of upon what must happen to reach that state,
the person's intentions and efforts are drawn away from what is needed in the here and
now.
● Fromm goes on to point out that hope is not the same as desires and wishes (i.e., products
of envisioning a possibility for change without having a plan or requisite energy for
producing such change).
● Unlike hope, these latter motives have passive qualities in which there is little or no effort
made to realize the desired objective. An extreme level of this passivity yields what
Fromm called nihilism.
The pre renaissance period
● The positive beliefs and hope of Western civilization solidified after the Renaissance ●
They reflect people having the spirit and making the effort needed to reach goals. These
historical markers required goal-directed actions instead of mere waiting for better times or
good things to happen. With the advent of the Renaissance, these active and hopeful
thoughts began to be coupled with goal-directed actions

The renaissance
● The Renaissance produced changes in the customs and institutions that had dominated
Europe for the previous millennium
● Feudalism, the dominance of the Catholic Church, and rural isolated living, all gave way
to an emerging nationalism, trade and commerce, the growth of cities, and the expansion
of arts and scholarship.
 ● Hope came alive during this period of rebirth. This historical period now is viewed more
as an evolution than a revolution, and it was a turning point that facilitated the emergence
of active hope
● During this period, people also began to view themselves as individuals rather than as
representatives of a class.
● Moreover, this emerging interest in the merits of personal achievement led to a focus on
doing things related to this life

The enlightenment
● This era marked the emergence from an immaturity characterized by unwillingness to use
one's own knowledge and intelligence.
● Enlightenment represented a declaration of independence from the long-established
acceptance of authority in religion and politics that dated back to biblical times ● Scientific
influences began to play increasingly strong roles in the spiritual, physical, and intellectual
lives of people.
● The Enlightenment was rooted in the Renaissance revival of interest in Greek and Latin
books and ideas, along with an interest in this world rather than the next.
● Newton's 1687 publication of Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy has been
used by some to mark the start of the Enlightenment and the rise of the scientific method.
Although the roots of his work extended back to the biblical era, Newton's ideas served
other purposes to help in understanding and revering God.
● The Scientific Revolution was an integral part of the Enlightenment, and it began when
the political atmosphere became more favorable
● The Enlightenment reflected the nature of hope because of its emphasis on rational
agencies and rational abilities. These qualities were interwoven in the dominant belief of
the age, that reason brought to life with the scientific method led to the achievements in
science and philosophy
● These latter perspectives are in direct contrast to the prevalence of ignorance,
superstition, and the acceptance of authority that characterized the Middle Ages. ●
Consider education and how it decreases the probability that actions will be impulsive;
that is to say, education should promote thoughtful analyses and plans to reach desired
goals.
● Furthermore, human dignity and worth were recognized during the Enlightenment.

The industrial revolution

● The movement of production from homes and small workshops to large factories vastly
increased material benefits for individual citizens.
● The Industrial Revolution created amenities that most citizens could obtain and enjoy.
Goods thus become available for the many rather than only for the few. Such benefits
included the steam engine and its many applications, iron and steelmaking, and railroads

Conclusion:
 ● Western civilization has been defined by its critical mass of hopeful events and beliefs
● Before the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, and the Industrial Revolution, and even
during the Middle Ages, hopeful thinking was a critical part of humankind's belief
system. If some historical eras do not reveal major signs, there nonetheless have been
implicit markers of hope.
● Looking back at the events of the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, and the Industrial
Revolution, perhaps it is reasonable to consider all eras, starting with the Renaissance and
continuing until 1900, as part of a new period called the Age of Progress. This Age of
Progress characterizes Western civilization and reflects the inherent component of
hopeful thinking
● This faith in the value and promise of our civilization is essential for the concept of hope,
and vice versa. Thus, hope is the essence of faith in the value and promise of our Western
civilization.
CH 3: EASTERN PERSPECTIVES ON POSITIVE
PSYCHOLOGY

CONFUCIANISM, TAOISM, BUDDHISM, AND HINDUISM

● The concept of the "good life" has existed within the Eastern tradition for many centuries.
● Contrary to the Western culture's idea of optimal functioning as occurring intrapsychically,
Eastern cultures hold that an optimal life experience is a spiritual journey involving
transcendence and enlightenment.
● This latter search for spiritual transcen- dence parallels the Westerner's hopeful pursuits
for a better life on Earth.

Confucianism
● Confucius held that leadership and education are central to morality.
● He emphasized morality as a potential cure for the evils of that time
● Confucian ethics, which have been compared to Immanuel Kant, have clear definitions
and relatively inflexible meanings
● The tenets of Confucianism are laden with quotations that encourage looking to the
welfare of others. "You would like others to do for you what you would indeed like
for yourself"
● The attainment of virtue is at the core of Confucian teachings.
● The five virtues deemed central to living a moral existence are
1. Jen (humanity, the virtue most exalted by Confucius) : encapsulate the other four
virtues
2. Yi (duty) : appropriate treatment of others and can be defined as the duty to treat
others well.
3. Ii (etiquette); : promotes propriety and good manners along with sensitivity for
others' feelings
4. Zhi (wisdom),
 5. Xin (truthfulness).
● Confucian followers must strive to make wise decisions based on these five virtues and
must be true to them as well which leads the Confucian follower to enlightenment, or the
good life.

Taoism
● Ancient Taoist beliefs are difficult to discuss with Western audiences partly because of
the untranslatable nature of some key concepts in the tradition of Taoism. ● Lao-Tzu
states in his works that his followers must live according to the Tao ● The Chinese
character portraying the concept of the Way is a moving head and "refers simultaneously
to direction, movement, method, and thought"
● It is meant to embody the ubiquitous nature of this force.
● Tao is the energy that surrounds everyone and is a power that "envelops, surrounds, and
flows through all things"
● According to Taoist traditions, the difficulty in understanding the Way stems from the
fact that one cannot teach another about it.
● Instead, understanding flows from experiencing the Way for oneself by fully participating
in life.
● In this process, both good and bad experiences can contribute to a greater understanding
of the Way.
● It also is said to encapsulate the balance and harmony between contrasting concepts (i.e.,
there would be no light without dark, no male without female, and so on). ● The Yin and
Yang symbol reflects this ever-changing balance of opposing forces and desires.
● Achieving naturalness and spontaneity in life is the most important goal in the Taoist
philosophy.
● Thus, the virtues of humanity, justice, temperance, and propriety must be practiced by the
virtuous individual without effort
● One who has achieved transcendence within this philosophy does not have to think about
optimal functioning but behaves virtuously naturally.

Buddhism
● Seeking the good of others is woven throughout the teachings of "the Master" or "the
Enlightened One" (i.e., the Buddha).
● The Buddha teaches that suffering is a part of being and that this suffering is brought on
by the human emotion of desire.
● Such desire is reflected in the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism:
1. Life is suffering, essentially painful from birth to death.
2. All suffering is caused by ignorance of the nature of reality and the resultant
craving, attachment, and grasping.
3. Suffering can be ended by overcoming ignorance.
4. The way to relief from suffering is the Noble Eightfold Path (right views, right
 intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort,
right-mindedness, and right contemplation).
● As long as craving exists, in Buddhist ideology, true peace cannot be known, and such
existence without peace is considered suffering
● This suffering can be lessened only upon reaching nirvana, which is the final destination
in the Buddhist philosophy.
● Nirvana is a state in which the self is freed from desire for anything.
● Both premortal and postmortal nirvana states are proposed as possible for the individual. -
The premortal nirvana may be likened to the idea of the ultimate "good life." - Postmortal
nirvana may be similar to the Christian idea of heaven.
● Buddhism gives an important place to virtue, which is described in several catalogs of
personal qualities.
● Buddhists speak of the Brahma Viharas, those virtues that are above all others in
importance.
● These virtues include love (maitri), compassion (karuna), joy (mudita), and equanimity
(upeksa).
● The paths to achieving these virtues within Buddhism require humans to divorce
themselves from the human emotion of desire to put an end to suffering.

Hinduism
● The Hindu tradition differs as it does not appear to have a specific founder, and it is not
clear when this tradition began in history
● There is no one text that pervades the tradition, though many refer to the Upanishads as
the most commonly used set of writings.
● Followers of Hindu "think of their religion as being grounded in a way of action, rather
than a written text"
● The main teachings of the Hindu tradition emphasize the interconnectedness of all
things.
● The idea of a harmonious union among all individuals is woven throughout the teachings
of Hinduism that refer to a "single, unifying principle under- lying all of Earth" ● The
Upanishads discuss two possible paths after death:
- Reincarnation (or returning to Earth to continue to attempt to achieve necessary
enlightenment)
- No reincarnation (meaning that the highest knowledge possible was achieved in
life).
● The latter path, no reincarnation, is the more glorified path and the one that Hindu
followers would attempt to attain.
● One's goal within this tradition would be to live life so fully and so correctly that one
would go directly to the afterlife without having to repeat life's lessons in a reincarnated
form
● Hindu teachings are very clear about the qualities one must embody to avoid
 reincarnation, they consider it a failure.
● The quest of one's life is to attain ultimate self-knowledge and to strive for ultimate
self-betterment (also a Western concept).
● This emphasis on personal improvement echoes Buddhist teachings but contrasts sharply
with the Confucian belief that citizenship and group good are much more important than
self-improvement
● Individuals are encouraged to be good to others as well as to improve themselves; the
Upanishads state.
● "Good action" is also encouraged, if one does not reach ultimate self-knowledge in one's
life and thus does have to return to Earth via reincarnation after death, the previous life's
good actions correlate directly with better placement in the world in this life. ● This process
is known as karma.
● In this next life, then, the individual must again strive for self-betterment, and so on
throughout his life until the goal of ultimate self-knowledge is attained.
● The good life in the Hindu tradition, encompasses individuals who are continually
achieving knowledge and continually working toward good actions

Summary of Eastern Philosophies

● Each of the Eastern philosophies discussed here incorporates ideas about the importance
of virtue, along with human strengths, as people move toward the good life (i.e.,
transcendence).
● Similarities also can be drawn, in the types of human qualities and experiences that are
valued.

EAST MEETS WEST

● Eastern and Western ideologies stem from very different historical events and traditions. ●
These differences can be seen explicitly in the value systems of each cultural approach to
living, their orientations toward time, and their respective thought processes. ● These
cultural differences give more information about strengths identified in each culture and
ways in which positive life outcomes are pursued and achieved.

Value systems
● Cultural value systems have significant effects on the determination of strengths versus
weaknesses
● Whereas most Western cultures have individualist perspec- tives, most Eastern cultures
are guided by collectivist viewpoints
● Individualist cultures
- The main focus is the single person, who is held above the group in terms of
importance.
- Competition and personal achievement are emphasized within these cultures. ●
Collectivist cultures
 - The group is valued above the individual, and cooperation is accentuated ● These
different emphases on what is valued determine which constructs are considered strengths
in each type of culture.
● For example,
- Western cultures value highly the ideas of personal free- dom and autonomy. Thus,
the person who "stands on her own two feet" is seen as possessing strength
within this worldview.
- In an Eastern culture, on the other hand, such assertiveness on behalf of the self
would not be viewed as an asset, as society seeks to foster interdependence within
the group.
● Closely related to the interdependence that is prized within collectivist cultures are the
concepts of sharing and duty to the group.
● Value is placed on staying out of conflict and "going with the flow" within the Eastern
ways of thinking.
● The Japanese story "Momotaro" ("Peach Boy;' Sakade, 1958) gives an excellent example
of the cultural importance of the traits of interdependence, the ability to avoid conflict,
and duty to the group.
● As the hero, Momotaro portrays the strengths valued in Japanese and other Asian
cultures:
1. collectivism
2. promoting harmony
3. interdependence and collaboration
4. interdependence and sharing
● In comparison to this tale of Momotaro, the story of a Western hero might differ at
several points, especially that of the hero needing help from others, because individual
achievement often is valued above group achievement.
● Thus, the cultural orientation determines which characteristics are transmitted as the
valued strengths to its members.

Orientation to Time
● In Western cultures such as the United States, we often look to the future. ● Indeed, some
of the strengths we seem to value most (e.g., hope, optimism, self-efficacy) reflect future-
oriented thinking.
● In Eastern cultures, however, there is a greater focus on, and respect for, the past. This
past-oriented focus is revealed in the ancient Chinese proverb, "To know the road ahead,
ask those coming back."
● Certain personality characteristics might be defined as strengths in terms of their
compatibility with a particular time orienta- tion.
● For example, certain types of problem solving might be viewed as more advantageous
than others.
Thought Processes
● Richard Nisbett and The Chinese student talked about differences.
● *naat important but solpa important* The Chinese believe in constant change, but with
things always moving back to some prior state. They pay attention to a wide range of
events; they search for relationships between things; and they think you can't under- stand
the part without understanding the whole.
● Westerners live in a sim- pler, more deterministic world; they focus on salient objects or
people instead of the larger pictures; and they think they can control events because they
know the rules that govern the behavior of objects."

Yin Yang Philosophy

● This more circular thinking style is best exemplified by the Taoist figure of the yin and
the yang.
● The yin yang figure represents the circular, constantly changing nature of the world as
viewed by Eastern thought.
● The dark part of the symbol represents the feminine and passive, and the light side
represents the masculine and active. Each part exists because of the other, and neither
could exist alone, according to Taoist beliefs.
● This more circular thinking pattern affects the way in which the Eastern thinker maps out
his or her life and therefore may influence the decisions a person makes in the search for
peace.
● Researchers have posited that happiness is a state commonly sought by Easterners and
Westerners alike.
● The difference in the philosophical approaches to life- a Westerner whose goal is
happiness draws a straight line to his goal, looking carefully for obstacles and finding
possible ways around them.
● For the Easterner who follows the yin and the yang- If one were to seek happiness and
then achieve it, in the Eastern way of thinking, this would only mean that unhappiness
was close on its heels.
● Instead, the Easterner might have the goal of balance, trusting in the fact that, although
great unhappiness or suffering may occur in one's life, it would be equally balanced by
great happiness.

East and West: Is One Best?

● It is important to remember, however, that neither is "better" than the other. This is
especially relevant for discussions regarding strengths.
● Use culture as a lens for evaluating whether a particular characteristic might be
considered a strength or a weakness within a particular group.

DIFFERENT WAYS TO POSITIVE OUTCOMES

● Differences also exist in the routes that each group uses to move toward its goals. ●
 Western-oriented thinking focuses on the individual's goal, whereas Eastern philosophers
suggest a different focus, one in which the group is highlighted.
● Confucius said, "If you want to reach your goal, help others reach their goal".
● Accordingly, although hope may be the primary tool of the "rugged individualist" in
moving toward the good life, other tools might take precedence in the life of the
Easterner.
● Qualities that help to create and sustain interdependent relationships for Easterners may
be more valuable in helping them to reach their goals.
● These virtues may be most important in helping Easterners to develop pathways that
ensure that group goals are achieved, thereby assisting Easterners in com- pleting their
individual goals.
● In the main Eastern philosophical branches of learning, repeated mention is made of the
two constructs of compassion for others and the search for harmony or life balance.

Compassion
● Within the Western tradition, Aristotle often is noted for early writings on the concept of
compassion.
● Likewise, compassion can be traced in the Eastern traditions of Confucianism, Taoism,
Buddhism, and Hinduism.
● In Confucian teachings, compassion is discussed within the concept of jen (humanity)
and is said to encapsulate all other virtues.
● Taoist belief system- humanity also reflects behaviors that must occur naturally, without
premeditation.
● The Hindu tradition, compassion is called for good actions toward others, which will
direct followers upon the path that will not require them to return to Earth after death. ●
In positive psychology, physician Eric Cassell (2002) proposes the three following
requirements for compassion:
a. The difficulties of the recipient must be serious
b. The recipient's difficulties cannot be self-inflicted
c. We, as observers, must be able to identify with the recipient's suffering. ●
Compassion is described as a "unilateral emotion" that is directed outward from oneself.

Buddhist Perspective of Compassion

● The idea of compassion, or karuna, also is woven throughout Buddhism as a virtue on the
path toward transcendence.
● The attainment of compassion means being able to "transcend preoccupation with the
centrality of self" to focus on others rather than merely on ourselves.
● The ability to possess feelings for some- thing completely separate from our own
suffering allows us to transcend the self and, in this way, to be closer to the
achievement of the good life.
● Transcendental compassion is said to be the most significant of the four uni- versal
 virtues, and it often is called Great Compassion (mahakaruna) to distinguish it from the
more applied karuna.
● Possessing compassion helps the person to succeed in life and is viewed as a major
strength within the Eastern tradition.
● Feeling for fellow group members may allow identification with others and development
of group cohesion- acting compassionately fosters group, rather than personal, happiness. ●
Compassion also may come more naturally to the person from a collectivist culture than to
someone from an individualist culture.
● Researchers have argued that a collectivist culture may breed a sense of compassion in
the form of its members' prosocial behaviors.
● For both Western and Eastern traditions, they hold that the ability to feel for others is a
necessary part of the search for the good life transcendence.
● Nirvana can be attained only when one's independent identity and the self-motivated
desires that accompany it are eradicated completely.
● Additionally, as the person comes to understand others, she or he comes closer to
self-understanding.

Harmony
● In Western history,
❖ The Greeks are said to have viewed happiness as the ability "to exercise powers in
pursuit of excellence in a life free from con- straints".
❖ The good life was viewed as a life with no ties to duty and the freedom to pursue
individual goals.
❖ There are clear distinctions in comparing this idea of happiness to Confucian
teachings, for example, in which duty (yi) is a primary virtue.
● In Eastern philosophy,
❖ Happiness is described as having the "satisfactions of a plain country life, shared
within a harmonious social network" .
❖ In this tradition, harmony is viewed as central to achieving happiness. ● In
Buddhist teachings, when people reach a state of nirvana, they have reached a
peacefulness entailing "complete harmony, balance, and equilib- rium"
● In Confucian teachings harmony is viewed as crucial for happiness.
● Getting along with others allows the person to be freed from individual pursuits and, in so
doing, to gain "collective agency" in working out what is good for the group. ● Thus, the
harmonizing principle is a central tenet of the Eastern way of life ● The balance and harmony
that one achieves as part of an enlightened life often are thought to represent the ultimate end
of the good life.
● In Hindu teachings, all humans are interconnected by a "single unifying principle",
harmony must be pursued.
● In positive psychology, Clifton et al. describe this construct as a desire to find consensus
among the group, as opposed to putting forth conflicting ideas.
 ● The concept of harmony often is mistakenly equated with the notion of conformity.
● Because the term conformity has somewhat negative connotations in our
independence-oriented culture, it is possible that some of these same negative
characterizations have been extended to the concept of harmony.
● The concept of harmony is reflected in the virtue of justice.
● It might be argued that the idea of harmony is broader than this particular definition and
may be thought of separately from loyalty and "pitching in!'.
● The phenomenon of harmony may be both an interpersonal strength and an intrapersonal
strength.
CH 4 S: CLASSIFICATIONS AND MEASURES OF
STRENGTHS AND POSITIVE OUTCOMES

● Subject matter of positive psychology can be classified into three domains: 1. Pleasant
life which deals with positive emotions about the past, present, and future. It aims to
maximize positive emotions and minimize negative emotions. 2. Next is the
engaged life which deals with positive individual traits and engaging with
interesting activities.
3. A meaningful life deals with positive institutions and refers to having meaning
and purpose in one‘s life.
● Positive psychology is a young field. Even in its short history it has focused on many
aspects of happy and healthy living. However, there are some areas that have yet to be
explored in depth.
- One of such areas is the intersection between culture and positive psychology.
Positive psychology is often criticized for taking a Western perspective.
- It is also said that the concepts and theories of positive psychology apply more to
developed countries who are now in a post materialistic era.
- Hence, positive psychology must take in from other cultures, concepts of good
life and the factors affecting happiness.
● Positive health refers to well-being beyond the mere absence of disease. - Positive health
aims to identify health assets like biological, subjective, functional etc by
determining its predictive factors
- Positive Health is patterned after positive psychology which focuses on the
presence of specific psychological assets of PERMA—positive emotion,
engagement, relationships, meaning, and achievement.

Gallup’s Clifton Strengths Finder

● Clifton wanted to study what is right with people.
● According to him, strengths are extensions of talent and it combines talent with related
knowledge and skills.
● He also believed that success is closely related to personal talents, strengths and
analytical intelligence.
 ● Clifton and his colleagues identified about three dozen themes of talent.

The Clifton Strengths Finder Themes

● Achiever – People strong in this theme have a constant drive for accomplishing tasks.
They like being busy and productive.
● Activator - People strong in this theme act to start things in motion and turn thoughts into
actions.
● Adaptability - People strong in this theme easily accommodate changes in plan. They
prefer to go with the flow.
● Analytical - People strong in this theme require data to make sense of their
circumstances.
● Arranger - People strong in this theme enjoy juggling many tasks and variables to reach
an outcome.
● Belief - People strong in this theme attempt to find meaning behind everything that they
undertake.
● Command - People strong in this theme take up positions of leadership. ●
Communication - People strong in this theme use words to inspire action and are good
conversationalists.
● Competition - People strong in this theme thrive on competition to be successful.
● Connectedness - People strong in this theme seek to unite others.
● Consistency - People strong in this theme believe in treating everyone the same. ●
Context - People strong in this theme use the past to make better decisions in the present. ●
Deliberative - People strong in this theme proceed with caution, and always seek to have a
plan.
● Developer - People strong in this theme recognize and enhance the hidden potential in
others.
● Discipline - People strong in this theme seek to make sense of the world by imposing
order.
● Empathy - People strong in this theme understand the emotions of others. ● Focus -
People strong in this theme require a clear sense of direction. ● Futuristic - People strong
in this theme have a keen sense of the future. ● Harmony - People strong in this theme
seek to avoid conflict through consensus. ● Ideation - People strong in this theme are able
at finding underlying concepts that unite ideas.
● Includer - People strong in this theme instinctively work to include everyone. ●
Individualization - People strong in this theme tap the uniqueness of individuals. ●
Input - People strong in this theme constantly collect information for future use. ●
Intellection - People strong in this theme enjoy thinking and thought-provoking
conversation.
● Learner - People strong in this theme learn new things to feel successful. ●
Maximizer - People strong in this theme try to take things from great to excellent. ●
Positivity - People strong in this theme try to look at the bright-side to any situation . ●
Relator - People strong in this theme prefer fewer, but deeper relationships. ●
 Responsibility - People strong in this theme follow their commitments. ● Restorative -
People strong in this theme love to solve difficult problems. ● Self-Assurance - People
strong in this theme stay true to their beliefs, and have confidence in their ability.
● Significance - People strong in this theme want to be seen as significant by others.
● Strategic - People strong in this theme are able to see a clear direction even in a complex
situation.
● Woo - WOO stands for winning over others.

The VIA Classification of Virtues and Strengths

● Peterson and Seligman state that there is a language in psychology to talk about the
negative aspects and what is wrong with people but an equal terminology to describe
human strengths is lacking.
● The VIA classification provides such a language and provides a strength based approach
to diagnosis and treatment.
● Peterson, Seligman and other colleagues concluded that character included virtues,
character strengths and situational themes.

Distinguishing Virtues, Character Strengths, and Situational Themes ● Virtues are the core
characteristics which are valued such as wisdom, courage, humanity, justice, temperance,
and transcendence.
- These six categories of virtue are considered to be universal.
- If a person possesses these virtues at above-threshold values he is considered to be
of good character.
● Character strengths are the psychological processes that display the virtues. - Situational
themes are habits by virtue of which people manifest certain character strengths in
given situations.
● Themes differ from character strengths since they are located in specific situati -
Themes in themselves are neither good nor bad; they can be used to achieve strengths
but can also be used for wrong purposes.

The VIA Classification of Virtues and Strengt

1. Wisdom and Knowledge

● Wisdom refers to a general intellectual strength involving the development and
use of knowledge.
● Wisdom does not necessarily follow from a formal education or a high IQ score.
Wisdom refers to a more practical intelligence and good judgment based on
learning life’s lessons—perhaps through hardships.
● A wise person puts things in the proper perspective and avoids the pitfalls of
narrowly focused and self-interested understandings.
● Wisdom means being able to offer good counsel to others about how to live a
how to understand and deal with life’s challenges, uncertainties, and choices.
- Creativity
 - Curiosity
- Judgement
- Love of Learning
- Perspective
2. Courage
● Courage is the emotional strength to overcome fear in the face of opposition and
adversity.
● Courage is exemplified in confronting and accepting one’s own death; dealing with
a debilitating illness or disease; honestly confronting one’s own limitations,
weaknesses, or bad habits; and standing up for one’s convictions, despite the
possibility of negative consequences (e.g., chastisement by others).
- Bravery
- Honesty
- Perseverance
- Zest
3. Humanity
● Humanity refers to our capacity for sympathy, empathy, compassion, and love in
our relationships with others.
● Humanity is the basis for nurturing and caring relationships focused on another’s
needs rather than one’s own needs and interests.
● Humanity is expressed in our willingness to help others in need, to be kind, to be
generous, and to respect the feelings and values of others.
- Love
- Kindness
- Social Intelligence
4. Justice
● Justice is an essential ingredient in healthy societies, communities, and
relationships with others.
● This virtue is shown when people are fair minded and even-handed rather than
being biased by self- interest.
● Justice also includes strengths that contribute to community well-being, such as
working cooperatively with others and taking the initiative to develop and follow
through on goals and projects.
- Fairness
- Leadership
- Teamwork
5. Temperance
● Temperance is the strength to control excesses and restrain impulses that may harm
the self and others.
● It expresses the idea of “willpower” in the face of temptations. Temptations and the
benefits of restraint might be focused on eating; drinking; smoking; expressi anger,
hatred, or arrogance toward others; or excessive self-promotion at the expense of
others.
● Some of the psychological processes are involved in self-control and self-directed
actions that are relevant to temperance.
● Temperance is a kind of ongoing self-awareness and self-discipline that affirms
 “look before you leap” dictum of everyday wisdom.
● Temperance also involves the ability to let go and forgive the indiscretions and
hurtful actions of others.
- Forgiveness
- Humility
- Prudence
- Self-Regulation
6. Transcendence
● To transcend means to go beyond or rise above the ordinary and the everyday. ●
Transcendent thinking lifts us out of the usual concrete preoccupations of daily life
and out of an individualized sense of self by providing a broader view of the world
and the universe.
● Religion and spirituality are the clearest examples of transcendence because they
involve a belief in a higher power and a greater purpose for life.
● Whatever their various forms, transcendent beliefs connect the individual to a more
encompassing understanding and a deeper meaning of life.
● The character strength of religiousness clearly fits the virtue of transcendence.T
other strengths listed under transcendence may not seem to fit so wel
“Appreciation of beauty is a strength that connects someone to excellence.
Gratitude connects someone directly to goodness. Hope connects someone directly
to the dreamed-of future”. Humor, they admit, seems a bit of stretch as an
expression of transcendence. However, as they point out, humor keeps us from
taking ourselves and our virtues too seriously. It reminds us to “lighten up.” -
Appreciation of Beauty and Excellence
- Gratitude
- Hope
- Humour
- Spirituality
PERMA Model

Well-being Theory
● Positive Psychology suggests that happiness is more than obtainable. It is the natural result
of building up our well-being and satisfaction with life.
● Professor Martin Seligman spent many years developing a theory of happiness. He wanted
to identify the building blocks of well-being. He drew up a five-sided model of well-being
called the PERMA model.
● These are the five elements Seligman found essential to human well-being: Each of these
elements is essential to our well-being and satisfaction with life. Together, they form the
solid foundation upon which we can build a happy and flourishing life.

Positive Emotion
● When someone asks you whether you are satisfied with your life, your answer depends
heavily on the mood you are in. When you are feeling positive, you can look back on the past
with gladness; look into the future with hope; and enjoy and cherish the present. Why?
 ● Positive emotions have an impact that goes far beyond bringing a smile to our faces.
Feeling good helps us to perform better at work and study; it boosts our physical health; it
strengthens our relationships; and it inspires us to be creative, take chances, and look to
the future with optimism and hope.
● Feeling good is contagious. Seeing smiles makes us want to smile. Hearing laughter
makes us feel like laughing. And when we share our good feelings with others, they
appreciate and enjoy our company.
● We have all experienced highs and lows in life, but we are doing ourselves harm when we
dwell on the lows. If we look back on the past with pain and regret, we will become
depressed. If we think of the future and worry about danger and risk, we become anxious
and pessimistic. So it is incredibly important to recognise the positive emotions we feel, so
that we are able to enjoy the present without worry and regret.
How?
● What is it that makes us feel good? It might be spending time with friends and family,
engaging in hobbies, exercising, getting out in nature, or eating great food. We need to
make sure there is always room in our lives for these things.
● Positive Psychology research has identified certain skills and exercises that can boost our
experience of positive emotions. We can learn to feel them more strongly, and to
experience them for longer.
● Cultivating positive emotions makes it easier to experience them naturally. Many of us
have an automatic tendency to expect the worst, see the downside, and avoid taking risks.
If we learn to cultivate positive feelings about life, we begin to hope for the best, see the
upside, and learn to take great opportunities when they come along.
Engagement
● We don’t thrive when we are doing nothing. We get bored and feel useless. But when we
engage with our life and work, we become absorbed. We gain momentum and focus, and
we can enter the state of being known as ‘flow’. In Positive Psychology, ‘flow’ describes a
state of utter, blissful immersion in the present moment.
Why?
● In a word: momentum.
● If you have a job you love, you probably feel this way at work. We are most likely to fulfil
our own unique potential when we are engaged in activities that absorb and inspire us. How?
● Much of the work of Positive Psychology involves identifying and cultivating personal
strengths, virtues and talents. When we identify our own greatest strengths, we can
consciously engage in work and activities that make us feel most confident, productive
and valuable.
● We can also learn skills for cultivating joy and focus on the present. Mindfulness is a
valuable skill taught by many counsellors. Using mindfulness, you can learn to develop a
full and clear awareness of the present, both physically and mentally.

Relationships
● Humans are social animals. We have a need for connection, love, physical and emotional
 contact with others.
● We enhance our own well-being by building strong networks of relationships around us,
with family, friends, coworkers, neighbours and all the other people in our lives. Why?
● Happiness shared is happiness squared. When we share our joy with those we love, we
feel even more joy. And when we love, we become more loveable.
● We depend on the people around us to help us maintain balance in our lives. When we are
alone, we lose perspective on the world, and we forget that others may be bearing greater
burdens than our own. But when we let other people into our lives, we remember to give
as well as take.
● When you belong to a community, you have a network of support around you – and you
are part of it.
How?
● It is important to build and maintain relationships with the people in your life, but it is
equally important to recognise the difference between a healthy relationship and a
damaging one.
- Some relationships are dangerous because they are one-sided or co-dependent. -
Other relationships struggle because people take each other for granted, don’t
make time for each other, or can’t seem to communicate.
● The key to all relationships is balance. It is not enough to surround ourselves with ‘friends’
– we must also listen and share, make an effort to maintain our connections, and work to
make those connections strong.

Meaning
● We are at our best when we dedicate our time to something greater than ourselves. This
could be religious faith, community work, family, a political cause, a charity, a
professional or creative goal.
Why?
● Studies have shown that people who belong to a community and pursue shared goals are
happier than people who don’t.
● It is also very important to feel that the work we do is consistent with our personal values
and beliefs. From day to day, if we believe our work is worthwhile, we feel a general sense of
well-being and confidence that we are using our time and our abilities for good. How?
● Once you have identified what matters most to you, find some like-minded people and
begin working together for the things you care about.
● You can find meaning in your professional life as well as your personal one. If you see a
deeper mission in the work you do, you are better placed to apply your talents and
strengths in the service of this mission.

Accomplishment
● To achieve well-being and happiness, we must look back on our lives with a sense of
accomplishment: ‘I did it, and I did it well’.
Why?
● Creating and working toward goals helps us anticipate and build hope for the future. Past
successes make us feel more confident and optimistic about future attempts. ● There is
nothing bad or selfish about being proud of your accomplishments. When you feel good
about yourself, you are more likely to share your skills and secrets with others. You will be
motivated to work harder and achieve more next time. You may even inspire the people
around you to achieve their own goals.
How?
● It is important to set yourself tangible goals, and keep them in sight.
● In Positive Psychology counselling, we encourage you to identify your ambitions and
cultivate the strengths you need in order to reach them.
● Regular counselling is a great way to keep focused on your long-term goals and
acknowledge the little successes along with the big ones.
● It is vital to cultivate resilience against failure and setbacks. Success doesn’t always come
easy, but if we stay positive and focused, we don’t give up when adversity strikes.
UNIT 2
CH 2 B: MEANING AND MEASURE OF HAPPINESS

Objective versus Subjective Measures

● Researchers discovered early on that many economic and social indicators of a person’s
“objective” life circumstances (e.g., income, age, and occupation) were only weakly
related to people’s own judgments of their well-being.
● In a major review of this research, Diener (1984) argued that subjective well-being
(SWB), defined by ratings of life satisfaction and positive emotional experience, was a
critical component of well-being that was missing from the equation. Subjective well-
being, or happiness, in everyday terms, reflects an individual’s own judgment about the
quality of his or her life.
● Although objective indicators describe the “facts” of a person’s life, they do not tell us
how a person thinks and feels about these facts.
● Personal, subjective evaluations are important for several reasons:
1. First, different individuals may react to the same circumstances (as described by
economic and social statistics) in very different ways because of differences in
their expectations, values, and personal histories. Subjective evaluations help us
interpret the “facts” from an individual’s point of view.
2. Second, happiness and life satisfaction are important goals in their own right. The
“pursuit of happiness” is described in the Declaration of Independence as one of
Americans’ inalienable rights, and surveys show that people rank happiness high
on the list of desirable life goals. Happiness is a central component of people’s
conception of a good life and a good society.
3. Economic and social indicators may be misleading if we consider them to be
sufficient indices of happiness and satisfaction. Research shows that a person’s
 level of happiness depends on many factors that are not measured by economic and
social statistics.

Negative versus Positive Functioning

● Ryff and Keyes (1995) described six aspects of positive functioning and actualization of
potentials as the basis for what they called “psychological well-being:” These strengths
and realized potentials define well-being and a fully functioning person.
- Autonomy,
- Personal growth,
- Self-acceptance,
- Life purpose,
- Environmental mastery
- Positive relations with others.
● From this perspective, national statistics are incomplete because they only examine the
presence or absence of illness and negative functioning, and fail to take into account the
presence of strengths and positive functioning.
● Mental health statistics are focused on pathological symptoms of mental illness—not on
positive markers of mental wellness. The absence of mental illness does not necessarily
indicate the presence of mental health.

What is happiness?

Hedonic Happiness
● Defining the good life in terms of personal happiness is the general thrust of the hedonic
view of well-being. Hedonic psychology parallels aspects of the philosophy of hedonism.
A general version of hedonism holds that the chief goal of life is the pursuit of happiness
and pleasure.
● Within psychology, this view of well-being is expressed in the study of SWB (Diener).
Subjective well-being takes a broad view of happiness, beyond the pursuit of short-term or
physical pleasures defining a narrow hedonism.
● Subjective well-being is defined as life satisfaction, the presence of positive affect, and a
relative absence of negative affect. Together, the three components are often referred to
as happiness. (It is more than hedonic happiness)

Eudaimonic Happiness
● Example suggested by Seligman (2002a). What if you could be hooked to an “experience
machine” that would keep you in a constant state of cheerful happiness, or whatever
positive emotion you desired, no matter what happened in your life. To feel only happiness
at the diversity of life events and challenges might actually impoverish the experience of
life.
● For example, negative emotions like fear help us make choices that avoid threats to our
well-being. Without fear and other negative emotions we might make very bad choices.
 We’d be happy, but we might not live very long.
● Seligman (2002a) argues that we would likely also reject the experience machine because
we want to feel we are entitled to our positive emotions, and to believe they reflect our
“real” positive qualities and behaviors.
● Pleasure, disconnected from reality, does not affirm or express our identity as individuals.
Above all, most of us would probably reject the experience machine because we believe
that there is more to life than happiness and subjective pleasure. There is deeper authentic
happiness.
The two classifications in Perspective
● Waterman (1990, 1993) describes two psychological views of happiness distilled from
Greek classical philosophy.
1. Hedonic conceptions of happiness, discussed above, define happiness as the
enjoyment of life and its pleasures. The hedonic view captures a major element of
what we mean by happiness in everyday terms: We enjoy life; we are satisfied with
how our lives are going; and good events outnumber bad events.
2. In contrast, eudaimonic conceptions of happiness, given fullest expression in the
writings of Aristotle, define happiness as self-realization, meaning the expression
and fulfillment of inner potentials. From this perspective, a good life results from
living in accordance with your daimon (in other words, your true self). That is,
happiness results from striving toward self-actualization—a process in which our
talents, needs, and deeply held values direct the way we conduct our lives.
● “Eudaimonia '' (or happiness) results from realization of our potential. We are happiest
when we follow and achieve our goals and develop our unique potentials.
● Eudaimonic happiness has much in common with humanistic psychology’s emphasis on
the concepts of self-actualization (Maslow, 1968) and the fully functioning person as
criteria for healthy development and optimal functioning.

What kinds of experiences lead to eudaimonic happiness?

● Waterman argued that eudaimonic happiness results from experiences of personal
expressiveness. Such experiences occur when we are fully engaged in life activities that fit
and express our deeply held values and our sense of who we are.
● Under these circumstances we experience a feeling of fulfillment, of meaningfulness, of
being intensely alive, a feeling that this is who we really are and who we were meant to
be.
● Waterman believes that there are many more activities that produce hedonic enjoyment
than activities that provide eudaimonic happiness based on personal expression.
Everything from alcohol consumption and eating chocolate, to a warm bath can bring us
pleasure, but there are fewer activities that engage significant aspects of our identity and
give a deeper meaning to our lives.
● Research on college students: Waterman found substantial overlap in expressive and
hedonic ratings. Half to two-thirds of the time, personally expressive activities also
generated a comparable level of hedonic enjoyment.
 ➔ Hedonic enjoyment was associated with activities that made people feel relaxed,
excited, content or happy, and that led to losing track of time and forgetting
personal problems.
➔ Feelings of personal expressiveness (eudaimonic happiness) were more strongly
related to activities that created feelings of challenge, competence, and effort, and
that offered the opportunity for personal growth and skill development.
Focus on Research: Positive Affect and a Meaningful Life
● Laura King and colleagues examined the relationship between positive affect and
meaningfulness. They found that:
- Positive affect is a summary term for pleasurable emotions such as joy,
contentment, laughter (can be very painful also), and love.
- Meaningfulness refers to more personally expressive and engaging activities that
may connect us to a broader and even transcendent view of life.
● King and her colleagues note that historically, positive affect has been thought of as more
central to hedonic than to eudaimonic conceptions of well-being. In fact, “the good life,”
from a eudaimonic perspective, suggests that the pursuit of pleasure may detract from a
personally expressive and meaningful life.
● Pleasure is seen as a shallow and unsatisfying substitute for deeper purposes in life. The
potential opposition between pleasure and meaning is one reason for the scant research
examining their potential interrelation.
CH 5 B: SUBJECTIVE WELL-BEING

Definition of Subjective Well-Being

● Subjective wellbeing is defined as a person’s cognitive and affective evaluations of his or
her life. These evaluations include emotional reactions to events as well as cognitive
judgments of satisfaction and fulfillment.
● Thus, subjective well-being is a broad concept that includes experiencing pleasant
emotions, low levels of negative moods, and high life satisfaction.
● The positive experiences embodied in high subjective well-being are a core concept of
positive psychology because they make life rewarding.

History
● Utilitarians such as Jeremy Bentham argued that the presence of pleasure and the absence
of pain are the defining characteristics of a good life.
● Utilitarians focused on the emotional, mental, and physical pleasures and pains that
individuals experience. Although there are other desirable personal characteristics beyond
whether a person is happy, the individual with abundant joy has one key ingredient of a
good life.
● Early in the 20th century, empirical studies of subjective well-being began to take shape.

History of measuring happiness:

 1. As early as 1925, Flugel studied moods by having people record their emotional events
and then summing emotional reactions across moments. It was an experience sampling
approach to measuring subjective well-being on-line as people go about their everyday
lives.
2. After World War II, survey researchers began polling people about their happiness and life
satisfaction using simple global survey questionnaires. George Gallup, Gerald Gurin and
his colleagues, and Hadley Cantril pioneered the use of large-scale surveys as an
assessment technique. They asked people questions such as “How happy are you?” with
simple response options varying from “very happy” to “not very happy.”
3. Recently, Diener (2000a) proposed that a national index be created in which subjective
well-being would be tracked over time.

Growth of the field:

1. Norman Bradburn showed that pleasant and unpleasant affect are somewhat independent
and have different correlates and they are not simply opposites of one another. Thus, the
two affects must be studied separately to gain a complete picture of individuals’ well
being. This finding showed that clinical psychology’s attempts to eliminate negative states
would not necessarily foster positive states. The elimination of pain may not result in a
corresponding increase in pleasure.
2. Wilson reviewed research on “avowed happiness” and Diener (1984) provided a review of
the much larger database on subjective well-being.
3. A number of books have appeared on the topic of subjective well-being since Diener’s
book.
4. In 1999, Diener, Suh, Lucas, and Smith authored a new review of the literature in
Psychological Bulletin. A handbook volume of chapters related to hedonic psychology and
a book dedicated to cross cultural differences in subjective well-being also provide more
thorough reviews of this area.

Why it grew:
1. People in the Western nations have achieved a level of material abundance and health that
allows them to go beyond mere survival in seeking a good life. People around the globe
are entering a “post materialistic” world, in which they are concerned with issues of
quality of life beyond economic prosperity.
2. Subjective wellbeing is particularly democratic—it grants respect to what people think and
feel about their lives. People are not content to have experts evaluate their lives; they
believe that their opinions matter.
3. Third reason is because of the growing trend toward individualism around the globe.
Individualists are concerned with their own feelings and beliefs, and thus the study of
subjective well-being corresponds well with the Western zeitgeist.
4. Finally, it was because researchers succeeded in developing scientific methods for
studying subjective well-being.
Measurement
● Early survey instruments usually posed a single question about people’s happiness or life
satisfaction.
- Psychometric evaluations of these simple scales showed that they possess a degree
of validity.
- For example, Andrews and Withey (1976) found that global questions about
people’s overall evaluation of their lives yielded scores that converged well with
one another.
● As the field matured, more multi-item scales appeared
- These had greater reliability and validity than the single-item instruments. -
Lucas, Diener, and Suh (1996) demonstrated that multi-item life satisfaction,
pleasant affect, and unpleasant affect scales formed factors that were separable
from each other, as well as from other constructs such as self-esteem.
- A number of happiness, affect, and life satisfaction measures are now available,
and we present the five-item Satisfaction With Life Scale in the appendix.
Validity:
● A major concern of researchers in the field is whether self-report instruments are valid.
After all, people might report that they are happy yet not truly experience high subjective
well-being.
● Sandvik, Diener, and Seidlitz (1993) found that the self-report measures converge with
other types of assessment, including expert ratings based on interviews with respondents,
experience sampling measures in which feelings are reported at random moments in
everyday life, participants’ memory for positive versus negative events in their lives, the
reports of family and friends, and smiling.
● Despite the positive psychometric qualities of global subjective well-being measures,
however, we recommend a multimethod battery to assess subjective wellbeing when this
is possible.
- Additional assessment devices based on memory, informant reports, and experience
sampling are likely to supplement the information obtained from global measures
and guard against response artifacts, and in some cases the alternative measures
may yield different answers about who is happiest.
- The use of multiple methods also allows researchers to understand how people
construct subjective well-being judgments.

Research:
● Schwarz, Strack, and their colleagues showed that situational variables can exert a
substantial impact on life satisfaction and mood reports. Schwarz and Strack’s findings
illustrate that life satisfaction judgments are not immutable, stored values that are reported
when requested. Instead, respondents seem to use currently salient information to
construct life satisfaction judgments.
● Diener and his colleagues showed that certain information is chronically salient to some
individuals but not to others. Thus, any single piece of information may or may not be
 used by an individual to construct her or his life satisfaction judgments.
● For instance, people in individualistic nations may base their life satisfaction judgments on
the extent to which they feel high self-esteem, whereas people in collectivistic cultures
may base their judgments on the opinions of other people. Thus, a person may use both
situationally induced and chronically salient information to construct life satisfaction
judgments.
● People also may use different metastrategies in seeking the information upon which to
base their life satisfaction judgments. For example, some people may search for
information about the positive aspects of their lives, whereas others might seek
information about problematic areas (Optimist/Pessimist)
● Likewise, people differ in the degree to which they weigh their moods and emotions when
calculating life satisfaction judgments. Thus, life satisfaction reflects different information
for different people and can change depending on what is salient at the moment.
Thus, estimates of happiness and reports of affect over time are likely to be influenced by a
person’s current mood, his or her beliefs about happiness, and the ease of retrieving positive
and negative information.

Latest method:
A fascinating picture of subjective well-being is emerging in which we can differentiate between a
person’s momentary feelings and thoughts about well-being, and larger, more global
constructions.
● At the momentary level, we can examine people’s reports of moods, pleasures, pains, and
satisfactions recorded online through the experience sampling method.
- For example, in our laboratory we use palm sized computers to signal people
randomly.
- When signaled, respondents complete a survey of their feelings at that moment. ●
Kahneman (1999) suggested that these types of data offer the most accurate estimate of
subjective well being because they are less distorted by artifacts and biases. ● Global reports
of subjective well-being also are valuable, however, because they offer an insight into the
fascinating psychological processes by which people construct global judgments about their
lives.
● In global reports of subjective well-being, we discover how a person summarizes her or
his life as a whole, and this synopsis may only be moderately correlated with on-line
reports.
- For example, we find that people in cultures where subjective well-being is valued
are more likely to weigh their most positive domains in calculating a global life
satisfaction judgment
- People in cultures in which happiness is not an important value are more likely to
weigh their most negative domains in calculating a life satisfaction judgment. ● If people
believe that life satisfaction is desirable, they may be more likely to search for positive
information when reporting global life satisfaction judgments.
● In a sense, then, these are two varieties of happiness and satisfaction—evaluations of
 specific aspects of life and on-line at-the-moment feelings of well being versus
larger, global judgments about one’s happiness and satisfaction.

Theoretical Approach
Many theories of happiness can be categorized into three groups:
1. Need and goal satisfaction theories
2. Process or activity theories
3. Genetic and personality predisposition theories.
Need and goal satisfaction theories
● They center around the idea that the reduction of tensions (e.g., the elimination of pain and
the satisfaction of biological and psychological needs) leads to happiness.
● Freud’s pleasure principle and Maslow’s hierarchical needs model represent this
approach.
● Goal theorists argue that individuals attain subjective well-being when they move toward
an ideal state or accomplish a valued aim (the standard).
● Other researchers have extended this idea to incorporate the degree of discrepancy from
other potential comparison standards.
- For example, Michalos (1985) postulated that happiness is inversely related to the
degree of discrepancy.
- Likewise, Higgins (1987) posited that discrepancies from one’s “ideal self” and
one’s “ought self” lead to the experiences of negative emotions.
● Need and goal satisfaction theorists argue that the reduction of tension and satisfaction of
biological and psychological needs and goals will cause happiness.
● One implication of tension-reduction theories is that happiness occurs after needs are met
and goals are fulfilled. In other words, happiness is a desired end state toward which all
activity is directed.

Activity or process theories:

In these models of happiness, engagement in an activity itself provides happiness. ● Most
notably, Csikszentmihalyi (1975) suggested that people are happiest when they are engaged
in interesting activities that match their level of skill. He called the state of mind that results
from this matching of challenges and skill “flow,” and argued that people who often
experience flow tend to be very happy.
● Similarly, Cantor and her colleagues emphasized the importance of active participation in
life tasks.
- They found that social participation was a strong predictor of life satisfaction for
retired elders.
● Some other dudes found that people were happiest on days when they engaged in activities
for intrinsic reasons (because of the fun and enjoyment).
● Goal researchers agree that having important goals and pursuing them are reliable
indicators of wellbeing, and therefore goal theories can combine the elements of tension
reduction and pleasurable activity in explaining subjective well-being.
 ● People who have important goals tend to be more energetic, experience more positive
emotions, and feel that life is meaningful.
● Both needs theorists and activity theorists argue that subjective well-being will change
with the conditions in people’s lives. When individuals are approaching their goals or are
engaged in interesting activities, they should experience positive well-being.
Genetic and personality dispositions:
● These theorists argue that there is an element of stability in people’s levels of well-being
that cannot be explained by the stability in the conditions of people’s lives. ● Subjective
well-being is strongly influenced by stable personality dispositions. ● Subjective well-being
judgments reflect cognitive and emotional reactions to life circumstances.
● Because circumstances can be short lived and changeable or relatively stable, researchers
study both momentary and long term subjective well-being. Not surprisingly, momentary
levels of affect fluctuate quite a bit.
- For example, Diener and Larsen (1984) found that when people’s emotions were
sampled at random times throughout the day, a single report of momentary pleasant
affect on average correlated only about 0.10 with pleasant affect in other random
moments. (Shwe Words: Just because you happy at one moment, doesn’t mean you
always happy)
- People react to changing circumstances, and these reactions are reflected in
momentary reports of subjective wellbeing.
● When affect is averaged across many occasions, stable patterns of individual differences
emerge.
- For example, it was reported that mean levels of pleasant affect experienced in work
situations correlated .74 with average levels of pleasant affect experienced in
recreation situations.
- Similarly, average life satisfaction in social situations correlated .92 with average
life satisfaction when alone.
● Therefore although emotions fluctuate, individuals do have characteristic emotional
responses to a variety of situations and life circumstances. These characteristic emotional
responses are also moderately to strongly stable across long periods of time.
- Magnus and Diener (1991) found a correlation of .58 between life satisfaction
measures assessed over a 4-year interval.
- Costa and McCrae (1988) reported substantial stability coefficients for affective
components of subjective wellbeing over a period of 6 years.
● ^ These results have led some theorists to suggest that although life events can influence
subjective well-being, people eventually adapt to these changes and return to biologically
determined “set points” or “adaptation levels”.
- For instance, Diener et al. found that stability in subjective well-being was
comparable among people whose income went up, down, or stayed the same over
10 years.
- Similarly, Costa et al. reported that people who lived in stable circumstances were
no more stable than people who experienced major life changes (e.g., divorce,
 widowhood, or job loss).
● One reason for the stability and consistency of subjective well-being is that there is a
substantial genetic component to it; to some degree people are born prone to be happy or
unhappy.
- Tellegen et al. (1988), for example, examined monozygotic twins who were reared
apart and compared them with dizygotic twins who were reared apart, as well as
with monozygotic and dizygotic twins who were raised together. After comparing
the similarities of the various types of twins, Tellegen et al. estimated that 40% of
the variability in positive emotionality and 55% of the variability in negative
emotionality could be predicted by genetic variation.
- When one examines personality influences in more detail, the traits that are most
consistently linked to subjective well-being are extraversion (positively) and
neuroticism (Negatively).
● Differences in subjective well-being also result from stable individual differences in how
people think about the world.
- Differences in the accessibility of pleasant versus unpleasant information, as well
as the accuracy and efficiency with which people process pleasant versus
unpleasant information influence subjective well being.
- Certain people attend to and recall the pleasant aspects of life more than others. -
Similarly, certain cognitive dispositions such as hope, dispositional optimism, and
expectancy for control appear to influence subjective well-being.
- It is not just who we are that matters to happiness, but how we think about our
lives.

Current Findings

Demographic Correlates of Subjective Well-Being

● Wilson (1967) showed that both personality and demographic factors correlate with
subjective well-being. He stated that the happy person is a “young, healthy, well educated,
well-paid, extroverted, optimistic, worry-free, religious, married person with high self-
esteem, job morale, modest aspirations, of either sex and of a wide range of intelligence”.
● Campbell, Converse, and Rodgers (1976) studied the well-being of Americans and found
that demographic variables such as age, income, and education did not account for much
variance in reports of well-being.
● Research has concluded that:
1. Demographic factors such as age, sex, and income are related to subjective
wellbeing.
2. These effects are usually small.
3. Most people are moderately happy, and thus, demographic factors tend to
distinguish between people who are moderately happy and those who are very
happy.
● Income, for example, is consistently related to subjective well-being in both within-nation
 and between-nation analyses; but at both the individual and the national level, income change
over time has little net effect on subjective well-being. Goals and expectations
must be taken into account to understand the relation between income and subjective well-
being; the benefits of a rising income are offset if one’s material desires increase even
faster than wealth.
● Age and sex are related to subjective wellbeing, but these effects are small, too, and
depend on the component of subjective well-being being measured.
- For example, in an international sample of 40 nations, Diener and Suh (1998)
found that although pleasant affect declined across age cohorts, life satisfaction
and unpleasant affect showed little change.
- Lucas and Gohm (2000) found that sex differences in subjective well-being were
small, with women reporting greater unpleasant and pleasant affect
- Based on these results, one could not simply say that men are happier than women
or that the young are happier than the old. The conclusion depends on the
component of subjective well-being that is measured.
● Wilson (1967) concluded that physical health is correlated with subjective well-being.
Recent findings qualify this conclusion: The relation depends on whether self-report or
objective ratings of health are assessed. Although self reported health correlates positively
with subjective well-being, the correlation is weak when objective health ratings are
examined. Subjective wellbeing influences the subjective perception of health, and this
inflates the correlation between subjective well-being and subjective health.
● Other demographic characteristics such as marital status and religious activity are also
positively correlated with subjective well-being; but the effects of marriage can differ for
men and women, and the effects of religious activity may depend on the specific type of
religiosity being assessed.

Thus, the answer to whether particular demographic factors increase subjective well-being is
likely dependent on people’s values and goals, personality, and culture.

Culture and Subjective Well-Being

● Self-esteem is less strongly associated with life satisfaction, and extraversion is less
strongly associated with pleasant affect in collectivist cultures than in individualist
cultures.
● Suham (2000) found that there are cultural differences in the importance of personality
congruence.
- Personality congruence reflects the extent to which a person’s behaviors are
consistent across situations and with the person’s inner feelings.
- Although the importance of personality congruence is often emphasized in Western
psychology, it is not universally important.
- Suh found that collectivists are less congruent than individualists, and that
congruence is less strongly related to subjective well-being among collectivists. - Suh
et al. (1998) also found that among collectivists, the extent to which one’s life accords
 with the wishes of significant others is more important than the emotions that the
person feels in predicting his or her life satisfaction.
● By examining between-nation differences in wealth and subjective well-being, researchers
have arrived at a more complete understanding of the relation between income and
happiness.
- Some argue that wealth leads to higher subjective well-being only within the
poorest nations. According to this idea, wealth influences subjective well-being
when basic needs are in danger of not being met.
- Diener found that even when levels of basic needs were controlled, income had a
significant and moderate effect on national subjective well-being. Thus, people in
the wealthiest nations tend to be the happiest. This might be because they possess
more material goods, but it also could be because the wealthiest nations experience
higher levels of human rights, greater longevity, and more equality.
● Because demographic variables have different consequences in different cultures, these
correlates can vary in importance.
- For example, marriage is an important demographic correlate of subjective well-
being. However, it is unclear whether the benefits of marriage result from the love
and companionship that accompany long-term relationships or from the social
approval that married couples receive. (WHAT IS DA REASON?)
- It was found that unmarried individuals who lived together were happier than
married or single individuals in individualist cultures (suggesting that in these
cultures companionship is more important than social approval), but unmarried
partners who lived together were less happy than married or single individuals in
collectivist cultures (suggesting that in these cultures social approval is an
important benefit of marriage). Thus, cultural norms can change the correlates of
subjective well-being.

Interventions
● Interventions to increase subjective well-being are important not only because it feels
good to be happy but also because happy people tend to volunteer more, have more
positive work behavior, and exhibit other desirable characteristics.
● Fordyce published several studies in which he evaluated a program designed to boost
people’s happiness.
- The program is based on the idea that people’s subjective well-being can be
increased if they learn to imitate the traits of happy people, characteristics such as
being organized, keeping busy, spending more time socializing, developing a
positive outlook, and working on a healthy personality.
- Results: the program produced increases in happiness compared with a placebo
control, as well as compared with participants in conditions receiving only partial
information. In a follow-up 9 to 28 months after the study, Fordyce found that
there were lasting effects of his intervention.
● Seligman et al. performed an experimental study with children in which the treatment
 groups were exposed to optimism training.
- Through cognitive training and social-problem solving, elementary school children
who were at risk for depression were taught to see the bright side of events. - After the
intervention, the treatment groups were significantly less depressed than the control
group, and this effect grew over the period of the study’s 2-year follow-up.

Future Research
● What is needed is a battery of subjective well-being measures based on online
experiences, informant reports, biological measures, and cognitive measures that assess
the accessibility of positive events in memory.
● In addition to better measures, we need many more longitudinal studies in order to assess
variables in a temporal order.
● In terms of substantive areas, more attention should be paid to developmental processes
involving subjective well-being.
- In particular, the link between positive affectivity in infancy and childhood and
subjective well-being in adulthood should be explored, not only in terms of
stability but also with respect to the mechanisms that operate in maintaining or
changing one’s susceptibility to positive stimuli throughout life.
● Similarly, a longitudinal approach should be taken in an investigation of society and
culture.
- Specifically, the way in which changes in macro systems have an impact on
people’s well-being should be examined more carefully to create the happy
societies Bentham and others envisioned.
CH 7: THE PRINCIPLES OF PLEASURE
*FROM SLIDES*

Savouring
● Savoring involves bringing conscious awareness to pleasurable momentary experiences,
along with the attempt to make these experiences last. Savoring is enabled by three
preconditions:
- eliminating one's own concerns,
- attending to the present
- being aware of the positive aspects of the experience.
● In order to make savouring more likely Bryant and Veroff (2006) recommend:
1. Taking time out from everyday activities to savour.
2. Becoming more open to experiences that could potentially be savoured. 3.
Attempting to narrow one’s focus to the positive pleasurable aspects of life. ● Peterson
(2006) provides several specific techniques that can be used while savouring: 1.
Absorption (focusing completely on the experience).
2. Sharpening perceptions (focusing on each distinct aspect of an experience in turn,
Like paying attention to the temperature texture, and different taste components of
 a dessert).
3. Memory building (making efforts to remember positive experiences, ie, taking
photographs or keeping a journal.
4. Self-congratulation (focusing on the details of a personal victory, prolonging it).
● Savouring exercises typically involve taking a few moments, several times per day, to
truly focus on and enjoy an experience such as taking a warm shower or sipping a warm
cup of coffee.
- Individuals who consistently savour are more optimistic, less depressed, and more
satisfied with life.
- Recognizing the fleeting nature of the present moment can furthermore increase
one's well-being.

Loving Kindness Meditation

● Individuals practice directing their attention towards generating warm and tender feelings
and extending those feelings towards others.
- Think of a person to whom you hold a warm, positive feeling associated -
Think of the warm characteristics of the person
- Extend it to self
- Extend it to other close relations
- Extend it to others
● Frederickson et al. (2008) have proposed LKM as a way of experimentally inducing
positive emotion in a way that is more substantial and long lasting.
● After teaching LKM to 139 working adults, Frederickson and colleagues found that
participants experienced increases in positive emotion over time.
● In line with broaden-and-build theory, these increases were associated with greater levels
of social support and purpose in life, as well as decreased illness symptoms.

Gratitude
● Gratitude is the feeling that something good has happened to oneself combined with the
acknowledgement that an outside source is responsible.
● Emmons and McCullough (2003), for instance, studied gratitude journaling and its effect
on wellbeing.
- Gratitude journaling refers to the practice of writing down things, both big and
small that one is thankful for.
- Participants who completed weekly entries in a gratitude journal experienced
higher levels of positive affect.
- Interestingly, gratitude also led to fewer physical symptoms, greater propensity to
exercise, and higher sleep quality in participants.
● Lyubomirsky et al. (2005) experimented with different doses of gratitude and found that
people benefitted more when they made one weekly entry into a gratitude journal
compared with more frequent entries.
 ● Seligman, Steen, Park, and Paterson (2005)
- Three Good Things
- The Gratitude Visit - According to the study by Martin Seligman, a gratitude visit
is a moving way to express your deep appreciation and gratitude to someone who
has made a big difference in your life.
● They compared these two exercises effects on happiness and depressive symptoms with
those of a placebo exercise and found that:
- Three Good Things led to a smaller but more long-lasting increase that occurred
with a time delay, one month after participants began using the exercise.
- The Gratitude Visit resulted in large, immediate increases in self-reported
happiness and decreases in self-reported depressive symptoms that did not last
over time.
*FROM TEXTBOOK*

DEFINING EMOTIONAL TERMS

Affect:
● Affect is a person's immediate, physiological response to a stimulus, and it is typically
based on an underlying sense of arousal.
● Specifically, Professor Nico Frijda (1999) reasoned that affect involves the appraisal of an
event as painful or pleasurable-that is, its valence-and the experience of autonomic
arousal.

Emotion:
● "Emotions involve judgments about important things, judgments in which, appraising an
external object as salient for our own well-being, we acknowledge our own neediness and
incompleteness before parts of the world that we do not fully control".
● These emotional responses occur as we become aware of painful or pleasurable
experiences and associated autonomic arousal, and evaluate the situation.
● An emotion has a specific and "sharpened" quality, as it always has an object, and it is
associated with progress in goal pursuit.
● In contrast, a mood is objectless, free floating, and long lasting.

Happiness
● Happiness is a positive emotional state that is subjectively defined by each person.

Subjective Well-Being
● Subjective well-being involves the subjective evaluation of one's current status in the
world.
● More specifically, Diener defines subjective well-being as a combination of positive affect
(in the absence of negative affect) and general life satisfaction (Le., subjective
 appreciation of life's rewards).
● The term subjective well-being often is used as a synonym for happiness.

DISTINGUISHING THE POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE

Hans Selye found that physiological stress harmed the body yet had survival value for humans.
Historically, few scholars thought that joy and contentment went beyond hedonic values and had
evolutionary significance. But the potential of positive affect has become more obvious over the
last 20 years.
PANAS Scale
● David Watson (1988) of the University of Iowa conducted research on the approach-
oriented motivations of pleasurable affects-including rigorous studies of both negative
and positive affects.
● To facilitate their research on the two dimensions of emotional experience, they developed
and validated the Expanded Form of the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS-
X), which has become a commonly used measure in this area.
● This 20-item scale has been used in hundreds of studies to quantify two dimensions of
affect: valence and content. More specifically, the PANAS-X taps both "negative"
(unpleasant) and "positive" (pleasant) valence.
● The content of negative affective states can be described best as general distress, whereas
positive affect includes joviality, self-assurance, and attentiveness. (See the PANAS, a
predecessor of the PANAS-X, which is brief and valid for most clinical and research
purposes)

Can we feel both positive and negative emotions at the same time?
● Using the PANAS and other measures of affect, researchers have systematically addressed a
basic question; "Can we experience negative affect and positive affect at the same time?" ●
Although negative and positive affects once were thought to be polar opposites, Bradburn
(1969) demonstrated that unpleasant and pleasant affects are independent and have different
correlates.
● In a recent study, Watson found that negative affect correlated with joviality, self-
assurance, and attentiveness at only - .21, - .14, and - .17, respectively. ● The small
magnitudes of these negative correlations suggest that, while negative and positive affect
are inversely correlated as expected, the relationships are quite weak and indicative of
independence of the two types of affect.
- The size of these relationships, however, may increase when people are taxed by
daily stressors.

POSITIVE EMOTIONS: EXPANDING THE REPERTOIRE OF PLEASURE

Positive emotions
 ● Dr. Alice Isen found that, when experiencing mild positive emotions, we are more likely
1. To help other people,
2. To be flexible in our thinking, and
3. To come up with solutions to our problems.
● In classic research related to these points, Isen performed an experimental manipulation in
which the research participants either did or did not find coins (placed there by the
researcher) in the change slot of a public pay phone.
- Compared to those who did not find a coin, those who did were more likely to help
another person carry a load of books or to help pick up another's dropped papers. -
Therefore, the finding of a coin and the associated positive emotion made people
behave more altruistically.

Problem Solving and Decision Making

● Feeling positive emotion also can help in seeing problem-solving options and finding cues
for good decision making.
● In one study related to these latter points, the researchers randomly assigned physicians to
an experimental condition in which the doctor either was or was not given a small bag that
contained 6 hard candies and 4 miniature chocolates (the doctors were not allowed to eat
the candy during the experiment).
- Those physicians who had been given the gift of candy displayed superior
reasoning and decision making relative to the physicians who did not receive the
candy.
- The doctors in the positive emotion condition did not jump to conclusions; they
were cautious even though they arrived at the diagnosis sooner than the doctors in
the other condition.
● Forty-four physicians were randomly assigned to 1 of 3 groups: a control group, an
affect-induction group (these participants received a small package of candy), or a group
that asked participants to read humanistic statements regarding the practice of medicine.
- Physicians in all three groups were asked to "think aloud" while they solved a case
of a patient with liver disease. Transcripts of the physicians' comments were
typed, and two raters reviewed the transcripts to determine how soon the diagnosis
of liver disease was considered and established, and the extent to which thinking
was distorted or inflexible.
- The affect group initially considered the diagnosis of liver disease significantly
earlier in the experiment and showed significantly more flexible thinking than did
controls.
- The affect and control groups established the diagnosis at similar points in the
experiment.
- So a positive affect led to the earlier integration of information (considered liver
disease sooner) and resulted in little premature foreclosure on the diagnosis.
BROADEN AND BUILD THEORY
Need for new model
● Fredrickson (2000) has developed a new theoretical framework, the broaden-and-build
model, that may provide some explanations for the robust social and cognitive effects of
positive emotional experiences.
● She found that responses to positive emotions have not been extensively studied and that,
when researched, they were examined in a vague and underspecified manner. ●
Furthermore, action tendencies generally have been associated with physical reactions to
negative emotions (again, imagine "fight or flight"), whereas human reactions to positive
emotions often are more cognitive than physical.
● For these reasons, she proposes discarding the specific action tendency concept (which
suggests a restricted range of possible behavioral options) in favor of newer, more
inclusive term, momentary thought-action repertoires (which suggest a broad range of
behavioral options).

Broaden
● In testing her model of positive emotions, she demonstrated that the experience of joy
expands the realm of what a person feels like doing at the time; this is referred to as the
broadening of an individual's momentary thought-action repertoire.
● Joy → More possibilities for activities: Following an emotion-eliciting film clip (the
clips induced one of five emotions: joy, contentment, anger, fear, or a neutral condition),
research participants were asked to list everything they would like to do at that moment
(see the results in Figure 7.1).
- Those participants who experienced joy or contentment listed significantly more
desired possibilities than did the people in the neutral or negative conditions. In
turn, those expanded possibilities for future activities should lead the joyful
individuals to initiate subsequent actions.
- Those who expressed more negative emotions, on the other hand, tended to shut
down their thinking about subsequent possible activities.
- Joy appears to open us up to many new thoughts and behaviors, whereas negative
emotions dampen our ideas and actions.
● Joy also increases our likelihood of behaving positively toward other people, along with
developing more positive relationships.
● Furthermore, joy induces playfulness, which is quite important because such behaviors are
evolutionarily adaptive in acquisition of necessary resources.
● Juvenile play builds
1. Enduring social and intellectual resources by encouraging attachment
2. Higher levels of creativity
3. Brain development
Build
● It appears that, through the effects of broadening processes, positive emotions also can
help build resources.
 ● Her and Thomas Joiner, demonstrated this building phenomenon by assessing people's
positive and negative emotions and broad-minded coping (solving problems with creative
means) on two occasions 5 weeks apart.
- The researchers found that initial levels of positive emotions predicted overall
increases in creative problem solving.
- These changes in coping also predicted further increases in positive emotions. -
Similarly, controlling for initial levels of positive emotion, initial levels of coping
predicted increases in positive emotions, which in turn predicted increases in coping.
● These results held true only for positive emotions, not for negative emotions. ● Therefore,
positive emotions such as joy may help generate resources, maintain a sense of vital energy
(i.e., more positive emotions), and create even more resources. ● Fredrickson (2002) referred
to this positive sequence as the "upward spiral" of positive emotions.

Undoing Potential
● Extending her model of positive emotions, Fredrickson and colleagues examined the
 "undoing" potential of positive emotions and the ratio of positive to negative emotional
experiences that is associated with human flourishing.
● Fredrickson et al. (2000) hypothesized that, given the broadening and building effects of
positive emotions, joy and contentment might function as antidotes to negative emotions. ●
To test this hypothesis, the researchers exposed all participants in their study to a situation
that aroused negative emotion and immediately randomly assigned people to emotion
conditions (sparked by evocative video clips) ranging from mild joy to sadness. ●
Cardiovascular recovery represented the undoing process and was operationalized as the time
that elapsed from the start of the randomly assigned video until the physiological reactions
induced by the initial negative emotion returned to baseline.
- The undoing hypothesis was supported, as participants in the joy and contentment
conditions were able to undo the effects of the negative emotions more quickly
than the people in the other conditions.
● These findings suggest that there is an incompatibility between positive and negative
emotions and that the potential effects of negative experiences can be offset by positive
emotions such as joy and contentment.

Optimal Mental Health/Flourishing

● Given that positive emotions help people build enduring resources and recover from
negative experiences, Fredrickson and Losada (2005) hypothesized that positive emotions
might be associated with optimal mental health or flourishing (i.e., positive psychological
and social well-being; see the complete mental health model).
● By subjecting data on undergraduate participants' mental health (from a flourishing
measure) and their emotional experience (students rated the extent to which they
experienced 20 emotions each day for 28 days) to mathematical analysis, the researchers
found that a mean ratio of 9:2 positive to negative emotions predicts human flourishing.
This finding provides diagnostic insight into the effects of daily emotional experiences on
our mental health.

HAPPINESS AND SUBJECTIVE WELL-BEING: LIVING A PLEASURABLE LIFE

Age Old Definitions of Happiness

● Buddha left home in search of a more meaningful existence and ultimately found
enlightenment, a sense of peace, and happiness.
● Aristotle believed that eudaimonia (human flourishing associated with living a life of
virtue), or happiness based on a lifelong pursuit of meaningful, developmental goals (i.e.,
"doing what is worth doing"), was the key to the good life.
● America's founders reasoned that the pursuit of happiness was just as important as our
inalienable rights of life and liberty.
● Theories of happiness have been divided into three types:
1. Need/ goal satisfaction theories
2. Process/activity theories, and
 3. Genetic/ personality predisposition

Need/Goal Satisfaction Theories

● The leaders of particular schools of psychotherapy proffered these ideas about happiness.
● For example, psychoanalytic and humanistic theorists (Sigmund Freud and Abraham
Maslow, respectively) suggested that the reduction of tension or the satisfaction of needs
lead to happiness.
● In short, it was theorized that we are happy because we have reached our goals. Such
"happiness as satisfaction" makes happiness a target of our psychological pursuits.

Process/Activity Theories
● Theorists posit that engaging in particular life activities generates happiness. ● For
example, Mike Csikszentmihalyi (pronounced CHEEK-SENT-ME-HIGH), proposed that
people who experience flow (engagement in interesting activities that match or challenge
task-related skills) in daily life tend to be very happy.
● Csikszentmihalyi's work suggests that engagement in activity produces happiness. ●
Other process/activity theorists have emphasized how the process of pursuing goals
generates energy and happiness.
● This pursuit-of-happiness perspective mirrors America's founders' promise of "life, liberty,
and the pursuit of happiness."
Genetic/Personality Dispositions
● People with this viewpoint tend to see happiness as stable, whereas theorists in the
happiness-as-satisfaction and process/activity camps view it as changing with life
conditions.
● On this latter point, Costa and McCrae (1988) found that happiness changed little over a
6-year period, thereby lending credence to theories of personality-based or biologically
determined happiness.
● Demonstrating this link between happiness and personality, Lucas and Fujita (2000)
showed that extraversion and neuroticism, two of the Big 5 factors of personality
(openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, neuroticism), were closely
related to the characteristics of happiness.
● Studies of the biological or genetic determinants of happiness have found that up to 40%
of positive emotionality and 55% of negative emotionality are genetically based. ● This
leaves about 50% of the variance in happiness that is not explained by biological
components.

Overall, therefore, a thorough understanding of happiness necessitates an examination of genetic

factors and the variables suggested by need/goal satisfaction and the activity/process theorists.

Subjective Well-Being as a Synonym for Happiness

● Diener considers well-being to be the subjective evaluation of one's current status in the
 world. More specifically, well-being involves our experience of pleasure and our
appreciation of life's rewards.
● Diener defines subjective well-being as a combination of positive affect (in the absence of
negative affect) and general life satisfaction.
● He uses the term subjective well-being as a synonym for happiness.
● Subjective well-being emphasizes peoples' reports of their life experiences. ● This
subjective approach to happiness assumes that people from many cultures are comfortable in
focusing on individualistic assessments of their affects and satisfaction and that people will be
forthright in such personal analyses.
● These assumptions guide the researchers' attempts to understand a person's subjective
experiences in light of his or her objective circumstances.

Determinants of Subjective Well-Being

Economic Status
● When examining college students' (from 31 nations) satisfaction in various life domains,
financial status was more highly correlated with satisfaction for students in poor nations
than for those in wealthy nations.
● The people in wealthy nations generally were happier than those in impoverished nations.
● Within-nation examination of this link between income and well-being reveals that, once
household income rises above the poverty line, additional bumps in income are not
necessarily associated with increases in well-being.
● When well-being data are divided further by categories of economic status (very poor
versus very wealthy), it appears that there is a strong relationship between income and
well-being among the impoverished but an insignificant relationship between the two
variables among the affluent.

Marriage
● Data specific to Western samples indicate that married men and women alike report more
happiness than those who are not married, never married, divorced, or separated. ● The link
between subjective well-being and being married holds for people of all ages, income and
educational levels, and racial-ethnic backgrounds. (Universal) ● Marital quality also is
positively associated with personal well-being.

Mental Health and Social Functioning

● In a study of the happiest 10 percent of American college students, Diener and Seligman
(2003) found that the qualities of good mental health and good social relationships
consistently emerge in the lives of the sample of happiest young adults.
● Upon closer inspection of their data, analyses revealed that good social functioning among
the happiest subset of students was a necessary but not sufficient cause of happiness.
Happiness + Meaning = Well-Being
● Psychologists who support the hedonic perspective view subjective well-being and
happiness as synonymous.
● The scholars whose ideas about well-being are more consistent with Aristotle's views on
eudaimonia believe that happiness and well-being are not synonymous.
● In this perspective, eudaimonia consists of happiness and meaning. Stated in a simple
formula, well-being = happiness + meaning.
● In order to subscribe to this latter view of well-being, one must understand virtue and the
social implications of daily behavior.
● This view requires that those who seek well-being be authentic and live according to their
real needs and desired goals.
● Thus, living a eudaimonic life goes beyond experiencing "things pleasurable," and it
embraces flourishing as the goal in all our actions.
● Both hedonistic and eudaimonic versions of happiness have influenced the 21 st -century
definitions.
21st Century Definitions of Happiness
● Modern Western psychology has focused primarily on a post materialist view of happiness
that emphasizes pleasure, satisfaction, and life meaning.
● The type of happiness addressed in much of today's popular literature emphasizes
hedonics, meaning, and authenticity.
● For example, Seligman (2002) suggests that a pleasant and meaningful life can be built on
the happiness that results from using our psychological strengths.

New model of happiness

● Describing a new model of happiness, Lyubomirsky, Sheldon, and Schkade (2005)
propose that "a person's chronic happiness level is governed by three major factors: 1. A
genetically determined set point for happiness (what is known about the genetic
components of happiness)
2. Happiness-relevant circumstantial factors (the circumstantial/demographic
determinants of happiness)
3. Happiness-relevant activities and practices" (the complex process of intentional
human change.)
● Based on past research,
- Genetics accounts for 50% of population variance for happiness
- Life circumstances (both good and bad) - 10%
- Intentional activity (attempts at healthy living and positive change) - 40% ● This
model of happiness acknowledges the components of happiness that can't be changed, but it
also leaves room for volition and the self-generated goals that lead to the attainment of
pleasure, meaning, and good health.

Refined Views of Happiness

 ● Our prediction is that the pursuit of happiness through positive psychological science and
practice ultimately will develop a better sense of the genetic, neural, and neurobiological
correlates and underpinnings of happiness and will embrace the contentment, peace, and
happiness of Eastern philosophy along with the folk wisdom of the Western world.
● So, imagine a science of happiness that is grounded in what is known about the genetic
and biological bases of happiness and that examines the rigor and relevance of Buddha's
teachings alongside Benjamin Franklin's recommendations for virtuous living.
● Through good biological and psychological science and a universal appreciation of
philosophical stances on happiness, we can increase the international relevance of our
scholarship in positive psychology.

Complete Mental Health: Emotional, Social and Psychological Well-Being ● Ryff and
Keyes combine many principles of pleasure to define complete mental health. They view
optimal functioning as the combination of:
- Emotional well-being (as they refer to subjective well-being; defined as the
presence of positive affect and satisfaction with life and the absence of negative
affect).
- Social well-being (incorporating acceptance, actualization, contribution,
coherence, and integration).
- Psychological well-being (combining self acceptance, personal growth, purpose in
life, environmental mastery, autonomy, positive relations with others)
● They define "complete mental health" as the combination of "high levels of symptoms of
emotional well-being, psychological well being, and social well-being, as well as the
absence of recent mental illness.”
● This view of mental health combines all facets of well-being into a model that is both
dimensional (because extremes of mental health and illness symptomatology are reflected)
and categorical (because assignment to distinct diagnostic categories is possible).
● This complete state model suggests that combined mental health and mental illness
symptoms may be ever-changing, resulting in fluctuations in states of overall well-being
ranging from complete mental illness to complete mental health.
Increasing Happiness in Your Life
David Myers (1993), an expert on the subject and the author of The Pursuit of Happiness,
provides general strategies for increasing the happiness in your life. (little bit this is for us only)

1. Realize that enduring happiness doesn't come from success. People adapt to changing
circumstances-even to wealth or a disability. Thus wealth is like health: its utter absence
breeds misery, but having it (or any circumstance we long for) doesn't guarantee
happiness.
2. Take control of your time. Happy people feel in control of their lives, often aided by
mastering their use of time. It helps to set goals and break them into daily aims. Although
we often overestimate how much we will accomplish in any given day (leaving us
frustrated), we generally underestimate how much we can accomplish in a year, given just
a little progress every day.
3. Act happy. We can sometimes act ourselves into a frame of mind. Manipulated into a
smiling expression, people feel better; when they scowl, the whole world seems to scowl
back. So put on a happy face. Talk as if you feel positive self-esteem, are optimistic, and
are outgoing. Going through the motions can trigger the emotions.
4. Seek work and leisure that engages your skills. Happy people often are in a zone called
"flow"-absorbed in a task that challenges them without overwhelming them. The most
expensive forms of leisure (sitting on a yacht) often provide less flow experience than
gardening, socializing, or craft work.
5. Join the "movement" movement. An avalanche of research reveals that aerobic exercise
not only promotes health and energy, it also is an antidote for mild depression and
anxiety. Sound minds reside in sound bodies. Off your duffs, couch potatoes.
6. Give your body the sleep it wants. Happy people live active vigorous lives yet reserve time
for renewing sleep and solitude. Many people suffer from a sleep debt, with resulting
fatigue, diminished alertness, and gloomy moods.
7. Give priority to close relationships. Intimate friendships with those who care deeply about
 you can help you weather difficult times. Confiding is good for the soul and body. Resolve
to nurture your closest relationships: to not take those closest to you for granted, to display
to them the sort of kindness that you display to others, to affirm them, to play together and
share together. To rejuvenate your affections, resolve in such ways to act lovingly.
8. Focus beyond the self. Reach out to those in need. Happiness increases helpfulness (those
who feel good do good). But doing good also makes one feel good.
9. Keep a gratitude journal. Those who pause each day to reflect on some positive aspect of
their lives (their health, friends, family, freedom, education, senses, natural surroundings,
and so on) experience heightened well-being.
10. Nurture your spiritual self. For many people, faith provides a support community, a
reason to focus beyond self, and a sense of purpose and hope. Study after study finds that
actively religious people are happier and that they cope better with crises.

Life Enhancement Strategies

Love
● Surround yourself with happy people. Their positive affect and emotions will buoy you in
your times of distress.
● Tell those close to you that you love them. Your sincere expression of love will bolster
your relationship and induce positive affect in others.
Work
● Start a meeting with positive comments about peers' contributions. This may raise a
positive affect that generates creativity and good decision making.
● Bring homemade treats to work or class. This may generate productive interactions.

Play
● Engage in your favorite play activities from yesteryear - those activities that brought you
joy as a child may do so today.
● Participate in brief relaxation activities to break up your day. Relaxation can make your
mind and body more sensitive to pleasurable daily moments.
CH 9: OPTIMISM AND HOPE

Two main theories studied under optimism

1. Learned optimism as studied by Martin Seligman and colleagues
2. View of optimism as advanced by Michael Scheier and Charles Carver.

LEARNED OPTIMISM

The Historical Basis of Learned Optimism

● Abramson, Seligman, and Teasdale reformulated their model of helplessness to
incorporate the attributions (explanations) that people make for the bad and good things
 that happen to them.
● Martin Seligman later used this attributional or explanatory process as the basis for his
theory of learned optimism.

Definition:
● In the Seligman theory of learned optimism, the optimist uses adaptive causal attributions
to explain negative experiences or events. Thus, the person answers the question, "Why
did that bad thing happen to me?".
● The optimist makes external, variable, and specific attributions for failure-like events
rather than the internal, stable, and global attributions of the pessimist.
● The optimist explains bad things in such a manner as:
1. To account for the role of other people and environments in producing bad
outcomes (external attribution).
2. To interpret the bad event as not likely to happen again (variable attribution). 3. To
constrain the bad outcome to just one performance area and not others (specific
attribution).
● Example: An optimistic student who has received a poor grade in a high school class
would say "It was a poorly worded exam" (external), I have done better on previous
exams" (variable) and "I am doing better in other areas of my life such (specific).
● A pessimistic student who has received a poor grade would say “I screwed up" (internal),
"I have done lousy on previous exams" (stable), and "I also am not doing well in other
areas of my life" (global).
● Seligman's theory implicitly places great emphasis upon negative outcomes in determining
one's attributional explanations.
- The theory uses an excuse-like process of "distancing" from bad things that have
happened in the past, rather than the more usual notion of optimism involving the
connection to positive outcomes desired in the future.
● Within the learned optimism perspective, therefore, the optimistic goal-directed cognitions
are aimed at distancing the person from negative outcomes of high importance.
Childhood Antecedents of Learned Optimism
● There appears to be some genetic component of explanatory style, with learned optimism
scores more highly correlated for monozygotic than dizygotic twins.
● Additionally, learned optimism appears to have roots in the environment (or learning).
- For example, parents who provide safe, coherent environments are likely to promote the
learned optimism style in their offspring.
- Likewise, the parents of optimists are portrayed as modeling optimism for their
children by making explanations for negative events that enable the offspring to
continue to feel good about themselves (i.e., external, variable, and specific
attributions), along with explanations for positive events that help the offspring feel
extra-good about themselves (i.e., internal, stable, and global attributions).
● On the other hand, pessimistic people had parents who also were pessimistic. ●
Furthermore, experiencing childhood traumas can yield pessimism, and parental divorce
 also may undermine learned optimism.
● Television watching is yet another potential source of pessimism.
- It was found that greater amounts of television watched at age 4 years were related
significantly to higher subsequent likelihoods of those children becoming bullies. -
Likewise, a steady diet of television violence can predispose and reinforce a helpless
explanatory style that is associated with low learned optimism in children.

The Neurobiology of Optimism and Pessimism

● Investigators have reported that pessimism and depression are related to abnormal limbic
system functioning as well as to dysfunctional operations of the lateral prefrontal cortex
and the paralimbic system.
● Depression appears to be linked to deficiencies in neurotransmitters. Thus, antidepressant
medications aim to increase the effective operation of these neurotransmitters. ● Likewise,
research shows that serotonergic cells located in the dorsal raphe nucleus are reactive to
perceived control.
● Depression also has been associated with depleted endorphin secretion and defective
immune functioning.
● Therefore it appears that there are neurobiological markers in the brain that are linked to
perceived control and pessimism-depression thoughts.

Scales: Can Learned Optimism Be Measured?

● The instrument used to measure attributional style in adults is called the Attributional
Style Questionnaire; the instrument for children is the Children's Attributional Style
Questionnaire.
● The ASQ poses either a negative or a positive life event, and respondents are asked to
indicate what they believe to be the causal explanations of those events on the dimensions
of internal/external, stable/transient, and global/specific.
● Beyond the explanatory style scales for adults and children, Chris Peterson et al. have
developed the Content Analysis of Verbal Explanation (CAVE) approach for
deriving ratings of optimism and pessimism from written or spoken words.
● The advantage of the CAVE technique is that it allows an unobtrusive means of rating a
person's explanatory style based on language usage. In this latter regard, one can go back
and explore the optimism/pessimism of famous historical figures.

What Learned Optimism Predicts:

1. Better academic performances
2. Superior athletic performances
3. More productive work records
4. Greater satisfaction in interpersonal relationships
5. More effective coping with life stressors
6. Less vulnerability to depression
 7. Superior physical health

DISPOSITIONAL OPTIMISM (SCHEIER AND CARVER)

● Michael Scheier and Charles Carver presented their new definition of optimism, which
they described as the stable tendency “to believe that good rather than bad things will
happen."
● They assumed that, when a goal is of sufficient value, then the individual would produce
an expectancy about attaining that goal.
● In their definition of optimism, Scheier and Carver (1985) purposefully do not emphasize
the role of personal efficacy.
● Our own theoretical approach emphasizes a person's expectancies of good or bad
outcomes.
- It is our position that outcome expectancies are the best predictors of behavior
rather than the bases from which those expectancies were derived.
● A person may hold favorable expectancies for a number of reasons - personal ability,
because the person is lucky, or because others favor him.
- The result should be an optimistic outlook.
● Thus, these generalized outcome expectancies may involve perceptions about being able
to move toward desirable goals or to move away from undesirable goals.

Childhood Antecedents of Optimism

● There is a genetic basis to optimism as defined by Scheier and Carver. ● Borrowing
from Erikson's theory of development, Carver and Scheier suggest that their form of
optimism stems from early childhood experiences that foster trust and secure attachments
to parental figures.
Scales: Can Optimism Be Measured?
● Scheier and Carver introduced their index of optimism, the Life Orientation Test (LOT), as
including positive ("I'm always optimistic about my future") and negative ("I rarely count
on good things happening to me") expectancies.
● After years of extensive research using the LOT, a criticism arose about its overlap with
neuroticism. In response to this concern, they validated a shorter, revised version of the
LOT known as the LOT-Revised (LOT-R).
● The LOT-R eliminated items that caused the neuroticism overlap concerns. Internal
consistency of the LOT-R equals or exceeds the original LOT (alpha of .78); its test-
retest correlations are .68 to .79 for intervals of 4 to 28 months.

What Optimism Predicts

● When coping with stressors, optimists appear to take a problem-solving approach and are
more planful than pessimists.
● Optimists tend to use the approach-oriented coping strategies of positive reframing and
seeing the best in situations, whereas pessimists are more avoidant and use denial tactics. ●
 Optimists appraise daily stresses in terms of potential growth and tension reduction more
than their pessimistic counterparts do. (Optimist: yesss challenge, Pessimist: AIYO
STRESS!)
● When faced with truly uncontrollable circumstances, optimists tend to accept their plights,
whereas pessimists actively deny their problems and thereby tend to make them worse.

Interventions to enhance optimism

● Riskind (risky bizniz) has acknowledged that most cognitive therapy techniques aim to
lessen negative thinking (pessimism) but do little to enhance positive thinking (optimism). ●
In the Riskind approach, cognitive techniques are used to challenge optimism-suppressing
schemas as well as to enhance positive and optimistic thinking.
● Another technique suggested by Riskind et ai. Is positive visualization, wherein the client
rehearses seeing positive outcomes for problematic circumstances. Fake it till you make
it.

How does optimism work?

● Optimism energizes continued action (Motivation)
● Bad events as temporary and limited to specific situations, protect themselves from strong
negative reactions that might undermine confidence and interfere with effective coping ●
Provides better coping resources
● Adjustment to stress
● Flexibility in use of coping approaches
● Optimistic attitude contributes to more frequent positive affect- can reap benefits of
broaden and build theory
Coping Strategies of Optimists and Pessimists

Optimists Pessimists

Information seeking Suppression of thoughts

Active coping and planning Giving up

Positive reframing Self-distraction

Seeking benefit Cognitive avoidance

Use of humour Focus on distress

Acceptance Overt denial

OPTIMISM TRAINING

Technique 1
This technique, and the accompanying examples, focuses on the identification of dysfunctional
optimism-suppressing beliefs and their replacement with beneficial and functional beliefs

Dysfunctional Optimism-Suppressing Beliefs. Clients can be assessed for possible negative

beliefs that inhibit optimistic evaluations of the future such as the following: 1. I don't allow
myself to visualize positive outcomes. It would be harmful because they could never be true.
2. I don't deserve positive things or good outcomes.
3. Happiness, positive thinking, and optimism are illusions
4. To engage in wishful thinking is dangerous

Functional Beliefs for Optimism. Optimism-suppressing beliefs can be replaced with favorable
beliefs:
1. There is always a silver lining in every situation
2. You can always find one thing about every person that you can like
3. You can always find one thing about any situation that you can like. (This prevents
negative thoughts from monopolizing, paralyzing and taking away client's flexibility) Wishful
thinking can temporarily remove obstacles to our ability to see alternative solutions. It can
also decrease the inertia produced by pessimism

Technique 2: Positive Visualization

● Positive visualization of future event
● Target-specific problems or challenges the person face
● Storyboard technique- progressive positive imagery (guided imagery)
● Invulnerability training (am INDISTRUKTIBAL)
● Imagery of rebounding from setbacks and maintaining optimism
● Positive visualization across situations

Technique 3: Silver Lining Frankl’s tragic optimism

Technique 4: Cognitive Pump

● Use of priming
● Positive schemata - think about positive memories
● Positive explanatory style

HOPE

Definition: Hope is goal-directed thinking in which the person utilizes pathways thinking (the
perceived capacity to find routes to desired goals) and agency thinking (the requisite motivations
to use those routes).
● Only those goals with considerable value to the individual are considered applicable to
hope.
 ● Also, the goals can vary temporally-from those that will be reached in the next few minutes
(short-term) to those that will take months or even years to reach (long-term). ● Likewise, the
goals entailed in hoping maybe approach oriented (that is, aimed at reaching a desired goal)
or preventative (aimed at stopping an undesired event).
● Lastly, goals can vary in relation to the difficulty of attainment, with some quite easy and
others are extremely difficult.
● Pathways thinking has been shown to relate to the production of alternate routes when
original ones are blocked , as has positive self-talk about finding routes to desired goals. ●
Moreover, those who see themselves as having greater capacity for agency thinking also
endorse energetic personal self-talk statements, and they are especially likely to produce and
use such motivational talk when encountering impediments. (CAN DO ANYTHING) ● High
hopers have positive emotional sets and a sense of zest that stems from their histories of
success in goal pursuits, whereas low hopers have negative emotional sets and a sense of
emotional flatness that stems from their histories of having failed in goal pursuits.

Components of Hope Theory:

● The various components of hope theory can be viewed in Figure 9.2, with the iterative
relationship of pathways and agency thoughts on the far left.
● Moving left to the right from the developmental agency-pathways thoughts, we can see the
emotional sets that are taken to specific goal pursuit activities.
● Next in Figure 9.2 are the values associated with specific goal pursuits. As noted
previously, sufficient value must be attached to a goal pursuit before the individual will
continue the hoping process.
● At this point, the pathways and agency thoughts are applied to the desired goal. Here, the
feedback loop entails positive emotions that positively reinforce the goal pursuit process,
or negative emotions to curtail this process.
● Along the route to the goal, the person may encounter a stressor that potentially blocks the
actual goal pursuit.
- Hope theory proposes that the successful pursuit of desired goals, especially when
circumventing stressful impediments, results in positive emotions and continued
goal pursuit efforts (positive reinforcement).
- On the other hand, if a person's goal pursuit is not successful (often because that
person cannot navigate around blockages), then negative emotions should result,
and the goal pursuit process should be undermined (i.e., punishment).
● Furthermore, such a stressor is interpreted differently depending on the person's overall
level of hope.
- That is to say, high hopers construe such barriers as challenges and will explore
alternate routes and apply their motivations to those routes.
- Typically having experienced successes in working around such blockages, the
high hopers are propelled onward by their positive emotions.
- The low hopers, however, become stuck because they cannot find alternate routes;
in turn, their negative emotions and ruminations halt their goal pursuits.
Childhood antecedents of hope
● Snyder (1994) proposes that hope has no hereditary contributions but rather is entirely a
learned cognitive set about goal-directed thinking.
● The teaching of pathways and agency goal-directed thinking is an inherent part of
parenting, and the components of hopeful thought are in place by age two. ● Pathways
thinking reflects basic cause-and-effect learning that the child acquires from caregivers
and others.
● Such pathways of thought are acquired before agency thinking, with the latter being
posited to begin around age one year.
● Agency thought reflects the babi's increasing insights as to the fact that she is the causal
force in many of the cause-and-effect sequences in her surrounding environment. ● Snyder
has proposed that strong attachment to caregivers is crucial for imparting hope, and
available research is consistent with this speculation.
● Traumatic events across the course of childhood also have been linked to the lessening of
hope, and there is research support for the negative impacts of some of these traumas.

Neurobiology of Hope
● Norman Cousins, in his best-selling book, wrote the following apt description of the brain
and hope-related thinking: Brain researchers now believe that what happens in the body
can affect the brain, and what happens in the brain can affect the body.
● Hope, purpose, and determination are not merely mental states. They have electrochemical
connections that play a large part in the workings of the immune system and, indeed, in
the entire economy of the total human organism.
● Goal-directed actions are guided by opposing control processes in the central nervous
system. These processes are regulated by the behavioral inhibition system (BIS) and the
behavioral activation system (BAS).
- The BIS is thought to be responsive to punishment, and it signals the organism to
stop, whereas the BAS is governed by rewards, and it sends the message to go
forward. (Stop show, do work. BIS and BAS)
● A related body of research suggests a behavioral facilitation system (BFS) that drives
incentive-seeking actions of organisms. The BFS is thought to include the dopamine
pathways of the midbrain that connect to the limbic system and the amygdala.
● With the help of rewards, you are motivated to do something. This is controlled by BAS.
But WHY do you like the reward? Because BFS facilitates it. BFS makes rewards
pleasurable through dopamine pathways.

Hope and Affect

● The quality of emotions reflect the person's perceived level of hope in the particular
situation.
● Higher hope persons, with their elevated sense of agency and pathways for situations in
general, approach a given goal with a positive emotional state, a sense of challenge, and a
focus on success rather than failure.
 ● Low-hope persons, on the other hand, with their enduring perceptions of deficient agency
and pathways in general, probably approach a given goal with a negative emotional state,
a sense of ambivalence, and a focus upon failure rather than success.

Social Psychological Theory

● Social psychological theory on cognitive schemas, Stotland suggested that the core of
hope was an expectation greater than zero of achieving a goal" (1969).
● Elevated hope, in this context, reflects a high perceived probability of attaining a goal.
Stotland also assumed that some minimum level of goal importance was necessary for
hope to be operative.
● This theory, like hope theory, emphasizes the person's cognitive analysis of goal related
outcomes.

Implications of Hope
● Hope Scale have predicted coping, well-being, and reported psychological health
responses significantly beyond projections related to measures of anxiety, positive and
negative affectivity, optimism, positive outcome expectancies, and locus of control.
● Appraisal process-particularly high-hope people undertake their goals with a focus on
succeeding rather than failing, a challenge-like set, the perception that they will obtain
their goals, and a positive emotional state. Furthermore, high-hope people see roadblocks
to their goals as being a normal part of life
● The advantages of elevated hope are many. Higher as compared with lower hope people
have a greater number of goals, have more difficult goals, have success at achieving their
goals, perceive their goals as challenges, have greater happiness and less distress, have
superior coping skills.

What Hope Predicts:

In general, Hope Scale scores have predicted outcomes in academics, sports, physical health,
adjustment, and psychotherapy.
● For example, in the area of academics, higher Hope Scale scores taken at the beginning of
college have predicted better cumulative grade point averages and whether students
remain in school.
● In the area of sports, higher Hope Scale scores taken at the beginning of college track season
have predicted the superior performances of male athletes and have done so beyond the
coach's rating of natural athletic abilities.
● In the area of adjustment, higher Hope Scale scores have related to various indices of
elevated happiness, satisfaction, positive emotions, getting along with others, etc.
● Additionally, hope has been advanced as the common factor underlying the positive
changes that happen in psychological treatments.

Collective Hope
 ● Collective hope reflects the level of goal-directed thinking of a large group of people.
Often, such collective hope is operative when several people join together to tackle a goal
that would be impossible for any one person.
● Snyder and Feldman (2000) have applied the notion of collective hope more generally to
the topics of disarmament(reduction/withdrawal of military forces), preservation of
environmental resources, health insurance, and government.
CH 10: WISDOM

WISDOM AND COURAGE: TWO OF A KIND

● Some philosophers and theologians consider wisdom (prudence) and courage (fortitude) to
be two of the four cardinal virtues (along with justice and temperance).
● The cardinal virtues facilitate personal development; good living through practicing them
may foster the development of social resources that spark the growth of other people. ● Both
wisdom and courage can inform human choices and fuel pursuits that lead to enhanced
personal functioning and communal good.
● Courage also can help overcome obstacles that make the practice of other virtues more
difficult.
● Wisdom and courage often have been studied together, although their intermingling
(shankanpakistan) may cause difficulties in distinguishing them.
● Wisdom and strength both exemplify human excellence; they involve a challenge, they
require sound decision making, and they typically contribute to the common good.

Differences
● In some cases, wisdom is characterized as the predecessor of courage. Moreover, in the
strongest form of the argument, St. Ambrose believed that "fortitude without justice is a
level of evil".
● Some people even reason that wisdom can make courage unnecessary. ● In contrast to
this perspective, courage has been portrayed as a precursor of wisdom. - The logic here is
that the capacity for courageous action is necessary before one can pursue a noble outcome
or common good that is defined by wisdom.
● Courage sometimes is viewed as the virtue that makes all virtuous behaviors possible.

Conceptualizations of Wisdom
● Western classical dialogues:
1. That found in persons seeking a contemplative life (the Greek term sophia).
2. That of a practical nature, as displayed by great statesmen (phronesis) 3.
Scientific understanding (episteme).
● Aristotle added to the list of types of wisdom by describing theoretiker, the theoretical
thought and knowledge devoted to truth, and distinguishing it from phronesis (practical
wisdom).
Issues with Wisdom
● Philosophers, theologists, and cultural anthropologists debated the philosophical versus
pragmatic applications of virtue, along with the divine or human nature of the quality.
● Both issues relate to the question of whether wisdom is a form of excellence in living as
displayed by ordinary people or is more aptly seen as a fuzzy philosophical quality
possessed only by sages.
● Psychology scholars have suggested recently that ordinary people are capable of living a
good life by applying wisdom.

Brief History
● Although the first president of the American Psychological Association, G. Stanley Hall
wrote a book in 1922 in which he addressed the wisdom gained during the aging process,
this work was considered the bailiwick of religion and moral philosophers until about
1975, when psychologists began to scrutinize the concept of wisdom.
● These scholarly efforts produced a better commonsense psychological understanding of
wisdom.
● Implicit theories (folk theories of a construct that describe its basic elements) of wisdom
first were described by Clayton.
● Knowledge gained from these recent studies has informed the development of explicit
theories (theories detailing the observable manifestations of a construct) of wisdom.

IMPLICIT THEORIES OF WISDOM

Clayton's (1975) dissertation study

● One of the first systematic examinations of the wisdom construct.
● She had people rate similarities between pairs of words believed to be associated with
wisdom (e.g., empathic, experienced, intelligent, introspective, intuitive, knowledgeable,
observant).
● Through a statistical procedure known as multidimensional scaling, she identified three
dimensions of the construct: ARC
1. Affective (empathy and compassion)
2. Reflective (intuition and introspection)
3. Cognitive (experience and intelligence)

Sternberg (1985)
● Sternberg (1985) asked 40 college students to sort cards (each describing one of 40 wise
behaviors) into as many piles as they thought necessary to explain their contents. ● Again, a
multidimensional scaling procedure was used, and the following six qualities of wisdom
were identified:
1. Reasoning ability
2. Sagacity (profound knowledge and understanding)
 3. Learning from ideas and environment
4. Judgment
5. Expeditious use of information
6. Perspicacity (acuteness of discernment and perception).

Holliday and Chandler (1986) Determined that five factors underlie wisdom:
1. Exceptional understanding,
2. Judgment and communication skills
3. General competence
4. Interpersonal skills
5. Social unobtrusiveness

Baltes (1993)
● The meaning of wisdom also is communicated in our everyday language. ● Baltes
(1993) analyzed cultural-historical and philosophical writings and found that wisdom:
1. Addresses important/difficult matters of life
2. Involves special or superior knowledge, judgment, and advice
3. Reflects knowledge with extraordinary scope, depth, and balance applicable to
specific life situations
4. Is well intended and combines mind and virtue
5. Is very difficult to achieve but easily recognized.

EXPLICIT THEORIES OF WISDOM

● Although informed by implicit theories, explicit theories of wisdom focus more on
behavioral manifestations of the construct.
● Explicit theories applied to wisdom are intertwined with decades-old theories of
personality and cognitive development, or they emphasize the application of pragmatic
knowledge in pursuit of exceptional human functioning.
● In Piaget’s stage theory of cognitive development, he describes the qualitatively different
kinds of thinking that occur during childhood. Children typically move from the 1.
Sensorimotor stage (in which the child's world is experienced through sensing and doing)
2. To the preoperational stage (in which the child's world is framed in symbolic
thought)
3. To the concrete operational stage (in which the child's experience begins to be
understood through logical thought) during the first 12 years of life.
4. During the formal operations stage, people develop the ability to reason by
systematically testing hypotheses.
● Riegel (1973) built on Piaget's work and considered a form of postformal operational
thinking referred to as the dialectical operations stage or, more simply, wisdom. These
dialectical operations (logical argumentation in pursuit of truth or reality) associated with
wisdom involve reflective thinking that attends to a balance of information and to truth
 that evolves in a cultural and historical context.
- Such reflective, or dialectical, thinking facilitates an integration of opposing points
of view, dual use of logical and subjective processing of information, and an
integration of motivation and life experiences.
● Life-span theorists view wisdom as part of optimal development. For Erikson, wisdom
reflects a maturity in which concerns for the collective good transcend personal interests. ●
Both Sternberg's (1998) balance theory and Baltes's Berlin wisdom paradigm are similar in
that they emphasize the organization and application of pragmatic knowledge. ● Both views
of wisdom propose that wise people can discern views of others, develop a rich understanding
of the world, craft meaningful solutions to difficult problems, and direct their actions toward
achieving a common good.

Robert Sternberg’s Balance Theory

● Built on his previous work on intelligence and creativity and proposed the balance theory
of wisdom as specifying "the processes (balancing of interests and of responses to
environmental contexts) in relation to the goal of wisdom (achievement of a common
good)".
● Sternberg theorized that the tacit knowledge underlying practical intelligence (i.e.,
"knowing how" rather than "knowing what") is used in balancing self-and-other
interests within the environmental context to achieve a common good.
● In this model, the wise person goes through a process that may resemble high levels of
moral decision making.
- First, the person is challenged by a real-life dilemma that activates the reasoning
abilities that were first developed in adolescence and then refined in adulthood. -
Then, the person's life history and personal values bear on his or her use of available
tacit knowledge in balancing interests and generating wise responses. - The person
then examines possible responses to determine the extent to which solutions require
adaptation to the environmental context, shaping of the
environment to fit the solutions, or selection of a new environment where the
solutions might work.
- Finally, if balance is achieved, then the common good is addressed with the
proposed solution.
● According to Sternberg, wisdom involves forming a judgment when there are competing
interests that lack a clear resolution.
- For example, a wise approach to resolving a conflict, would consider the interests of
all people, review the options for serving the interests of those people, and act to
best serve the common good.
● As such, balancing personal interests and actions and sharing a wise judgment may entail
exceptional problem-solving ability.
Baltes’ Berlin Wisdom Paradigm
● In the Berlin wisdom paradigm, Baltes and his colleagues define wisdom as the "ways and
means of planning, managing, and understanding a good life".
 ● Simply stated, "wisdom is an expertise in conduct and meaning of life". ● The
group has identified five criteria that characterize wisdom (excellence) and
wisdom-related (near- excellence) performance.
● According to Baltes, such expertise requires people to have:
- Factual Knowledge: "know what" (i.e., knowledge about topics such as human
nature and development, individual differences, social relations and norms, etc.). -
Procedural Knowledge: "know how" (i.e., developing strategies for dealing with
problems and giving advice, resolving life conflicts, and planning for and
overcoming obstacles that could thwart problem resolution).
● The three meta-criteria that are specific to wisdom which involve flexible thinking and
dialectical processing:
- Life-span contextualism requires that wise people consider the contexts of life,
cultural values, and the passage of time when reviewing problems and their
associated solutions.
- Relativism of values and life priorities place the value differences across people
and societies in perspective.
- Managing uncertainty provides the decision-making flexibility that is necessary
for processing difficult information and coming up with appropriate solutions. ● To
determine the quality of wisdom, Baltes challenges people with questions about resolving
real-life problems, specifically how they advise others facing dilemmas. ● They get
transcribed and rated according to the five criteria of wisdom.

BECOMING AND BEING WISE: DEVELOPING WISDOM

● The work of Erikson and Jung gave modern theorists clues about how resolving conflict
leads to enhanced discernment and judgment.
- Erikson emphasized that wisdom is gained through resolving daily crises,
specifically those involving integrity and despair.
- Jung, with interests in family-of-origin issues, proposed that wisdom develops
through the resolution of psychic conflicts pertaining to individuating from the
family unit.
● Theorists suggest that wisdom builds on knowledge, cognitive skills, and personality
characteristics and that it requires an understanding of culture and the surrounding
environment.
● Wisdom develops slowly through exposure to wise role models - guidance by mentors or
other wisdom-enhancing others.
● Baltes and Staudinger (2000) suggested that fluid intelligence (thinking abstractly),
creativity, openness to experience, psychological-mindedness, and general life experiences
"orchestrate" to produce wisdom.
● Wisdom grows as people learn to think flexibly to solve problems, and such problem
solving entails recognizing ideas according to place and culture.
- By recognizing that the answers to questions depend both on contextual factors and
on the balancing of many interests, people become even more flexible in their
 thinking.
● People who discussed dilemmas with loved ones (and others) and then were allowed time
for reflection showed increases in their wisdom-related performances.
- Older participants benefited more from these interactive experiences than did the
younger participants.

Wisdom in Action: The (SOC) Model of Effective Life Management

● Wisdom involves an understanding of both the deeper purposes and meanings of a good
life (what) and an understanding of the means by which a good life could be achieved
(how).
● It has shifted to include a more specific model of action that describes how theoretical
wisdom about what matters in life may direct practical wisdom concerning how to live
a life that matters. Theory → Practical.
● Practical wisdom is described by their SOC Model of Effective Life Management (SOC
refers to “select, optimize, and compensate”). The model describes the role of wisdom in
effective life management and optimal human functioning.
● The SOC model does not specify details concerning management of a successful life. The
specifics are dependent on each individual’s needs, values, personality, resources, stage
of life, and environmental context. The SOC specifies three general strategies, applicable
across the life span, for how to achieve personally important goals.

Selection
● Choosing appropriate goals among a variety of options contributes to a purposeful,
meaningful, and organized life.
● While the definition of “appropriate” depends on a person’s resources and life
circumstances, goal research provides some guidance in distinguishing between goals that
enhance and goals that detract from well-being.
● Approach goals that are personally expressive, related to intrinsic needs, and freely chosen
are likely to inspire strong commitment, successful achievement, and increased well-being
and life satisfaction.

Optimization
● Optimization refers to all the choices and actions that lead to successful goal achievement.
Optimization overlaps with many processes.
● Goal achievement involves self-regulation, monitoring of progress, belief in personal
control and competence, and ability to delay short-term gratification in the service of
pursuing long-term goals.
● The optimization element also includes the importance of repeated practice and effort in
developing skills necessary for goal attainment.

Compensation
 ● Compensation refers to developing alternative means for achieving and maintaining goals
when previously effective means are blocked.
● Compensation strategies might involve finding new means and resources, activating
unused resources, or relying on others for help and support.

Why is the model good:

● The SOC model appears to be an informative framework for thinking about the
determinants of wellbeing across the life span
● The SOC model specifies the general skills necessary to achieve personal goals and
compensate for setbacks, and recognizes the importance of goals in relation to well-being.

Why is the model bad:

● It does not specify what goals a person should choose to pursue. Rather, it focuses only on
means. It does not address questions about what goals are good or virtuous, or what means
for goal achievement are acceptable and desirable from an ethical or a moral point of view.
● Because of the breadth and depth of their understanding of life and virtue, wise people
would be expected to devote themselves to personally meaningful goals that contribute
both to their own good and to the common good.

Wise People and Their Characteristics

● Modern characterizations of the wise person suggest that the ordinary person can acquire
expertise in life matters.
● Monika Ardelt, measured what she referred to as the "timeless and universal knowledge of
wisdom" in the Berkeley Guidance Project.
- Her analysis of the characteristics that facilitated the development of wisdom
revealed that a person's childhood does not have an impact on the development of
wisdom, whereas the quality of one's social environment in early adulthood does.
- Ardelt (1997) also found that wise people achieved greater life satisfaction than
unwise people.
● Orwoll and Achenbaum (1993) reviewed the role that gender plays in the development of
wisdom.
- In considering the different ways that men and women attain and express wisdom,
these researchers concluded that wisdom combines traditional masculine and
feminine sensibilities. (femilion)
- In their review, they also reported that many of men's wise acts took place in
public, whereas women's wise acts took place in private.
- Differing experiences and social roles of women and men are bound to affect the
forms through which wisdom is expressed.
● Life-span researchers also have explored whether wisdom-related performances vary with
chronological age
- Baltes and Staudinger (2000) found that "for the age range from about 25 to 75
 years of age, the age gradient is zero". In this study, therefore, there were no age
differences in levels of wisdom.
- Wisdom does appear to decline, however, in the late seventies and beyond. (senile) -
Furthermore, researchers studying adolescents have reported that the decade between
years 15 to 25 is a major time for acquiring wisdom.
● The role of professional background also has been considered in regard to the expression
of wisdom.
- This research revealed that clinical psychologists had higher levels of
wisdom-related performance than people in other professional jobs who were
matched on educational level and age.
- Although the wisdom displayed by psychologists was elevated, it was not at the
expert level. Wow thanks
- The researchers concluded that professional specialization does play a role in the
manifestation of wisdom.

The Measurement of Wisdom

● Developmental and person- ality theories of wisdom have yielded self-report questions
and sentence completion tasks.
● The forms of wisdom involving expertise in the conduct and meaning of life have been
tapped via problem-solving tasks.
1. Sternberg (1998) has proposed that wisdom problems require a person to resolve
conflicts, and he is working toward the development of a formal, standard- ized
test of wisdom.
2. Consistent with his emphasis on pragmatism, Baltes has constructed a series of
difficult life problems
- Respondents are encouraged to "think aloud" while considering the
resolution of this problem.
- Their comments and solutions to the problem are evaluated by trained
raters, based on the five criteria identified by the Baltes group (factual
and
procedural knowledge, life-span contextualism, relativism of values, and
recognition and management of uncertainty).
● A brief self-report that includes Likert-type items recently was constructed and validated
for inclusion in the Values in Action Classification of Strengths
● The items are not linked to any of the aforementioned theories, however, and they tap five
aspects of wisdom: curiosity, love of learning, open mindfulness, creativity, and
perspective.
● Although all respondents complete the wisdom items, only people who have wisdom as
one of their top five strengths (out of 24) receive feedback on their capacity for wise
living.
The aforementioned measures of wisdom do not include any items commonly associated with
conventional intelligence tests or measures of creativity, because IQ and creativity are not
necessarily associated with wisdom. Hence, the very intelligent or very creative person should not
be automatically considered a wise person.

Relationships between Wisdom and Intelligence

● They can be distinguished by their roles in daily living.
● Intelligence provides the basic knowledge for accomplishing daily life-supporting tasks
for oneself and others, whereas wisdom includes the knowhow, judgment, and flexibility
to resolve major life problems for the common good.
● Clayton (1982) noted that crystallized intelligence is time-bound (knowledge acquired
today may be obsolete in 20 years) and wisdom is timeless (knowledge that endures in
utility across decades and even centuries).
● Likewise, Sternberg (1985) characterized wisdom, more than intelligence, as involving
interpersonal savvy (listening to and dealing with many different people) and day-to-day
life management skills.
CH 10: COURAGE

*refer to Table 10.1 on pg. 222 from Snyder (2007) for definitions*

Like wisdom, courage is a universal virtue. Houser noted that Cicero saw courage as: 1.
Magnificence, the planning and execution of great and expansive projects by putting forth
ample and splendid effort of mind.
2. Confidence, that through which, on great and honorable projects, the mind self-confidently
collects itself with sure hope.
3. Patience, the voluntary and lengthy endurance of arduous and difficult things, whether the
case be honorable or useful.
4. Perseverance, ongoing persistence in a well-considered plan.

IMPLICIT THEORIES OF COURAGE

● O'Byrne, Lopez, and Petersen (2000) surveyed 97 lay some eggs-people and found
considerable variation.
- Some perceive courage as an attitude (e.g., optimism), and others see it as a
behavior (e.g., saving someone's life).
- Some refer to mental strength, others write of physical strength.
- Some claim that courage involves taking a risk, whereas others accentuate the role
of fear.
● Across history and cultures, courage has been regarded as a great virtue because it helps
people to face their challenges.
● Efforts to construct socially relevant views of courage have moved to daily experiences
 and thoughts of every person.
● Whereas Aristotle analyzed the physical courage of his "brave soldier;' Plato marveled at
the moral courage of his mentors.
● These latter two types of courage (physical and moral) have captured most philosophers'
attention, and the classification of courageous behavior has broadened over the years.

RECENT THEORIES OF COURAGE

Values in Action -Peterson and Seligman (2004)

Conceptualized courage as a core human virtue comprised strengths like:
1. Bravery/Valor (taking physical, intellectual, and emotional stances in the face of danger)
2. Authenticity (representing oneself to others and the self in a sincere fashion) 3.
Zest/Enthusiasm (thriving/having a sense of vitality in a challenging situation) 4.
Perseverance/Industry (undertaking tasks and challenges and finishing them).
Types of Courage- O'Byrne et al. (2000)

Physical
● Involves the attempted maintenance of societal good by the expression of physical behavior
grounded in the pursuit of socially valued goals (e.g., a fire person saving a child from a
burning building #parrish).
● Physical courage has evolved slowly from the Greek andreia, the military courage of the
brave soldier in ancient Greece.
● From ancient to present times, this disposition to act appropriately in situations involving
fear and confidence in the face of physical danger seems to be universally valued. ● Jack
Rachnaman's research on courage stemmed from his realization that courage was the mirror
image of fear.
- He noticed that, when faced with physical jeopardy, some people dealt with the
perceived danger better than others.
- Rachman (1984) worked with paratroopers, decorated soldiers, and bomb squad
members to gather information on the nature of fear and its counterpart, courage. -
Results: courageous people persevere when facing fear and thereafter make quick
physiological recoveries.
- He also suggested that courageous acts are not necessarily confined to a special
few, nor do they always take place in public. Not always some people, not always
in public.

Moral
● It is the behavioral expression of authenticity in the face of the discomfort of dissension
(disagreement), disapproval, or rejection (e.g., a politician invested in a "greater good"
places an unpopular vote in a meeting).
● Moral courage involves the preservation of justice and service for the common good. ●
 Authenticity and integrity are closely associated with the expression of personal views and
values in the face of dissension and rejection.
● Not only does it take courage to speak the truth (Finfgeld, 1998), it also takes courage to
hear the truth.
● Moral courage can take yet another form when an individual stands up for the rights of the
underprivileged and the disadvantaged and confronts someone with power over him or
her.
● Moral courage might be considered the "equal opportunity" form of this virtue; we all
experience situations in which a morally courageous response is provoked, and this
behavior requires no special training.
● Physical courage, on the other hand, is sparked only in special circumstances, and often
those who engage in physically courageous behavior have received training that helps
them overcome fear.
● Similarly, vital courage is not needed unless we encounter disease or disability, and often
professionals teach us how to battle the infirmity.
● When discomfort or dissension is experienced (like in the face of racism, sexism), and
prudence suggests that a stand needs to be taken, we have the opportunity to engage in
behavior consistent with moral courage.

Health/Change/Vital
● Refers to the perseverance through a disease or disability even when the outcome is
ambiguous (e.g., a child with a heart transplant maintaining her intensive treatment
regimen even though her prognosis is uncertain).
● Vital courage is at work as the patient battles illness through surgery and treatment
regimens.
● Physicians, nurses, and other allied health professionals use their expertise to save human
life or to improve the quality of the lives of those whom they serve.

Research on Vital Courage

● Many researchers have examined vital courage, and their work has captured the
phenomenon of someone facing chronic illness.
● Haase (1987) interviewed nine chronically ill adolescents to answer the question, "What is
the essential structure of the lived-experience of courage in chronically ill adolescents?" - She
found that courage involves developing a deep personal awareness of the potential short-term
and long-term effects of the illness.
● Finfgeld (1998)- interviews about courage with middle-aged adults with various physical
illnesses
- Determined courage involves becoming aware of and accepting the threat of a
long-term health condition, solving any related problems through the use of
insight, and developing enhanced sensitivities to oneself and others.
- Finfgeld (1995) also interviewed older adults who were demonstrating courage in
the face of chronic illnesses and concluded that being courageous is a lifelong
 process that entails factors such as significant others, values, and hope.
● Shelp (1984)- Regarding the courage of physicians, found that this virtue, along with
competence and compassion, are very desirable characteristics of health care providers.
- Moreover, instilling courage through "encouragement" is required of anyone in a
profession that exemplifies care and concern.
- Shelp states that the necessary components of courage are freedom of choice, fear
of a situation, and the willingness to take risks in a situation with an uncertain but
morally worthy end.
● Jerome Groopman- The Anatomy of Hope: How People Prevail in the Face of Illness.
- We believe that vital courage frequently is exhibited by people who are suffering,
by the health care providers who treat them, and by the many significant others
who care for loved ones during hard times.
- Those caregivers shared in the suffering of the ill person; they faced their own
fears, including the fear of the loss of the person who meant so much to them. - Vital
courage in the face of suffering often is manifested by people other than the
identified patient.
- Furthermore, when one caregiver behaves in a cowardly manner, other caregivers
might be challenged to rise to the occasion.
● Putman (1997)- Psychological courage is strength in facing one's destructive habits. -
This form of vital courage may be quite common in that we all struggle with
psychological challenges in the forms of stress, sadness, and dysfunctional or
unhealthy relationships.
- We stand up to our dysfunctions by restructuring our beliefs or systematically
desensitizing ourselves to the fears.
- Putman- there is a lack of training for psychological courage as compared to
physical and moral courage.

BECOMING AND BEING COURAGEOUS

● Finfgeld says that courageous behaviors follow the identification of a threat, after which
there is a shift away from defining the problem as an insurmountable obstacle. (can do
anything, don't say impossible)
● Behavioral expectations, role models, and value systems also appear to determine if,
when, and how courage unfolds.
● Courageous behavior may result in a sense of equanimity, or calmness; an absence of
regret about one's life; and personal integrity.
● Szagun asked the children to judge courage vignettes.
- The younger children (ages 5 to 6) likened courage to the difficulty of the task at
hand, along with being fearless.
- The older children (ages 8 to 9) likened courage to subjective risk taking and
overcoming fear.
- Still older children (ages 11 to 12) reported that being fully aware of a risk at the
 time of acting is a necessary component of courage.
- Given their developmental stages, the younger group rated physical risks as
entailing more courage than other risks (e.g., psychological risks).
● In another study, Szagun and Schauble (Sabun and Bubbles) investigated courage by
asking participants to recall and then describe situations in which they had acted
courageously, and to focus on the thoughts and feelings of those situations.
- Young children did not consider fear or overcoming fear in describing the experience
of courage, but this propensity to equate courage with the experience of fear
increased with age.
- The older children also conceptualized courage as a multifaceted emotional
experience that involves fear, self-confidence, and an urge to act.
● Several researchers have attempted to determine how people become courageous. ● With
the assumption that all individuals have the capacity for and past experience with courage,
Haase's (hahahahahaha) findings regarding courage point to the development of attitudes and
coping methods rather than descriptions of so-called "born heroes." ● Through resolution of
the situation of courage, the adolescent develops a sense of mastery, competence, and
accomplishment and a feeling of growth.

COURAGE RESEARCH

Measurement of Courage
● Numerous brief self-report measures of courage have been created for research purposes. ●
In 1976, Larsen and Giles developed a scale to measure existential courage (akin to moral)
and social courage (related to physical).
- The existential courage domain is tapped by 28 items, and 22 examine social
courage.
- Psychometric support for this measure is limited, and little if any work has been
done to refine the scale.
● Schmidt and Koselka (2000) constructed a seven-item measure of courage. -
Three items relate to general courage, and four assess what is considered panic-
specific courage (possibly a subtype of vital courage).
- This scale meets basic standards for reliability, but evidence for its validity is
limited.
● Woodard (2004) used a carefully researched definition of courage as the ability to act for a
meaningful (noble, good, or practical) cause, despite experiencing fear (associated with
perceived threat exceeding available resources).
- Woodard developed a 31-item scale.
- The total score is computed by multiplying a "willingness to act" score by a
"perceived fear" score.
- Research on this scale suggests that it has promise for measuring courage in future
research.
Values in Action Inventory of Strengths
● Recent scale development has been completed by positive psychology research teams who
were working on what originally was called "wellsprings" measures and now is referred to
as the Values in Action Inventory of Strengths.
● The first version of a wellsprings measure included five items that tap courage. ●
The current version measures four types of courage, including valor, authenticity,
enthusiasm/zest, and industry/perseverance.

Limitations and Issues

● The development of measures of courage is in its early stages because a comprehensive
theory of courage has not been proposed and carefully examined.
● It will be difficult to develop a model of courage, but this task should be no more difficult
than that accomplished already by several wisdom researchers.
● An important issue here is whether measurement should assess courage as displayed in a
courageous act or as embodied by the courageous actor. ‘

TONIC OR PHASIC ELEMENTS OF COURAGE

● It is not clear whether we should focus on the tonic (constant) and phasic (waxing and
waning) elements of courage, or both.
● This may depend on the type of courage assessed.
● Moral courage may possess tonic qualities, as a person may demonstrate it steadily across
situations, and it also may possess phasic qualities, as it only appears when necessary. - For
example, tapping the tonic elements of moral courage could be achieved with straightforward
questions; traditional scales could yield a meaningful
representation of this strength.
- The phasic elements of moral courage only emerge in their pure form when needed
in a given situation.
● It may require the assessment techniques of observation, narrative reports, experience
sampling methods, and critical incident reviews.

Relationships Between Fear and Courage

● The relationship is not well understood.
● Rachman observed that frightened people can perform courageous acts. ● Though
courage and fearlessness often are regarded as synonymous, many have argued that
perseverance despite fear is the purest form of courage.
● Physiological responses may be measured to assess the presence of fear or stress in a
given situation in order to determine how the courageous people respond.
● Rachman's work focused on describing subjective fear and its associated bodily responses. -
Performances under stressors were determined by various subjective, behavioral, and
psychophysiological measures.
- Relative to comparison persons, the decorated operators maintained a lower
 cardiac rate under stress.
- This suggested that people who had performed courageous acts might respond to
fear in a way that is different from people who had not demonstrated courage.
● Rachman, trying to understand why some people respond to fear in a manner that might be
conducive to courageous behavior, studied beginning paratroopers.
- His assessment of subjective fear and corresponding physiological markers
revealed that paratroopers reported a moderate amount of fear at the beginning of
their program, but this fear subsided within their initial five jumps.
- Furthermore, it was found that the execution of a jump despite the presence of fear
(i.e., courage) resulted in a reduction of fear.
● Given the common assumption that a prerequisite fear must be apparent for there to be
courage, the link between fear and physical courage, moral courage, and vital courage
needs further examination.

Finding Wisdom and Courage in Daily Life

● Wisdom and courage, probably the most valued of the virtues, are in high demand. ● We
believe that most people, through a mindful approach to life, can develop wisdom and
courage.

The Value of Wisdom and Courage

● To understand courage may require a good bit of wisdom.
● Many people are enamored of the stupid behavior of the unwise and the apparent
fearlessness of contestants on television shows such as Fear Factor, we feel compelled to
make an even stronger case for celebrating virtue: Wisdom and courage have evolutionary
value, whereas stupidity and rash fearlessness thin the herd.
● Wisdom guides our action, and through that wisdom we make good choices when
challenged by the social and physical world.
● This practiced wisdom is intrinsically rewarding and beneficial to the common good; it
promotes the survival of good ideas, of oneself, and of others. Indeed, wise ideas and wise
people may stand the test of time.
● A similar case can be made for courage. Physical courage and vital courage often extend
lives. So, too, does moral courage preserve the ideals of justice and fairness.
UNIT 3
CH 11 S: MINDFULNESS, FLOW AND SPIRITUALITY

MINDFULNESS: IN SEARCH OF NOVELTY

Amy Wrzesniewski, a positive psychologist interested in how people function optimally at work. -
She found that a third of the hospital cleaners considered their work a "calling" and therefore
did everything they could to make the health care experience positive for patients and staff.
- These members of the cleaning team essentially reconstrued their jobs by mindfully
 making moment-to-moment choices about what was worthy of attention.
- Found novel ways of doing their job.

Mindfulness As A State Of Mind

● Mindfulness is comparable to the age-old process of cultivating awareness in Buddhist
traditions and to the modern therapeutic technique of increasing attention in order to
identify distorted thinking.

Langer's definition of mindfulness

● What mindfulness is:
- It is a flexible state of mind - an openness to novelty, a process of actively drawing
novel distinctions.
- When we are mindful, we become sensitive to context and perspective; we are
situated in the present.
- Our behavior may be guided rather than governed by rules and routines. ●
What mindfulness is not:
- When we are mindless, we are trapped in rigid mind-sets, oblivious to context or
perspective, our behavior is ruled and routine governed.
● In short, mindfulness is an active search for novelty, whereas mindlessness involves
passively zoning out to everyday life. "Automatic pilot" is a form of mindlessness that is
attributable to the repetition of behaviours. Drawing novel distinctions or being mindful
requires us to:
1. Overcome the desire to reduce uncertainty in daily life.
2. Override a tendency to engage in automatic behavior.
3. Engage less frequently in evaluations of self, others, and situations.

Uncertainty
● Langer (2002) argues that "aspects of our culture currently lead us to try to reduce
uncertainty".