Introduction to Positive Psychology

• Positive psychology uses a scientific approach to discover human strengths and promote positive functioning, while being mindful of cultural contexts.
• It differs from applied psychology, psychopathology, and psychiatry, which often concentrate on human weaknesses.

The Four Waves of Psychology

• Disease Model: Focuses on curing illness.
• Behaviorism: Views behavior as stimulus/response.
• Humanistic Psychology: Emphasizes fulfilling individual potential including key figures like Rogers.
• Positive Psychology: Aims for authentic happiness and a fulfilling life, with Martin Seligman as a key figure.

The Shift in Psychology's Focus Post-WWII

• Pre-WWII, psychology aimed to cure mental illness, enrich lives, and cultivate talent.
• After WWII there was a resource shift toward pathology due to funding.
• The Veterans Administration and the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) directed psychologists towards mental illness research.
• Focus shifted to humans being passive respondents to stimuli.
• Effective treatment involves nurturing the best within individuals, not just fixing problems.

Building Strength and Resilience in Youth

• A key question is how to prevent mental illness in vulnerable populations
• Certain strengths, such as courage, optimism, and interpersonal skills, can help people to resist mental illness.
• Understanding the impact of behavior and mental well-being on physical health leads to health improvements

Dimensions of Positive Psychology

• Subjective Level: Centers on positive emotions and constructive thoughts.
• Individual Level: Focuses on positive behavior patterns and creative potential.
• Society Level: Involves civic virtues and support systems for its citizens.

Scope of Positive Psychology

• Focus is on what people are doing right and how they are succeeding, while defining the good life.
• Interests include building enriching communities, compassion, creativity, empathy, immune system enhancement, lifespan models of positive personality development, and the psychological benefits of zen meditation.

The Good Life

• The Good life consists of connections with others, positive individual traits, and life regulation qualities.

Harvard Study of Adult Development

• Explores the factors that make people thrive, examining mental and physical health, career enjoyment, retirement experiences, and marital quality.
• Deep, supportive relationships have the greatest impact on overall well-being.

Importance of Positive Emotions

• Focus on enhancing positive emotions rather than eliminating negative emotions.
• Positive psychology interventions can help people recover from psychological issues.

Classification of Mental Health

• Flourishing: Optimal mental health, thriving, positive emotions, and high psychological and social functioning.
• Struggling: Coping efforts are present, but maintaining well-being is difficult.
• Floundering: Significant difficulty in maintaining mental well-being with signs of decline.
• Languishing: A state of stagnation without severe mental illness, but not functioning optimally.

Complete Health

• Complete health includes high emotional, psychological, and social well-being, combined with low mental illness.

Importance of Social Relationships

• Happiness can be achieved through individual effort.
• Understanding how people experience psychological well-being is vital.
• Children should be taught about the nature of happiness and the good life.

Cultural Narratives

• Eastern cultures emphasize harmony, interdependence, sharing, and collaboration.
• Western cultures emphasize independence and personal gain.

Strengths and Virtues

• Values such as courage, fidelity, and honesty are important.
• Values that enhance the quality of life should be scientifically discovered and promoted.

Compassion and Empathy

• Empathy is linked to life satisfaction and positive relationships.
• Helping others can boost low self-esteem.
• Kids are naturally altruistic.

Independence of Positive and Negative Emotions

• Optimism and pessimism impact well-being differently.
• Affect is a psychological theory that explains how positive and negative emotions interact.
• They involve unique psychological processes.

Importance of Negative Emotions

• They're vital for self-understanding and personal growth.
• Happiness is vital to a good life, but insufficient on its own.
• Helping others achieve happiness and life satisfaction can improve one's own quality of life.

The Science of Well-Being

• The science is based on studying healthy personality development and optimal well-being states.
• Building an experimental knowledge base in psychological research is vital

Philosophical Roots of Well-being

• Hedonism: Focuses on pleasure.
• Early Hebrews: Followed divine command theory.
• Greeks: Emphasized agency, logic, and rational analysis.
  • Socrates & Plato: Advocated "know thyself" and believed reality is separate from the senses.
• Aristotle: Promoted finding the golden mean, eudaimonia, and virtues for a good life.
• Christianity & Middle Ages: Stressed religious devotion and happiness in heaven.
  • Maimonides contributed to this era.
  • Mysticism: Involved passionate pursuit of God.
• Renaissance & Enlightenment: Promoted independent thought over religion.
  • Rise of the artist & rise of science: Genius; empiricism
  • Rising importance of the social world: Utilitarianism; hedonic calculus
  • Rise of democracy: Social and political environments that promote well-being
• Romanticism & 19th Century: Valued individualism and intense emotions.
  • Emotion and the romantics: individualism; intense emotions
  • Love in the romantic period: love marriages
  • Celebrating childhood experience: joy, delight
• 20th Century: Saw the rise of psychology with figures like William James, Freud, Adler, and Jung.
  • Mental hygiene became important.
  • Social indicators research emerged.
• Humanistic Psychology: Stressed the whole person and human experience with key figures like Maslow.

Lessons on Well-Being

• The mind has conflicting parts.
• Training the mind is crucial.
• Pleasure comes from progress, not just goal attainment.
• Adversity can be strengthening.
• Overcoming self-centeredness, judgment, and bias is important.
• Positive social relationships are crucial.
• Virtues, meaning, and purpose are essential.
• Spirituality and self-transcendence matter.
• A sense of meaning and purpose comes from vital engagement and coherence in life.

Eastern and Western Philosophies

• Both incorporate virtues and strengths in the pursuit of a good life.
• Similar human qualities are valued across cultures.
• The same words can mean different concepts cross-culturally.
  • WISDOM:
    • Judeo-Christian: understanding God’s plan.
    • Confucianism: regulate social order.
    • Ojibwe: cherishing knowledge.

East Meets West

• Eastern and Western ideologies differ due to distinct histories and traditions.
• There is Individualism: psychology of "ME" (independent).
• As opposed to collectivism: psychology of "WE" (interdependent).

American Individualism

• A good idea plus hard work leads to success
• This is the rugged idealist ideology
• Individuals think of themselves in isolation
• People have equal rights and freedom
• The economy is capitalist
• Core emphases: include independence, uniqueness, and the individual as a unit of analysis.
• Secondary emphases: personal goals, enjoyment, potentially following group norms, short-term thinking, and informal interactions.

The Need for Uniqueness

• Acceptability hinges on similarity to others.
• Behaviors shift based on feedback.
• Uniqueness influences social acceptability.

Collectivism

• Early humans worked together for survival.
• Elliot Aronson described humans as social animals.
• Social interaction leads to shared goals
• Core emphases: include dependence, fitting in (conformity), and the group as a unit of analysis.
• Secondary emphases: paying attention to rules, subjugating personal goals, group success, fulfilling duties, involvement, generosity, relationships, and maintaining harmony.

Culture

• Culture can be a lens for how to evaluate strengths.

Personal Mini Experiments

• Exercises to practice your relationships to community
• Asking for and volunteering help

Eastern Values

• Eastern cultures emphasize compassion and harmony.
• Compassion requires difficulties that are serious, not self-inflicted, and relatable to the observer; allows for group cohesion.
• Harmony is part of an enlightened life focusing on interconnectedness and consensus.

Me/We Balance

• Individualistic and collectivistic perspectives have value; positive psychology integrates both.
• Individualism varies in North America due to immigration and socioeconomic differences.
• The ME/WE perspective looks at both the individual and the group.
• For individualists: collectivists admire group accomplishments, seek harmony, and want to maintain pride.
• For collectivists: individualists respect personal accomplishments, use conflict to clear misunderstandings, and do not have harmful intent.

Final Thoughts

• Cultural differences impact positive psychology.
• Individualists are a global minority, and the world is becoming more interdependent.

An overview of positive psychology, its focus on human strengths, and its distinction from traditional psychology's disease model. It also highlights the shift in psychology's focus post-WWII towards pathology due to funding and other historical factors.