Positive Psychology: Levels and Focus

• Positive Psychology studies strengths and virtues, not just weakness and damage.
• Treatment in psychology is about nurturing the best in individuals, not just fixing what is broken.
• Martin E.P. Seligman is considered the Father of Positive Psychology.
• Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi is a Hungarian-American Psychologist.

Subjective Level

• Focuses on Positive Subjective States.
• Includes positive emotions like happiness, joy, satisfaction with life, relaxation, love, intimacy, and contentment.
• Involves constructive thoughts such as hope and optimism.
• Includes feelings of energy, which encompass confidence and the effects of positive emotions.

Individual Level

• Focuses on Positive Individual States.
• Involves positive behavioral patterns manifested as courage, honesty, persistence, and wisdom.
• Considers aesthetic sensibility and creative potential.

Societal Level

• Focuses on Positive Institutions
• Encompasses the development of civic virtues.
• Includes the creation of healthy families.
• Includes the study of healthy work.
• Positive Psychology studies conditions and processes that contribute to optimal functioning of people, groups and institutions.

Basic Themes of Positive Psychology

• Themes include the good life, strengths and virtues, positive emotions, and well-being.
• Includes positive social relationships, flourishing and thriving, and compassion and empathy.
• Recognizes the importance of negative emotions.

Implications of Positive Psychology on Mental and Physical Health

• Breaks the mold of victimology, acknowledging that most people are not just victims of generational trauma.
• Promotes happiness and operates on principles that support well-being, such as gratitude journaling and acts of kindness.
• Builds resilience and strength through cognitive restructuring, growth mindset, and self-compassion.
• Cultivates meaning and purpose by identifying strengths and weaknesses, pursuing meaningful goals, and engaging in meaningful activities.

Eastern and Western Perspectives on Positive Psychology

• Psychology is considered "weird" due to its focus on Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic populations.
• Culture shapes our thinking, perception, memory, the way we express emotions, and our sense of self and identity.
• Culture refers to the shared beliefs, values, customs, behaviors, and artifacts that characterize a group or society.
• Beliefs are shared ideas about what is true or false.
• Values are shared ideas about what is good, right, and important.
• Norms are shared expectations for how people should behave in different situations.
• Customs are traditional practices and behaviors.
• Artifacts are physical objects that represent a culture.

Individualism vs. Collectivism

• Individualism focuses on the psychology of "ME," where ties between individuals are loose, and everyone is expected to look after themselves.
• Collectivism focuses on the psychology of "WE," with strong, cohesive in-groups that practice loyalty.
• Australia, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and the United States are high in individualism.
• China, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, and Indonesia are high in collectivism.
• Neither individualism nor collectivism is inherently better, but there are exemplar constructs in each.
• Western cultures emphasize hope and the need for uniqueness.
• Positive psychology emphasizes attending to both the person and the group and understanding the differences between individualistic and collectivist cultures.

Emotions and Well-Being

• Emotions are complex patterns involving experiential, behavioral, and physiological elements.
• Emotions are intense, short-lived reactions to specific stimuli and often accompanied by physiological changes.
• Feelings are subjective experiences that arise from emotions, influenced by personal interpretations, beliefs, and experiences, and can be prolonged.
• Moods are sustained emotional states that are less intense, influence our outlook and behavior, and are affected by factors like environment and health.
• Basic emotions include happiness, sadness, anger, disgust, boredom, embarrassment, fear, anxiety, and envy.

Positive Emotions as Antidote to Stress

• The Undoing Hypothesis states that positive emotions help the body and mind regain balance after negative emotions.
• Emotional Intelligence (EI) is the ability to recognize the meaning of emotions and their relationships and to reason and problem-solve based on them.
• Dimensions of EI include knowing one's emotions, handling interpersonal relationships, using emotions to motivate oneself, recognizing emotions in others, and managing one's own emotions.
• Well-being includes health, happiness, prosperity, good mental health, high life satisfaction, a sense of meaning or purpose, and the ability to manage stress.
• Emotional well-being is the ability to produce positive emotions, moods, thoughts, and feelings and adapt when confronted with adversity.
• If pain is not transformed, it may be transmitted to family, neighbors, co-workers, and children.

Improving Emotional Well-Being

• Deep breaths can improve well being.
• Grounding techniques such as holding a pen or feeling the floor.
• Pausing to consider "What do I want to say?".
• Challenging thoughts by asking if they are true.
• Moving your body, establishing a routine, and connecting with others
• Forgiving, doing something for others
• Getting enough sleep
• Being kind to yourself
• Being self-aware

Negative Emotions

• One theory suggests emotions exist on a bipolar spectrum between positive and negative.
• Another view suggests both can exist independently

Functions of Positive and Negative Emotions

• The independent construct model posits that PA (Positive Affect) and NA (Negative Affect) operate as distinct dimensions
• Positive emotions are pleasurable experiences and pleasant responses to our environment.
• Negative emotions are those we typically do not find pleasurable and express a negative effect towards an event or person.
• Both positive and negative emotions are necessary.
• Negative emotions without the positive impact our perceptions
• Negative emotions serve evolutionary purposes, encouraging us to act in ways that boost our chances of survival and help us grow and develop as people.

Impact of Emotions

• Emotions enhances cognitive task performance
• Emotions triggers the reward pathways in the brain, contributing to lowerstress hormone levels.
• Emotions broaden our brain's scope of focus,
• Emotions facilitate navigating incongruent or conflicting emotional and cognitive information

Emotion Regulation

• Emotion Regulation: Influencing which emotions we have, when we display them, and how we express these emotions
• Techniques include reframing negative thoughts, controlling attention. situation modification and selection as well has response modulation

Dealing with Shame

• Shame is feeling of embarrassment or humiliation when believing to have done something bad, immoral or improper.
• Shame helps us adhere to social norms and laws.
• Shame is hurtful if internalized which results in self devaluation
• Shame behaviors include lashing out in anger, trying to appease others and concealing yourself
• What causes shame: Child hood trauma, mental health disorders that are judgemental, high expectations, feeling flawed, bullying, failing and weakening of relationships
• What to do: Explore triggers, embrace it and aim for self acceptance

Subjective Well-being

• Subjective Wellbeing (SWB): People cognitive and affective evaluations of their lives.
• The true determinant of someones happiness is "whoever lives inside the persons skin
• Elements of SWB: cognitive (satisfaction with life) and affective (internal emotional experience)

Happiness

• Focuses on emotional state
• Requires people to feel good with themselves and the world
• Theories: Goal satisfaction, process/activity camp, eudaimonic and hedonic

Aspects of Life Satisfaction

• Cognitive judegement of others
• Evaluates life as a whole
• People integrate different part of life
• Requires good health to engage fully
• Strong social support
• Emotional comfort reduces lonliness
• Ability to cope with stresses
• Interpersonal emotional understanding
• Financial stability
• Balance in life and work
• Control over life
• Ability to interpret situations

Cognitive Distortions

• Negative thinking that impacts how we perceive things
• Includes all or nothing and overgeneralization
• Avoid focusing on only negatives
• Labeling thoughts with negativity
• Personalization of thought

Hope

• Ability to desire goals using multiple pathways
• Thinking using Rainbows and Lights
• "Optimism and hope are not the same. Optimism is the belief that the world is changing for the better; hope is the belief that, together, we can make the world better."
• Jonathon Sacks

Hope Theory Composition

• Goal and agency thinking
• Use a plan with specific strategies
• Motivation is important

Hope Composition

• requires pathway and agency goal directed thinking that begins a child age 2
• trauma can negativity impact hope
• big goals break into small parts
• stay in commmmnity