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Positive Psychology: An Overview

Traditional Psychology & Focus

• Predominantly highlights negative aspects of human nature
• Stanley Milgram's obedience study: 66% of participants administered dangerous shocks under authority
• Focus on negative skews understanding of human behavior

Positive Psychology Perspective

• Aims for balanced view, including strengths and virtues without negating weaknesses
• Seeks to offset negative focus with balanced, realistic view of human strengths

Reasons for Negative Focus: Authenticity Perceptions

• Sigmund Freud: influenced belief in self-serving motives beneath politeness
• Critics believe seemingly positive acts mask underlying need to dominate or compensate for inadequacy
• Positive psychology argues positive motives are as authentic as negative ones

Skepticism About Positive Psychology Topics

• Seen as reminiscent of popular psychology lacking scientific legitimacy
• The new approach seeks both more balanced view and more scientific basis

Negative Emphasis: Bad is Stronger Than Good

• A greater weight is given to negative behaviors
• One negative comment offsets many acts of kindness, undermining reputation

Adaptability and Evolutionary Behavior

• Negatives violate expectations, capturing attention
• Aversive events are threats, justifying greater impact

Disease Model Influence

• Psychology's focus on illness treatment means a lack of strength-building
• Proponents argue focus shouldn't just be "repair shop"
• Lacking language for mental health characteristics; need focus on healthy

Emergence of Positive Psychology

• Martin Seligman: first called it "positive psychology" in 1998
• Focus shift from undoing worst to studying and promoting best behaviors
• Early examples: Terman's gifted studies, subjective well-being research in 1920's
• Humanistic movement (Maslow, Rogers) had emphasized positive potentials
• Amount of research created the scientific respectability

Positive psychology

• Draws from established areas offsetting perception of unscientific basis

Positive Psychology Relationship to Other Areas

Health Psychology Parallels.

• Negative emotions can cause sickness, positive benefits proven with study
• Understanding body-mind relations has advanced greatly with recent findings

Pathways and mechanisms involved

• Brain, nervous, endocrine and immune systems, and the effects of stress, anger, anxiety, and worry

Positive influences

• Restore or preserve mind/body health setting in motion number of physical and psychological changes

Broaden-And-Build theory of positive emotions

• Positive emotions share ability to broaden thought-action repertoires
• Build enduring personal resources and ranging from mental to social and psychological

The Nun Study

• Positive Emotions: living longer by looking back through nuns journals
• Those expressing positive emotions the most lived an average full decade longer
• Autobiographies with positive emotions suggest health and longevity

Clinical Psychology Involvement

• Disillusionment with reliance on disease model also affects perspective of field
• Shifts from treating to preventing, clinicians need models of positive mental health

Developmental Psychology focus

• Focus is long standing examination of healthy development from adversity
• Focus moved to resilience, in resilience there is good outcomes of adaptation and development

Study Research, subjective well being

• Public opinion been around long time, but not as research tool long time
• Most intriguing success bare only small relations to happiness, need base covered

Social Personality Psychology + Psychology of Religion

• Provide extensive evidence
• Satisfaction in relationship and support for our health and happiness

Western Enterprise?

• Largely and more on the point
• Ideals, values, and philosophy or religious relations from their share culture