Introducing Positive Psychology

Introduction

I’ve read this book in 2012 and wrote the notes around this time. I won’t add anything. It’s just for the sake of completion.

• “Positive psychology is the scientific study of optimal human functioning and what makes life worth living”

• Founders

  • Martin Seligman

  • Mihaly Csiskszentmihalyi

• Journals

  • Journal of Positive Psychology

  • Psychology of Well-being

  • Journal of Happiness Studies

  • International Journal of Well-being

• 40% of our happiness is determined by intentional activities

• Well-being journal

  • Record activities and how you get on with them

  • Start off with an initial level

    • Positive psychology center: four question general happiness scale, five question satisfaction with life scale and 24-question authentic happiness inventory

• Happiness is less about ‘having’ and more about ‘doing’

• Changing how you spend your time and your outlook on life helps achieving long-lasting happiness

What is happiness?

• Hedonic well-being: feeling pleasure

• Eudaimonic well-being: doing what is worth doing; meaning and purpose in your life, fulfilling our potential and feeling that we are part of something bigger than you

• Subjective Well-Being (SWB) = Satisfaction with Life + Positive Emotion – Negative Emotion

  • Satisfaction with life: what I think about my life

  • Positive Emotion: how positive I feel

  • Negative Emotion: how negative I feel

• PERMA (M. Seligman)

  • Positive emotion

  • Engagement (flow)

  • Relationships

  • Meaning

  • Accomplishment

Barriers to well-being

• Barrier: negativity bias

  • You are more likely to remember bad things (experiences, emotions & information) than good ones

  • Positivity ratio if 3:1 (Losada line), means you will need three times the positive experiences to flourish

  • “bad is stronger than good”

  • > try to make a conscious effort to notice and focus on the good things in your life first

• Barrier: duration neglect

  • Duration hardly matters at all

  • More important factors

    • Intensity of the peak emotion

    • The end of the experience

  • > try to end experiences on a high note

    • Most pleasant task / experience last

    • Remember how much you’ve done so far

    • Try to reframe bad experiences in a positive way

• Barrier: social comparison

  • > try to compare yourself with those who are worse off

• Barrier: hedonic treadmill

  • Positive experience fade away rather quickly

  • Bad experiences fade away more quickly

• Barrier: lack of self-control

  • “lack of self-regulation is at the hart of many of the social and personal problems that we suffer in the modern, developed world”

  • Higher self-control is actually linked to higher well-being

  • The more you practice self-control, the stronger it gets

  • > find an activity that requires self-control but which you are motivated to do

Positive emotions

• Broaden and build theory (B. Fredrickson)

  • Experience of positive emotions enables people to create additional resources in the following categories:

    • Intellectual (e.g. problem-solving skills)

    • Physical

    • Social

    • Psychological

  • > try to find positive experiences: plan something different for a week, look at pictures that make you happy

• Small acts of kindness helps building relationships and makes you happy

• Amusing experiences help you to recover more quickly from negative experiences / stress

• Benefits of happiness and positive emotions

  • Longer lifespan

  • Higher earnings

  • Sociability and better quality relationships

  • Better mental and physical health

  • Likeability

  • Greater persistence

  • Creativity

  • More efficient decision-making

  • => cause or effect?

• Frequency of positive emotions is more important than intensity

Engagement or flow

• ‘high-skill high-challenge’ experiences (in the zone)

• Characteristics of activities

  • Right challenge level (not too hard and not too easy)

  • You goal is clear

  • Immediate feedback

  • Feel completely absorbed and at one with what you’re doing

  • You feel in control

  • You lose track of time

  • You don’t feel self-conscious

  • The activity is intrinsically rewarding

• Flow is linked to

  • Achievement

  • Better physical health

  • Improved self-esteem

• High challenge + medium – high skill = flow

• High challenge + low skill = anxiety and stress

• Low challenge + medium – high skill = apathy and boredom

  • You can make the challenges more difficult by setting goals

    • E.g. washing the dishes in 20 instead of 30 minutes

• Get more flow into your life

  • SMART goals

    • Specific

    • Measureable

    • Achievable

    • Realistic

    • Time-bound

  • Aim for high-skill & high-challenge balance

  • Focus on what you’re doing

  • Find ways to get immediate feedback

  • Make the task more fun

Positive relationships

• Moods and behaviors are contagious

  • Happiness depends on the people with whom you are connected

• Warm, trusting and supportive relationships are important for well-being

• Ability to respond enthusiastically to good news is more important than how we communicate in bad times

  • Passive Constructive (PC) – “it’s good / nice”

  • Passive Destructive (PD) – turn conversation to yourself

  • Active Destructive (AD) – respond with negative notions “that’s terrible because X”

  • Active Constructive (AC) – enthusiastic & energetic support allowing them to capitalize on the good news

• Relationship positivity ratio 5:1

Meaning and purpose

• Two central functions

  • Bedrock foundation which allows us to be more resilient

  • Sense of direction which allows us to set goals and targets to aim for

• PURE (P. Wong)

  • Purpose (motivations, goals, values and aspirations)

  • Understanding (self-awareness, who you are, what you do and where you stand)

  • Responsibility (integrity, assuming responsibility)

  • Enjoyment / Evaluation (enjoyment of life, iterations)

• Meaning

  • Classical by internal & external meaning

  • Or by relationship:

    • Work as a job – to finance your mean time (extrinsic)

    • Work as a career – focused on promotions / rewards (extrinsic)

    • Work as a calling – end in itself, contribution & personal fulfillment

Accomplishment

• Accomplishment

  • Achievement, success, competence, mastery and progress towards your goals

• Achievement is influenced by skill and effort

  • Speed of thought

  • Rate of learning

• Competence

  • Get regular feedback

  • Improve your skills

  • Get a mentor

Appreciative inquiry (AI)

• Meanings

  • To be grateful

  • To recognize the value / quality of something

  • To increase in value

• A process for implementing & achieving change: strength-based approach to managing change

• Start with what’s working well and then build on this information

• Principles

  • ‘Words create worlds’ – subjective perception allows people to see the same situation in different lights

  • Asking question starts the change process

  • Individual experience can be told and reinterpreted in different ways

  • Positive change can come from positive images of the future

  • Review of what works well is more enlightening

• AI works on a systemic level

• Stages of AI

  • Start: ‘Positive core’ – What is good / great?

  • Stage 1: Discovery: asking further positively-framed question about your positive core

  • Stage 2: Dream: Create positive & compelling vision of the future

    • Based on descriptions & stores from Stage 1

  • Stage 3: Design: Create a design for the future

  • Stage 4: Destiny: Developing, creating and improving

Character strengths

• Assessment

  • Values in Action Inventory of Strengths

  • Strengthscope

  • Realise2

• Talent = Foundation for strength development

• Competence = something you are good at but don’t partially like

• Strengths = personal attributes which energies us, which feel like us and which enable optimal performance

Emotional intelligence

• Emotional intelligence have greater awareness of their own emotions & of others

  • Self-aware

  • Self-managed

  • Socially-aware

  • Socially-Skilled

• Model of emotional intelligence based on these skills:

  • Identifying emotions

  • Using emotions appropriately

  • Understanding the causes of emotions

  • Managing your emotions

• Negative feelings

  • Make us more focused

  • Easier to be critical

  • More likely to spot mistakes

  • Easier for us to pay attention to detail

• Positive feelings

  • Expand our thinking

  • Easier to think up new ideas

  • Encourage us to consider new possibilities

  • Think in terms of opportunities

Gratitude

• Gratitude relates strongly to your sense of coherence

  • Belief that life is manageable, meaningful and understandable

• How to

  • Write a gratitude journal

    • Iamthinkful.com or thankfulfor.com

  • Write a thank you card / letter

  • What where your three good things today?

  • What went well?

Mindfulness

• Specific type of meditation-based practice

• Paying attention in the following way

  • On purpose

  • In the present moment

    • Notice thoughts and emotions as they occur

  • Non-judgmentally

    • Accept things as they are

• Opposite of mindlessness

Mindsets

• Fixed mindset

  • Your personal qualities and abilities are carved in stone

• Growth mindset

  • Personal qualities and abilities can be changed or developed

• Effects of a growth mindset

  • Focus on learning goals:

    • First gaining competence then mastering it

    • Less about winning and losing and more about growing and learning

  • Responding to failure / Taking responsibility

  • Making an effort

    • ‘Practice makes perfect’

  • Problems as opportunities to try new strategies

Motivation and goals

• Approach goals: positive outcomes

  • Contribution to our well-being

  • Presence of something positive

• Avoidance goals: negative outcome

  • Stressful

  • Absence of something negative

• Self-Determination Theory (SDT) for human motivation

  • Control / Autonomy for setting goals

  • Competence – Regular positive feedback

  • Connection – Relationships with people who are close and secure

• Improving your working memory will help increase your self-control

  • Brainworkshop.sourceforge.net

• Goal focus by commitment

  • Fully committed -> focus on what you have left to accomplish

  • Uncertain commitment -> focus on what you have done so far

Nutrition

• Deficiency of

• Omega-3 can lead to depression, anxiety, poor concentration and mood swings

• Folic acid is linked to fatigues, confusion and irritability

• Iron is linked to fatigue, irritability, apathy, inability to concentrate and increase depressive symptoms

• Vitamin B12 is linked to loss of memory, mental dysfunction and depression

• Vitamin C has been shown to reduce major depression

• Zinc is linked to depressions

Optimism

• Advantages

  • Less anxiety, depression and distress

  • More effective coping

  • Higher life satisfaction & increased well-being

  • Stronger immune system and lower cardiac risk

  • Recover from surgery more quickly

  • Adapt better to negative events

  • Don’t give up so easily

  • More action-oriented when faced with problems

• Styles

  • Explanatory styles

    • The way we explain our experiences

    • Optimists attribute the cause of negative events to

      • External

      • Specific

      • Transient factors

    • Optimists attribute the cause of positive events to

      • Internal

      • Global

      • Permanent factors

• Defensive pessimists

  • Take their expectation as shield to manage their anxiety

  • Don’t profit from optimism

Physical exercise

• Tips

  • Find different forms of exercise that you enjoy and alternate them

  • Consider mixing individual, partner & team exercises

  • Be part of group – helps if your self-control isn’t strong

  • Think outside the box

  • Start with the most pleasant exercise first, then it’s easier to continue

  • Start with small steps

• Benefits

  • Reducing high blood pressure

  • Developing strong bones & muscles

  • More active brain cells

  • Better mental skills

  • Better memory

  • Enhance body image, self-esteem & self-perceptions

  • Improved sleep patterns

  • Reduce emotional distress

  • Reduced depression

  • Reduced stress

• Small commitments help a lot

  • 5 – 30min walk

  • 5min light resistance training

Resilience

• Key element in positive psychology

• Benefits

  • More likely to perceive challenges / setbacks as manageable

  • Greater emotional stability

  • Greater ability to cope with stressors & daily hassles

  • Greater energy

  • Curious & open to new experiences

  • Good at helping other people feel good too

• Reflect on setbacks which you recovered from

  • You have a wide array of experiences dealing with setbacks

  • Write about your really bad life experiences

• Three Ds

  • Distraction — do something to calm or silence your negative inner voice

  • Distancing — Your interpretation, is just an interpretation – you don’t have to see something the way you do

    • Will this experience matter in 5 hours / days / weeks / years time?

    • Who is wore off than me at the moment?

    • What else do I have in my life that is unaffected by this?

    • How can I interpret this situation more positively?

  • Disputation — look for evidence for and against your belief

• Try to find benefits of (negative) events (benefit-finding)

  • Which doors have opened thanks to the event?

Savouring

“The aim of life appreciation.” — G.K. Chesterton

• Savouring more down-to-earth definition of appreciation

  • To be thankful for something

  • To acknowledge the quality of something

  • To increase in value

  • => Really noticing, appreciating and enhancing the positive experiences in your life

• How to

  • Slow down

  • Pay attention to what you are doing

  • Use all your senses

  • Stretch out your experience

  • Reflect on your enjoyment

• Savour things

  • In the present

  • From the past

  • In the future

• Expressing your positive feelings externally can intensify them

Positive psychology of time

• Stop trying too many things

• Enjoy your free time more intensively

• Don’t slump in front of the TV

• Time perspectives

  • Future time

    • Able to delay gratification

    • Work towards future rewards

    • More successful

  • Present positive time

    • Enjoy life to the max

    • Less likely to be concerned about the consequences

  • Present negative time

    • Sense of hopelessness

    • Life is controlled by outside forces

  • Past positive time

    • Lots of pleasure from looking back

    • Like to maintain family traditions

  • Past negative time

    • More likely to have many regrets

  • Survey: http://www.thetimeparadox.com/surveys/ztpi/

• Balanced time perspective (BTP)

  • Benefits:

    • Happier

    • More satisfied with life

    • Experience more positive emotions

    • Have stronger sense of life purpose

    • More optimistic

    • More self-efficacious

  • How to

    • Pick the right TP

    • E.g. studying: future TP, relaxing: present positive time

Where next?

• Feeling outside of your comfort zone can be good — sign that you are learning something new

“What one thing will you commit to do today that will help improve your well-being for the longer term?”