What is Positive Psychology?

Definition time Positive Psychology –The scientific study of what goes right in life, from birth to death and at all sops in between

History of Positive Psychology “Business as usual” Psychology –Characterized by therapists that try to help people by focusing on their problems Help them deal with the bad parts of life Sigmund Freud –Defense mechanisms, hysteria Alfred Adler –Inferiority complexes –Learning theorists weren’t much better Created behaviorism –The idea that what we do is simply a reaction to our world around us

Abraham Maslow Created the field of humanistic psychology in 1954 Focus on the self –Topics like health and love –Self-actualization Fulfilling potential Believed that qualitative measures were more important than quantitative measures

Qualitative vs Quantitative Qualitative- think quality –Data is typically descriptions and word based Quantitative- think quantity –Data is typically numerical Examples: –Qualitative data: quotations, journal entries, experiences of emotions –Quantitative data: number of subjects that reported increases

Which is better? Quantitative is favored –Qualitative can’t be ignored though More open to bias –Many times, scientists using qualitative data will only include the parts that support their ideas and will exclude the data that refutes their ideas »This is much more difficult to do with numerical data

Most of the time Qualitative data can be presented in a quantifiable manner –Instead of having subjects report how they feel in words, you can give them a scale of –The data is still qualitative in nature, but is now presented in a measured quantified version

Imagine this… A therapist was seeing a patient for depression –At the beginning of the session, the patient is given an assessment and scores a 2.5 / 10 for their overall well-being (very low) –After eight weeks of therapy, the patient now scores a 3 / 10 for their overall well-being (still very low) –Looking at only this quantitative data might indicate that the therapy is not working or not very effective –However, over the eight weeks, the patient noticeably changed their posture to more upright, makes eye contact more, and smiles more often These qualitative measures indicate that the therapy may be more effective than the quantitative test measured

Pop culture books From The Power of Positive Thinking to The Secret –Typically are based on a shred of fact and over simplify most of the real concepts –Historically, these books have been extremely popular and are what many people view as Positive Psychology Remember our definition though: the SCIENTIFIC study of what goes right in life These books do not employ a scientific approach at all- more on these later in the class

Martin Seligman Officially started the field of Positive Psychology in 1998 Wrote one of the seminal books –Learned Optimism (1991) Believed that the field of Psychology was too focused on what is known as the disease model

The Disease model Rooted in the idea that our biology and environment create flawed creatures –The field of abnormal psychology –These ideas have found their way into many aspects of culture and society When children do something bad, most people look to…. –Blame the mother (parents) –The underlying idea here- the way you’re raised leaves many people scarred and more likely to make bad choices

Positive Psychology Believes that abnormal psychology is an important field, but believes that researchers should focus some time on events that lead to positive behaviors, not just the traumas that lead to negative behaviors

The three pillars The research can be broken into three main groups –Positive subjective experiences Happiness, pleasure… –Positive individual traits Strengths, values –Positive institutions Families, societies

Setting the stage for this course The rules –Respect of others –Be truthful –Be as open as you are comfortable with I will ask most of you to share your experiences in class –This leaves you open to ridicule from classmates –For this to work properly, we must be open to each other and respectful of each other