2. POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY & THRIVING By: Kiaya Robinson

4. What Makes You Happy? Are You Happy?

5. Are You Down? Watch This….. I am Happy. I love my life. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8ZuKF3dxCY

6. What Is Positive Psychology?  Positive psychology is the study of the conditions and processes that contribute to the flourishing or optimal functioning of people, groups, and institutions (Review of General Psychology) OR…..  Positive psychology is the study of positive human strengths, traits, motives, virtues, and behavior, with the avowed goal of understanding how to optimize these qualities in people’s lives (Psychological Topics)

7. What Does It Mean To Thrive?  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VF_mBJcsXac https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VF_mBJcsXac

9. How was positive psychology invented?  Martin Seligman  Had an epiphany with five-year old daughter in the garden a few months later of being elected president of the American Psychological Association “Daddy, I want to talk to you.” “Yes, Nikki?” “Daddy, do you remember before my fifth birthday? From the time I was three to the time I was five, I decided not to whine anymore. That was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. And if I can stop whining, you can stop being such a grouch.”

10. The Positive Psychology Movement  In January 2000, Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi claimed that psychology was not producing enough “knowledge of what makes life worth living” Seligman also claims there is imbalance of psychology -100 to 0 to 0 to 100+

11. What’s the goal(s) of positive psychology?  The aim of positive psychology is to begin to catalyze a change in the focus of psychology from preoccupation only with repairing the worst things in life to also building positive qualities  aims for the optimal balance between positive and negative thinking.... Positive psychology is a supplement to negative psychology, not a substitute

12. What are some Positive Psychology topics/themes?  Gratitude  Meaning  Forgiveness  Cooperation  Relationship satisfaction  Organizational citizenship  Basis virtues/strengths  Experiences of savoring, flow, intrinsic motivation, and happiness  Optimism  Resilience  Personal growth  Hope  Spirituality  Well-being and health

13. Criticisms/Challenges of Positive Psychology  If there is a positive psychology, then the rest of psychology must be negative psychology?  People who study positive psychology fail to recognize the very real negative sides of life, preferring a Pollyanna (or positivity bias) view of the world.  The calculus of well-being  The development of positivity  Neuroscience and heritability  Enjoyment vs. pleasure

14. So, why positive psychology? Do we still need a positive psychology movement?  Psychology has been unbalanced  The movement accelerates the progress that can be made on “positive topics”

15. The future of positive psychology  The future task of positive psychology is to understand the factors that build strengths, outline the contexts of resilience, ascertain the role of positive experiences, and delineate the function of positive relationships with others Needs to understand how all of these factors contribute to physical health, subjective well-being, functional groups, and flourishing institutions Needs to develop effective interventions to increase and sustain these processes

16. Is Positive Psychology important in Health Psychology?  There has been little research about positive emotions and health until….  In 2005, the Harvard Medical School examined the relationships between positive emotions and health. Examined whether positive emotion may protect against the specific disease outcomes of hypertension, diabetes mellitus, and respiratory tract infections Measured two emotions: hope and curiosity Were derived from two scaled, trait hope and trait curiosity Randomly selected 5,500 patients age ranged from 55 to 69 years old in a urban and suburban settings

17. Continued…..  Mailed questionnaire assessed emotions, health behaviors, and demographic information The questionnaires were send back to the researchers after a year of the administration  In results, they were able to found higher levels of hope were associated with a decreased likelihood of having or developing a disease. Higher levels of curiosity were also associated with decreased likelihood of hypertension and diabetes mellitus.  Suggest that positive emotion may play a protective role in the development of disease.

18. Are you still not happy?  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WisXFOD8Jk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WisXFOD8Jk

19. References Seligman, M. & Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2000). Positive Psychology: An Introduction. American Psychologist, 55(1), 5-14. Gable, L.S.; Haidat, Jonathan. (2005). What (and Why) Is Positive Psychology? Review of General Psychology, 9(2), 103-110. Sheldon, K.M. (2009). Providing the Scientific Backbone for Positive Psychology: A Multi-Level Conception of Human Thriving. Psychological Topics, 2(1), 267-284 Held, S.B. (2005). The “Virtues” of Positive Psychology. Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology, 25(1), 1-34. Richman, L.S., Kubzansky, L., Maselko, J., & Kawachi, I. (2005). Positive Emotion and Health: Going Beyond the Negative. Health Psychology, 24(4), 422-429