Positive Psychology

The Positive Psychology Center at the University of Pennsylvania defines positive psychology as "the scientific study of positive experiences and positive individual traits, and the institutions that facilitate their development".

Positive Psychology maintains that therapies focusing on the development of one's positive emotion, gratification, and meaning can help people become happier. Its aim is to help individuals identify and develop their strengths, focus on the positive things in their lives instead of the negative, and optimize their capabilities, resulting, it is claimed, to a better quality of life.

Prior to World War II, psychology had three missions:

1. Cure mental illness
2. Improve well-being of an average person
3. Understand Optimal Functioning

After World War, II the focus became centered on the first of these - the treatment of mental disorders alone - due to the huge number of cases caused by the war. Veterans suffered great emotional trauma during their service and desperately needed mental health care when they returned to their homeland from war. At the same time, the National Institute for Mental Health started to fund research on mental illness. These factors resulted in a the focus psychological enquiry shifting to mental illness alone.

Thanks to continued efforts over the latter half of the twentieth century, the understanding and treatment of mental illness has advanced greatly. It now includes the utlization of genetics to identify the inherent causes of certain negative behavior.

In contrast very little progress has been made on improving an average person's well-being as well as understanding giftedness and high intelligence. It should be noted, however, that although the scientific community had neglected this area, there has been no shortage of self help books and programmes. These are not synonymous with Positivie Psychology. Although self-help books can give a sense of positivity to the reader, they have no empirical foundation and are not backed by properly controlled scientific tests to establish the impact of the claims they make.

In 1998, Martin Seligman (photo shown here) initiated the study of Positive Psychology as an answer to preventing mental illness. Prior to his term as president of APA that year, however, Seligman has spent decades studying negative emotions and became renowned for his published work on Learned Helplessness. So what caused Seligman to take a 180 degree turn from studying depression and dive into Positive Psychology? He recounts having the revelation one afternoon while weeding in the garden with his five-year old daughter Nikki who giggled as she threw weeds into the air. The self-proclaimed grouch yelled at his daughter. She told him that if she could learn how to stop whining then he could learn to stop being being so cranky.

Since then Seligman has taken a different view of his subjects of study and started seeing them not just as individuals who need help in order to have fewer troubles, but also as people who have strengths and happy experiences that can be the focus of helping them to strive for a better life.

The popularity of Positive Psychology can be attributed to three things:

1) people's curiosity;
2) the press, and
3) the internet.

Among the numerous publications on the young field include articles in Time magazine (it had a special issue and cover story "The New Science of Happiness" in 2005) as well as a lead article entitled "Kool-Aid Psychology: Realism vs. Optimism" written at the popular science magazine Scientific American early in 2010.

The undergraduate course "Happier" at Harvard, taught by Tal Ben-Shahar, has become very popular with the students. More than 800 students signed up for the class on its third run. There are also several major research centers whose efforts are focused on further understanding happiness.

The roots of Positive Psychology can be traced back to Aristotle. He explained that hedonism and eudaimonism, although they both describe pleasure, are not the same. Hedonism maintains that pleasure is the only intrinsic good; eudaimonism, on the other hand, is a kind of happiness that can only be achieved when one lives a life according to virtues or ethics. The Greek philosopher's view on eudaimonism is synonymous to St. Thomas Aquinas who connected happiness with living a moral life. Since then there have been further contributors to the field:

James Williams - stated that the pursuit of happiness is the primary motive for optimal functioning.

Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow - both humanistic psychologists, studied self-actualization and optimal functioning. They both claim that individuals have the power to develop themselves towards a level level of functioning.

Albert Bandura - studied on self-efficacy. What enables people to feel strong and accomplish their goals in life.

Michael Fordyce - wrote a dissertation on Daily Fluctuations In Happiness back in 1972. His Happiness Measures was published in 1988 and is still being used today.

David Myers - studied positive social interactions and relationships. He identified that the ratio of all the peer review studies made about negative emotional experiences and positive emotional experiences was 21:1 in favour of the negative between1967-2000.

Ed Deiner - a social psychologist, has been sited in 11,000 major studies. He explained "subjective well-being" or what motivates people to function well.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi - explained the psychological state of "Flow". In this state, the individual is so engaged in a certain activity that attention to other things is lost, time passes unnoticed, and optimum functioning is achieved. In his study, Csikszentmihalyi found out that people in this state do not experience hedonistic pleasure, meaning they do not feel happiness while engaged in their chosen activity, but that they simply do it for its own sake.

Tal Ben Shahar - a Harvard professor, runs a course the psychology of happiness with over 800 students enrolling in his course every year.

George Vaillant - performed a longitudinal study on 237 male Harvard University students and 332 inner-Boston men since 1937. He showed that those who controlled certain "predictors" such as smoking, alcohol, marital stability, weight, exercise, and general coping mechanisms by the age of 50, were happy and well in their 70's and 80's. Those who did not control these factors fell into the "sad and sick" and "prematurely dead" categories.

Daniel Gilbert - published a book on research made so far about happiness. The book reveals how little people know about how happy they actually are.

Barbara Frederickson - developed the Broaden and Build Hypothesis which maintains that the purpose of positive emotions is to help an individual's survival on a long-term basis. Positive emotion broadens an individual's mindset on how to address problems that might arise in the future. This kind of effect on cognitive functioning then pushes the individual to build or develop one's personal resources that might prove to be useful in solving problems.

1. Despite recent advances, there remains insufficient study and awareness about positive emotions. In David Myers' research conducted several years ago, he found out that there have been a total of 100,000 abstracts on negative emotional experiences (anger: 5,584; anxiety: 41,416; depression: 54,040) and only 4,500 abstracts on positive emotional experiences (joy: 415; happiness: 1,710; life satisfaction: 2,582). This 21:1 ratio reflects our better understanding of negative emotions and mental health.

2. Psychology needs a balance between the wealth of knowledge and research it can provide for both negative and positive emotions. Self-help books are not enough to equip individuals since these books do not have as much in-depth research, tools, and interventions that positive psychology does.

3. There is a lot more positive emotion going around than is commonly perceived. The are far fewer cases of depression in the general population than there are happy, emotionally stable people. Based on research conducted by Dr. Gilbert, people are however more likely to talk about their negative experiences i.e. they people get scared, worried and sad they talk about it more often than when good things happen such as getting home safely, having their own car, the beautiful color of the sky just before sunrise. Another study made at the University of Chicago shows that out of the 1,500 people surveyed, only 10% are not happy, 50% are pretty happy, and 30% are very happy.

4. Positive feelings are good buffers against mental and health problems. In one study conducted by the University of Kentucky analysed the diaries of the nuns of the Sisters of Notre Dame. Of those nuns who wrote entries that were rated as being positive in tone, 95% lived to be older than 85. Out of the nuns who were analyzed to have negative tones in their writing, only 33% lived beyond the age of 85.

5. Optimistic people seem to make better decisions in key aspects of life - marriage, health, and personal finance among others. People with positive emotions are better judges of what choices will be good for them . Research on physicians showed that those feeling positive emotions give more accurate diagnoses than those who are stressed at the time of consulting with a patient. Optimistic people given medical information adapt faster and are more effective in improving their health conditions.

6. The negative effect of focusing continually on treating mental illness is it will keep the psychology from preventing mental disorders and equipping an individual to deal with adversity in the future.

7. Positive psychology, as shown in Frederickson's Broaden-and-Build Hypothesis, helps people to develop different areas in their existence: intellectually (learning, problem solving skills), physically (develop strength and coordination), social (make new bonds and strengthen existing ones), and psychologically (resilience, optimism, sense of identity).

8. The positive cycle of "do good, feel good, do good" not only benefits individuals but the communities where they belong as well.

9. People in general, have an often misguided concept of what can bring about happiness their own happines. Most are led to believe that wealth is the source of happiness. Studies have concistently shown otherwise. People who value money as the source of life satisfaction actually have a low level of life satisfaction.

Two psychological concepts responsible for tendency are the following:

a. Adaptation Level Phenomenon - explains how new experiences become the norm over time. Lottery winners return to their previous level of happiness just a few weeks after becoming rich.

b. Relative Deprivation - people tend to compare themselves and their experiences with other people's. This brings forth what the psychologists call the "hedonic treadmill" which refers to the unending desire to achieve more.

Positive psychology is focused on the study of positive emotions, positive traits, and positive institutions. Why do people feel positive emotions? What characters enable a person to feel happiness? What social practices and rituals nurture positive feelings?

Seligman and fellow researchers identified three factors that make happiness possible: Along this line, positive psychology aims to understand the three paths that lead to one's happiness: pleasure, engagement, and meaning.

1. Pleasure - the pleasant life. Pleasure is clearly one element of happiness. There are many experiences that elicit pleasure; good conversations, fine foods, sensual experience, hobbies, being able to appreciate blessings and having the ability to forgive, enjoying the present (savoring), and positive anticipation of the future (developing hope and optimism for things to come). This route to happiness suffers from being somewhat superficial - these pleasures to not last for a long time and repeating the experience does not provide more hedonic pleasure. Reptition often has the opposite impact and can be self-destructive (smoking, over-eating, drugs, and driving fast).

2. Gratification - The Engaged Life. Engagement is being consumed with an endeavor that uses one's individual strengths or positive traits in order to achieve gratification. Such engagement requires effort and time but provides a deeper level of satisfaction. Such gratification does not elicit hedonic pleasure for the engaged individual and its pursuit may even be unpleasant due to the challenges it presents. Examples of engagement are reading a book, training for a marathon, or playing a musical instrument. In the end, despite the hardships, the engaged individual describes the experience as well worth it.

3. Meaning - The Meaningful Life. Meaning comes from using one's strengths to benefit something larger than one's self , such as contributing to the improvement of a community, adding knowledge to a certain field of expertise, helping others. This route helps the individual to feel that life has a purpose and efforts are not in vain.

It should be noted that the routes to happiness are not exclusive. In fact, study has shown that successful people all live a pleasurable, engaged, and meaningful life. Furthermore, happiness does not just make people feel good but that happy people are also healthy, successful, and possess healthy relationships. Therefore, positive interventions that help them identify factors that would lead to these three routes could eventually assist in people's optimal functioning.

In 2004, Seligman and Peterson identified 6 classifications of 24 traits that equip humans to thrive and flourish. Positive psychology aims to strengthen these virtues with the help of positive interventions. Consequently, these traits also serve their guide in developing new positive interventions in the future.

a. Knowledge & Wisdom (creativity, curiosity, love of learning, wisdom / perspective, open-mindedness)
b. Courage & Firmness (bravery, persistence, integrity, vitality)
c. Humanity & Love (give & receive love, kindness, social intelligence)
d. Justice & Fairness (citizenship, fairness, leadership)
e. Temperance (forgiveness / mercy, modesty / humility, prudence, self-regulation)
f. Transcendence/Spiritual (appreciation of excellence and beauty, gratitude, hope, humor, spirituality)

Over merely a decade, Positive Psychology researchers have identified a number of positive interventions which have been proven to help participants feel happier and more content.

Michael Fordyce's happiness intervention showed that it is possible to make people happier. In his study, one group of students received information on strategies to increase happiness while the control group was given no specific information. The results revealed that those in the intervention condition, when tested one and half years later, were happier, less anxious, and less depressed. They also reported continued increase in happiness.

Burton & King's writing intervention on mood and health. Participants in this intervention wrote about positive things while those in the control group wrote about neutral things (things like their bedroom and shoes). Those included in the intervention condition reported maing fewer visits to the health center in the three months that followed the intervention.

Emmons & McCullough's gratitude intervention asked participants in the intervention condition to write about five things they are thankful about ever week for 10 weeks while the control group were asked to write about conflicts encountered. When both groups ranked each week, those in the intervention condition were more optimistic about the coming week and felt better about their lives in general.

Lyubomirsky's "county your blessing" intervention. This study revealed that participants asked to count their blessings only once a week were happier than those who were asked to do so three times per week. This suggests a "less is more" approach in this type of intervention to prevent habituation.

Lyubomirsky's kindness study. One group of participants were asked to perform five acts of kindness all in one day while another group were asked to perform five acts of kindness spread over a week. Study shows that participants in the first group were happier and the researchers suggest that the short intervals between activities kept the satisfaction fresh.

Seligman (et al) internet study on the five positive psychology interventions described below:

1. Early memories. Write about your early memories every night for one week.
2. Gratitude visit. Write and personally deliver a letter of gratitude to a person who has been kind to you but had never been thanked appropriately.
3. Three good things in life. Write down three things that went well each day every night for one week. Explain why do you think the positive events happened.
4. You at your best. Write about a time when you functioned at your best and reflect about which personal strength that was displayed. Review this story once a day for a week.
5. Using signature strengths in a new way. Identify your top five strengths based on the inventory of character traits and use one of these traits in a new way for one week.
6. Identifying signature strengths.Use your top five traits more often during the week.

All participants in these exercises were happier and less depressed - some for a week and some for six months and longer. The participants in the early-memory exercise and "You at Your Best" intervention both had a boost in happiness and reduced symptoms of depression but only for about a week. The gratitude visit group had long-lasting positive effects but the same decrease in depressive symptoms as the first two groups. Participants in the "Using your strengths" and "Three good things" are significantly happier over time compared with the other groups. These required daily efforts and studies showed that participants who continued the exercise beyond the required period also continued experiencing the benefits of these two interventions.

Positive psychology has identified these clinical studies as evidence of the benefits of positive interventions to make individuals happier over time.

Critics argue that Positive Psychology is insensitive and a disservice to the reality of human suffering; that research, funds, and resources applied in this field is taking away valuable support needed for treatment of mental disorders. Some say that is it just an old topic that is just being hyped up while others have called it superficial and a distraction.

What do you think?

Ingredients To Increase Happiness

1. Moderate pleasure.
2. Savor pleasures, as an antidote to habituation
3. Develop your social skills and be involved with more people:
4. Expand your range of acquaintances and learn to appreciate & enjoy others more
5 Deepen the connection with spouse.
6. Develop a sense of mission and so more of what you are good at

Ingredients to Increase Resilience Against Conflicts

1. Physical activity - around 30 minutes a day
2. Develop better sleep skills
3. Meditation
4. Cultivating compassion
5. Improve diet: Eat more vegetables and less red meat, monounsaturated fats, Omega-3
5. Connection - broaden and deepen your relationships

1. Give priority to close relationships
2. Accept that enduring happiness can not be bought
3. Seek work and leisure that engage your strengths
4. Cultivate meaning and purpose
5. Nurture your spiritual self
6. Focus beyond yourself
7. Be grateful.