Psychology 1504

Positive Psychology
 House keeping
• Feedback or questions
• In case of an emergency…
• … we’ll take a PP-break
• Powerpoints and videotape on website
• Active note-taking
• Overlap with 1508?
 The Road to Positive Psychology
• Humanistic Psychology (50’s)
– The Third Force
• Reaction to behaviorism
• Reaction to psychoanalysis
• Lacked rigorous methodology
 Meet the Grandparents

Abraham Maslow (1908-1970) Karen Horney (1885-1952)

 Meet the Parents

Martin Seligman Ellen Langer Philip Stone

Meet 1504
It is not merely about information
It is also about transformation

• Covering less; uncovering more

“The soul grows by
subtraction, not
addition.”
Thoreau

“In pursuit of
knowledge, every day
something is acquired;
in pursuit of wisdom,
every day something
is dropped.”
Lao Tzu
 Information is not enough
“What is wrong is not the great discoveries of science—
information is always better than ignorance, no matter
what information or what ignorance. What is wrong is
the belief behind the information, the belief that
information will change the world. It won’t.”
Archibald MaCleish
 Information is not enough
“Humanistic philosophy [offers] a new conception of
learning, of teaching, and of education. Stated simply,
such a concept holds that the function of education, the
goal of education—the human goal, the humanistic goal,
the goal so far as human beings are concerned—is
ultimately the ‘self-actualization’ of a person, the
becoming fully human, the development of the fullest
height that the human species can stand up to or that
the particular individual can come to. In a less technical
way, it is helping the person to become the best that he
is able to become.”
Abraham Maslow
It is not about providing definitive answers
concerning the good life
It is about identifying the right questions

Education is the quest for information and

transformation, and therefore must begin with a
question.

“Children enter school as question marks and

leave as periods.”
Neil Postman
“The one real object of education is to leave a
man in the condition of continually asking
questions.”
Bishop Creighton
 The Question of Questions

How can we help ourselves and others—

individuals, communities, and society—
become happier?
It is not a survey of positive psychology
It is a selective exploration of the ‘question
of questions.’

• Cross cultural psychology

• Eclectic
• Studying others and ourselves
It is not English 10a or Math 55
It is about rigorous fun
“I would not give a fig for the simplicity on this
side of complexity, but I would give my life for
the simplicity on the other side of complexity.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes

• A different kind of effort

• Change is hard
• Rigorous fun???
 Final Project
• 20-30 minute Presentation
– Any topic within positive psychology
– Written text (10-15 pages double spaced)
– Slides (word or powerpoints)
• Include:
– Reference to research
– Optional: stories, film clips, exercises, etc
• Why a presentation?
– Teaching as learning
– Spread goodness…
Why Positive
Psychology?
 Psychological Abstracts (1967-2000)

• Anger: 5,584 • Joy: 415

• Anxiety: 41,416 • Happiness: 1,710
• Depression: 54,040 • Life satisfaction: 2,582

Ratio: 21/1
 Focusing on the Negative
“The science of psychology has been far more
successful on the negative than on the positive
side; it has revealed to us much about man’s
shortcomings, his illnesses, his sins, but little
about his potentialities, his virtues, his achievable
aspirations, or his psychological height. It is as if
psychology had voluntarily restricted itself to only
half its rightful jurisdiction, and that the darker,
meaner half.”
Abraham Maslow
 Accentuating the Positive

“The aim of Positive Psychology is to catalyze a

change in psychology from a preoccupation only
with repairing the worst things in life to also
building the best qualities in life.”
Martin Seligman
 Psychology Needs Help
• 21/1 ratio is unhealthy…
• … but it reflects reality
– depression 10 times higher today than 1960
– mean age for depression today is 14.5
(compared to 29.5 in 1960)
 Does Psychology Need Help?
• 21/1 ratio of studies is unhealthy…
• … but it reflects reality
– depression 10 times higher today than 1960
– mean age for depression today is 14.5 (compared to 29.5
in 1960)
– 80% of Harvard students depressed at least once last
year
– 45% of college students nationwide depressed; 94%
overwhelmed (Kadison, 2005)
 Why More “Positive” Research?
• Psychology as creative rather than merely
reactive
• Happiness is not the negation of
unhappiness
• Prevention through cultivating the positive
Unhappiness Spiral

“Negative”
Research

Negative
Experiences
Happiness Spiral

“Positive”
Research

Heisenberg
Uncertainty
Principle
Positive
Experiences
“Human systems grow in the direction of what
they persistently ask questions about.”
Cooperrider and Whitney
Happiness isn’t the Negation of Unhappiness
neurosis, anger, anxiety, wellbeing, satisfaction, joy
depression, psychosis
-_______________________ excitement, happiness
0 ____________________
+ Disease Model Health Model

Focus on weaknesses Focus on strengths

Overcoming deficiencies Building competencies
Avoiding pain Seeking pleasure
Running from unhappiness Pursuing happiness
Neutral state (0) as ceiling No ceiling
Tensionless as ideal Creative tension as ideal
Prevention through cultivating positive
• Illness as the absence of health (vs. health
as the absence of illness)
“It [neurosis] is a falling short of what one could have
been, and even, one could say, of what one should
have been, biologically speaking, that is, if one had
grown and developed in an unimpeded way. Human
and personal possibilities have been lost. The world
has been narrowed, and so has consciousness.
Capacities have been inhibited.”
Abraham Maslow
“We have discovered that there are human strengths
that act as buffers against mental illness: courage,
future-mindedness, optimism, interpersonal skill, faith,
work ethic, hope, honesty, perseverance, the capacity
for flow and insight, to name several... We have shown
that learning optimism prevents depression and anxiety
in children and adults, roughly halving their incidence
over the next two years... Similarly, I believe, that if we
wish to prevent drug abuse in teenagers who grow up in
a neighborhood that puts them at risk, that the effective
prevention is not remedial. Rather it consists of
identifying and amplifying the strengths that these teens
already have.”
Martin Seligman
Prevention through cultivating positive
• Illness as the absence of health (vs. health
as the absence of illness)
“It [neurosis] is a falling short of what one could have
been, and even, one could say, of what one should
have been, biologically speaking, that is, if one had
grown and developed in an unimpeded way. Human
and personal possibilities have been lost. The world
has been narrowed, and so has consciousness.
Capacities have been inhibited.”
Abraham Maslow
• Stronger “psychological immune system”
• Mental health at Harvard
 The Power of Positive Psychology:
Studying At-Risk Population

• Traditional psychology (Post-WWII)

– “Why do these individuals fail?”

• Positive psychological approach (1980s-)

– “What makes some individuals succeed despite
unfavorable circumstances?”
 Resilience
“A class of phenomena characterized by patterns of
positive adaptation in the context of significant adversity
or risk.”
Masten & Reed
• Superkids?
• Ordinary characteristics, extraordinary results
– Social support
 Resilience
“A class of phenomena characterized by patterns of
positive adaptation in the context of significant adversity
or risk.”
Masten & Reed
• Superkids?
• Ordinary characteristics, extraordinary results
– Social support
– Optimism and self-esteem
– Faith and a sense of meaning
– Prosocial behavior
– Focusing on strengths
– Set goals
– A role model
• Role models
• Optimism and faith
• Blame to responsibility
• Deficiencies focus to strengths focus
Passive Victim Vs. Active Agent
___________________________________________

self pity confidence

blame responsibility
frustration hope and optimism
anger forgive/forget
“The message of the Positive Psychology movement
is to remind our field that it has been deformed.
Psychology is not just the study of disease,
weakness, and damage; it also is the study of
strength and virtue. Treatment is not just fixing what
is wrong; it also is building what is right. Psychology
is not just about illness or health; it is about work,
education, insight, love, growth, and play. And in
this quest for what is best, Positive Psychology does
not rely on wishful thinking, self-deception or hand-
waving; instead it tries to adapt what is best in the
scientific method to the unique problems that human
behavior presents in all its complexity.”
Martin Seligman
 Bibliography and Recommendations
• Excellent website: www.psychologymatters.org
• Antonovsky (1979). Health, Stress, and Coping. San
Fransisco: Jossey-Bass.
• Masten, A. S. & Reed, M. J. (2002). Resilience in
development. In C. R. Snyder and S. J. Lopez (Eds.), Handbook
of Positive Psychology, 528-540. Oxford University Press.
• Seligman, M. E. P., & Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2000). Positive
Psychology. American Psychologist, 55, 5-14.
• Sheldon, K. M. & King, L (2001). Why Positive Psychology Is
Necessary. American Psychologist, 56, 216-217.
• Snyder, C. R. & Lopez, S. J. (Eds.) (2002). Handbook of
Positive Psychology, 528-540. Oxford University Press.
• Collins, M. & Tamarkin, C. (1990). Marva Collins’ Way.
Putnam: New York.
• Werner, E. & Smith, R. (2001). Journeys from Childhood to
Midlife: Risk, Reilience and Recovery. Cornell University Press.