Achor Video Analysis

Lyubomirsky defines happiness as the “experience of joy, contentment, or positive well-being, combined with a sense that one’s life is good, meaningful, and worthwhile” (184). She challenges the myths that people can find happiness by changing their circumstances and that people either are “born happy or unhappy” (186). Happiness is not something that can be found or something that not everyone can have. People make their own happiness, despite the difficulties they may face. Happiness comes by “choosing to change and manage your state of mind” (185). Lyubomirsky gives cases of people who are happy even though they suffer from losses and setbacks. These are the people whose circumstances should make them unhappy, but their intentional actions bring them joy. She also gives cases of people who have not suffered any major losses but are still unhappy because they may see events negatively and feel helpless before them. Lyubomirsky asserts that “changes in our circumstances, no matter how positive and stunning, actually have little bearing on our well-being” (186). Even though a person’s circumstances may be positive, those circumstances do not make them happy. Lyubomirsky uses a Subjective Happiness Scale to measure happiness, which takes the average of numerical answers to four questions. She argues that in order to become happier, “you need to determine your present personal happiness level, which will provide your first estimate of your happiness

We cannot let our work and living conditions limit our success, we must take control of the situations in our lives. As much as we have all heard it, we need to keep a positive attitude and mindset, or at least try to. This is probably the easiest way to take control of the situations you are in; keeping a positive attitude has been known to increase your physical and mental health, which can really only benefit you. In a study performed by the University of California, Riverside, in which productivity, happiness, and overall physical and mental well-being were analyzed in working individuals, it was concluded that a positive attitude and outlook has a great effect on one’s life. Generally positive, or “happy people,” were found to be more satisfied with their jobs, to perform tasks better, and less likely to be unemployed and more likely to be physically healthier and live longer than their less happy peers (Joy). Positive people being less likely to be unemployed allows these individuals to accumulate more money, which makes the general public happier nowadays, and this ultimately makes the dream of having success more easily attainable. Happy individuals being found to be healthier and to therefore live longer than less happy individuals gives these happy individuals more time to attain the “American Dream” as well. Keeping

Since I was young, I have always had an affinity of people watching, and trying to figure out what type of life they lived. Especially, what type of events would cause people to adopt a positive (happy) outlook in comparison to people that dwell on the negatives attributes? Growing up, my mother had a peculiar thought process that would always managed to lead to negative (not happy) thoughts. In the beginning, I too would follow similar thought process, but I quickly realized how exhausting it was to maintain. Before reading Shawn Achor’s book, I wanted to clear my mental database and allow for this new information to be absorbed into my life.

The most universal goal every human has in common is the pursuit of happiness or “creation or construction of happiness” (Achor, 78). To be able to fulfill this wish of becoming happy, people often think the key to achieving happiness is success. In the book, The Happiness Advantage by Shawn Achor, he debunks this theory of success leading to happiness by illustrating the reverse theory of success. Through dozens of studies and experiments as forms of evidence, the author argues that an individual needs to achieve happiness in order to be truly successful. Achor 's argument is valid in that happiness should come before success because there is a clear advantage to being successful in an individual’s work life, personal sphere, and liveliness if they are happy first and foremost.

After watching the two AAIDD videos, my perspective on self-determination has grown. I never realized before just how important self-determination was to a student who has intellectual or developmental disabilities’ ability to succeed. Teachers and parents should provide a supportive environment that will foster these self-determination skills such as goal setting. By setting their own goals, they are working on developing skills that will help them have a higher quality of life later as they transition into adulthood. Setting goals and working toward goals was just a normal part of my education, but I didn’t realize just exactly what they provide skills wise for students who have exceptionalities. It is important for these students to gain

A common element in the videos of Una Chica Afroperuana is the reference to being perceived as an “Other” by other non-afro descendant Peruvians, and the conflict between this and her self-identification that is also rooted in her national origin. In the first video of the vlog titled “Things Afro-Peruvians are tired of hearing”, she identifies the continuous questioning by referring to phrases as “where are your really from?”, “You don’t look Peruvian” and “You are too pretty to be Peruvian”. When addressing these questions, she interacts with other people inside of the video and comments on the lack of representation that the Afro-Peruvians have in the media, by pointing this as one of

Nevertheless, the enhancing of the wellbeing is a question that begged for research. So, Scheier and colleagues focused on various aspects of situations in their research and measured the level of optimism derived from these situations. It turned out that positivity enhances wellbeing due to high embracement of optimism. The article supports the articulation that there is power to positive thinking although it is not that simple and direct. All, believing in the good that future holds is crucial in relating to the many aspects of life.

Known for his research on affective forecasting, the prediction of how the future can affect ones emotional state, Daniel Gilbert, wrote a book explaining how people tend to have delusions of their future which often misleads peoples’ happiness. This Harvard college professor of psychology published one of the best time selling books, Stumbling on Happiness, arguing that imagination is what triggers peoples joy. As a social psychologist Gilbert wanted to understand what is it that truly causes that feeling to come. People continue believing in beliefs that aren’t necessary true simply because people and society can’t handle the truth. For instance, if you give up after a failure, you will never reach your goals.

Hi Florence Somers, nice to meet you my fellow classmate. The labor conditions in the Auret van Heerden’s video were some of the worst I have witnessed. Workers’ rights and trade are among some of the most controversial matters. Strict labor standards are the proponents of worker rights arguments. The key consideration is the impact that labor standard policies will create to improve human rights among trading partners. Another question that must be asked is will these policies keep the politically powerless workers mired in poverty? Labor standards should be enforced by democracies to establish a high moral ground.

Shawn Achor states that the most important key is to reverse thinking if you want to succeed in life. He says, “ Change our formula for happiness and success.” For example, our formula is like this: if you have a great job, you will be happy. If you get promoted, you will be happier. However, according to him, our brain requires the opposite order; you feel happy, and then it comes to success. He explains how the brain uses different mechanisms keeping up motivation positively, in order to perform much better. He mentions many advantages for work if you are optimistic.

Introduction: Author Achor gives a new perspective about the relation between success and happiness. People normally believe that happiness comes after success: first we work really hard to achieve success and then we will be happy. In contrast, Shawn Achor’s statement is exactly opposite that happiness will lead people to succeed, if people are happy they tend to be more successful.

The goal isn’t to live forever, the goal is to create something that will.” (Chuck Palahniuk). The first concept I learned is positive psychology, and unexpectedly I have applied this concept throughout my life for the last sixteen years without realizing it until this course. People who employ positive psychology are those who make people happy throughout the course of their life and are optimistic during difficult times to cope with the challenges (Franzoi, 2014, pg. 8). People who incorporate positive psychology into their life have less stress and are tend to be happier and healthier. Positive psychology brings similar effects to positive emotions like happiness and pleasure as clinical psychology that treats depression and anger (Max, 2007).

Optimism’s relationship with well-being and satisfaction with life has been well studied, even before positive psychology was seen as a major topic in psychology. Optimism is positively correlated with life satisfaction (Szczesniak & Soares, 2011). A students degree of optimism is a predictor of satisfaction with life and distress in college (Brissette, Scheier, & Carver, 2002; Yalcin, 2011). Newlyweds who were higher in optimism solved problems more constructively, had lower decline in marital well-being in the first year of marriage, and were better able to handle relationship trouble (Andersson, 2012a; Neff & Geers, 2013). A husbands optimism is associated with marital satisfaction early on while a wife’s optimism is associated with greater

Research has greatly increased in scope and construct, creating a wide array of experimentation. According to Positive Psychology UK (2013), the goal of positive psychology “is to bring solid empirical research in areas such as well-being, flow, personal strengths, wisdom, creativity, psychological health, and characteristics of positive groups and institutions.”

The nature of a human person is to learn new things and improve his capacity as days move on. Experience is described as the best teacher by many psychologists and people are encouraged to include their experience even in job application. This shows how important experience is. Positive psychology assists so much in asking questions which in themselves when answered can have a very positive impact on an individual (Kolb,2014). It is mostly concerned with things that are tasked to make the person happy. A famous saying says that the secret of happiness is to count your blessings while others add their troubles. The question asked at this stage is to ensure that they inspire and cultivate positive emotions and nurture relationship with the major aim of making the person happy.