Emotional Regulation

Our emotions in many cases affect our perception of events as well as the actions that we take ourselves by permeating our way of thinking, and therefore affecting each thing that we do in that moment. In particular, emotions about the perception of ourselves have been shown to have both the ability to positively and negatively affect our actions and performances in life. This is what can be

In the story To Kill a Mockingbird, there are many characters. The antagonist, Mayella Ewell, had many conflicts with the amount of power she had. Her power is greatly debated on. Power is defined as having control of your life, and being able to control others around you. While Mayella is white, she does not have much power at all. Mayella is a poor, young lady who lives on the wrong side of town, which hurts how much of a say she has in her life decisions because of where she lives. The story takes place in Maycomb, Alabama in the 1930’s. Women did not have rights, and the rich were the ruling class. Mayella is involved in a trial where Tom Robinson is wrongfully accused of raping her. During this time period, the Great Depression was going on, so there were more poor than rich. The three leading factors of power are class, gender, and race.

Over 70 volunteers responded to an ad in the paper for the experiment and went through psychological tests

Some people argue that happiness helps make good decisions because happy people strive for the best result. David states, “[Positive emotions] help build vital social, physical, and cognitive resources that lead to positive outcomes and affiliations” (124). David points out that with the right amount of positivity, people make good judgments. The author acknowledges that happiness can have benefits, but she states that too much happiness could hurt human development because the mind does not consider the consequences of an action. Julie Norem, a psychology professor, points out, “’If you’re a pessimist who really thinks through in detail what might go wrong, that’s a strategy that’s likely to work very well for you’” (qtd. in Wallis). She explains

The first topic of this essay is about how every individual feels the need to control people, situations, or even their own emotions. This undenying need to succeed if not dealt with in a healthy manner can

19. The text points out a common misconception about the term “controlled experiment”. In the

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

Achor utilizes a meta-analysis, or the combination of different findings, of over 200 scientific studies to prove his overall theory that happiness leads to success in almost every aspect of life from family to friends to careers and businesses. He does not rely solely on the data or information from a few relevant case studies, but instead relies upon experimental research to support his claim. He utilizes his findings to create “The Seven Principles”, which are “patterns that predict success and achievement” (Achor, 17), which is headed by “The Happiness Advantage.” He utilizes the concept of positive psychology and neurological activity to showcase the point that we can “retrain our brains to

“That thoughts can lead to emotions and behaviour; and that emotional disorders arise from negatively biased thinking (which lead to unhelpful emotions and behaviours); and that emotional disorders can be helped by changing such thinking” (Curwen.B, 2000).

People can train their brain to scan for the positive and become experts at capitalizing on Happiness Advantage (Achor 91)

The design of the research is a quasi-experiment. Because there is no ability to have everything random. To conduct the experiment there are

Within The Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan Haidt, he mentions that there are two ancient truths concerning how the mind works. The first truth is the foundational idea of the book: the mind is divided into parts that sometimes conflict with each other. The second truth is Shakespeare’s idea about how “thinking makes it so.” (or, as Buddha said, “Our life is the creation of our mind.”) Like a rider, on the back of an elephant, the conscious, reasoning part of the mind has only limited control of what the elephant does. Nowadays, we know the cause of these divisions, and a few ways to help the rider and the elephant work as a better team. We can improve this ancient idea today by explaining why most people’s minds have a bias toward seeing threats and engaging in useless worry. To change this bias, we can use three techniques to increase happiness, one ancient, and two very new.

There has been many variations of this experiment also. For example, the teacher was free to choose the shock level and thirty-eight of the forty subjects did not go above 150 volts. Another example would be when the experimenter gave the instructions by telephone. Only one third of the subjects were obedient in this version of the experiment. The subjects found it easier to disobey when they were not face to face with the experimenter.

“Thoughts become perception, perception becomes reality. Alter your thoughts, alter your reality” (James “William James Quote”). This sentiment from William James who was a leading philosopher and psychologist at the turn of the 19th Century inspires one to challenge their labeling of a current circumstance, suggesting happiness is a perception that can be manipulated. This mind over matter approach to life’s struggles has become commonplace in the repertoire of motivational speakers, close friends, coaches, and other well-meaning influencers alike. This ambiguous concept has the ability to produce very real consequences, even death. In

In the next paragraphs I will consider some theories, factors and evidence on cognitive controlling of emotion in terms of