Positive Psychology: The Good Life

The question of whether individuals can create their own happiness without the aid of external influences has been raised and researched. However, the answer to the question is unclear. Positive psychology is a branch of psychology that supports the theory that an individual’s happiness is under their personal control, independent of any external influences or validation. Consequently, researchers have uncovered evidence that provides mixed results regarding the effectiveness of positive psychology in increasing individual happiness.

According to the Center, “Positive psychology is the systematic study of human strength, resilience and qualities that empower individuals and group of people to succeed” (Positive Psychology Center, 2014). Positive psychology’s founders learned through study that people usually place more emphasis on what goes wrong in their lives; they focus on their failures. For instance, divorce, financial obligations, or losing a job. It is imperative to comprehend the characteristics of undesirable experiences in an individual’s life. As an alternative to focusing on failure, focus can be placed on the positive situations in life and understand those are the occasions worth living for. Positive psychology emphasizes strengths and weaknesses, magnifying the positive aspects of life, and healing the effects of negative experiences. Positive psychology focuses on a person’s strengths and the hope of something larger then oneself to lead individuals to a more meaningful

In this video, Achor (2011)discusses how instead of simply trying to help or cure individuals with some problem in their life, positive psychology tries to take average people and find ways to reach their full potential. Many people believe that if they change the circumstances in their environment, they can generate greater amounts of happiness and well-being in their lives. Achor (2011) maintains that only about ten percent of long term happiness can be predicted by the external world, a whopping ninety percent is dependent upon what happens within our minds; and by changing the way people process the world around them, it can ultimately change how they perceive reality. Approximately twenty-five percent of job success can be predicted by

Albert Bandura states “self-efficacy is the belief that one’s ability to influence events that affect one’s life and have control over the way these events are experienced. The theory of self-efficacy is a significant concept in the field of positive psychology since it has a direct relationship with the explanation on how a people’s cognition can affect how they think, behave, and motivate themselves. Albert Bandura presents his views on positive psychology in his chapter “An Agentic Perspective on Positive Psychology”. Albert Bandura states that the concept of self-efficacy is not an ability that certain individuals possess, instead he claims that all persons are capable of utilizing self-efficacy to control their circumstances. In Bandura’s

Many of us may have specific personality traits (dispositions to behave in a certain way, as expressed in the behavior of a person in a variety of circumstances, Cervone & Pervin, 2013) that might be negative, particularly when coping with stress and or facing challenges. Some of these traits have been due in part to inherited factors, copied from our parents or caregivers during childhood, or due to environmental influence. Regardless of the case, there is good news for all of us; we can change our brains. However, it takes persistent practice and time. We can develop new habits by training our brain.

The term happiness continues to perplex psychologists. With the recent study of positive psychology or the study of happiness, psychologists have unintentionally attached a negative connotation to all other emotions. However, all emotions, even the ones coined as negative, are valuable to humans. An analysis of human emotions proves that feelings of sadness, anger, fear, and happiness are equally beneficial to human development because they allow for a safer and more open mind-set.

Attitudes will influence the way we maintain our psychological well-being. This may lead us to use complementary and alternative medicine (CAM), a diverse set of health practises that fall beyond the scope of traditional medicine (TM; Barnett, Shale, Elkins & Fisher, 2014). Specifically, an attitude of distrust towards TM in maintaining psychological well-being may lead us to try this. In Victoria, it has been found that 52% of people currently use it, whilst life-time use rates are 85% (Robinson, Chesters & Cooper, 2007). Simultaneously, mental health remains comparatively foreign within TM practices (Bazzan, Zabrecky, Montie & Newberg, 2014). Thus research into what people high or low in psychological well-being is important.

To this day there have many controversies regarding the definition of positive psychology. However, it is now simply and most commonly defined as the study of different measures that enhance the optimal functioning of individuals and society (Gable & Haidt, 2005). Positive psychology aims to achieve a balance between the contrary psychology research fields and shifting focus to the positive aspects of human functioning rather than focusing on the negatives. Determining factors that enhance the frequencies individuals experience positive feelings such as appreciation and joy and encounter positive events are one of the many ways to achieve this. As a result, positive psychology provides us with the opportunity to benefit and prosper as a society

The concept of positive psychology is fairly new having only being defined in 2000 as:

Positive psychology, which has emerged recently, is the scientific study of human thriving. Psychology traditionally focuses on dysfunction—on people with mental illness or other psychological problems and how to treat them. Positive psychology, by contrast, is a relatively new field that examines how ordinary people can become happier and more fulfilled. In his 1998 APA presidential address, Seligman, the founder of positive psychology, argued that psychology had become too focused on curing mental illness according to a disease model, and that, for all intents and purposes, it had become a “victimology” (Seligman, 1998). What was needed, he averred, was a new “science of human strengths,” a positive psychology (Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000).

What is positive psychology? Martin Seligman and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi describe positive psychology in the following way: "We believe that a psychology of positive human functioning will arise that achieves a scientific understanding and effective interventions to build thriving in individuals, families, and communities" (Seligman M. E., 2000).

Good evening students, in this lecture I will explain how happiness is measured and defined by positive psychologists and how happiness relates to well-being and positive emotions. Happiness is something that every human being desire throughout the lifespan and most researchers believe that it can be measured by relying on various surveys and questionnaires to ask people questions about what makes them happy. The subject of happiness and more importantly positive psychology has become a major focus in the field of scientific psychology.

Jo Manion said,” the aim of positive psychology is to begin to catalyse a change in the focus of psychology from preoccupation only with repairing the worst things in life to

Regardless whether he really managed to get through the divorce well or not, this is a possible indication of constructive thoughts and positive feelings. Unfortunately, there is no clear indication that George is experiencing other positive subjective states however, from a positive psychology point of view this can be used as a basis to start from to further help him to deal with his situation.

It is common sense that all the human beings would like to live a happy life and they will spare no efforts in order to realize the purpose of really living a happy life in the end. However, different people have different definitions toward what a happy life is and they tend to have different standards as for how a life is that can be regarded as a happy life. There is no doubt that people will then try different means in order to pursue a happy life based on their definition toward what a happy life is. Therefore, the following will talk about the pursuit of a happy life from the perspectives of both Dalai Lama in The Art of Happiness and Viktor E. Frankl in Man’s Searching for Meaning, during which the experiences of some characters from the film Forrest Gump will be applied as evidence. Generally speaking, the pursuit of a happy life in the minds of Dalai Lama and Viktor E. Frankl can be achieved via experiencing sufferings and adversity. It is hoped that this analysis can help people understand what a happy is from a different point of view.