1、Psychology 1504 Positive Psychology,House keeping,Feedback or questions In case of an emergency well take a PP-break Powerpoints and videotape on website Active note-taking Overlap with 1508?,The Road to Positive Psychology,Humanistic Psychology (50s) The Third Force Reaction to behaviorism Reaction

2、 to psychoanalysis Lacked rigorous methodology,Abraham Maslow (1908-1970),Karen Horney (1885-1952),Meet the Grandparents,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,“In pursuit

3、of knowledge, every day something is acquired; in pursuit of wisdom, every day something is dropped.” Lao Tzu,“The soul grows by subtraction, not addition.” Thoreau,Information is not enough,“What is wrong is not the great discoveries of scienceinformation is always better than ignorance, no matter

4、what information or what ignorance. What is wrong is the belief behind the information, the belief that information will change the world. It wont.”Archibald MaCleish,Information is not enough,“Humanistic philosophy offers a new conception of learning, of teaching, and of education. Stated simply, s

5、uch a concept holds that the function of education, the goal of educationthe human goal, the humanistic goal, the goal so far as human beings are concernedis ultimately the self-actualization of a person, the becoming fully human, the development of the fullest height that the human species can stan

6、d 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,“Children enter sch

7、ool as question marks and leave as periods.”Neil Postman,Education is the quest for information and transformation, and therefore must begin with a question.,“The one real object of education is to leave a man in the condition of continually asking questions.”Bishop Creighton,The Question of Questio

8、ns,How can we help ourselves and othersindividuals, communities, and societybecome 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 ab

9、out 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.”O(jiān)liver Wendell Holmes,A different kind of effort Change is hard Rigorous fun?,Final Project,20-30 minute Presentation Any topic within

10、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?,Anger: 5,584 Anxiety: 41,416 Depression: 54,040,Psy

11、chological Abstracts (1967-2000),Joy: 415 Happiness: 1,710 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 mans shortcomings, his illnesses, his sins, but

12、 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 Ps

13、ychology 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

14、 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

15、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,“Negative” Research,Negative Experiences,Unhapp

16、iness Spiral,“Positive” Research,Positive Experiences,Happiness Spiral,Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle,“Human systems grow in the direction of what they persistently ask questions about.” Cooperrider and Whitney,Happiness isnt the Negation of Unhappiness,Disease Model Health Model,Focus on weakness

17、es 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,_ 0 _ +,neurosis, anger, anxiety,wellbeing, satisfaction, joy depressi

18、on, psychosisexcitement, happiness,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 on

19、e 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

20、, 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

21、. 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 th

22、rough 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. H

23、uman 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 (P

24、ost-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 it a

25、lso 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.” Mar