Positive Psychology:

1
Dr Mark Williams Professor of Applied Positive
Psychology Shenzhen University     Mobile
(0011 86 755) 13480129331email
markw.szu_at_gmail.comweb www.aappi.net

• Positive Psychology
• Science of Happiness and Strengths
• ??????????????

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What is Positive Psychology?

• Positive psychology is the scientific study of
  human strengths and happiness (subjective
  well-being)
• Positive psychology tells us what to do in our
  life so we can be more happy, stronger, and more
  successful (positive psychology interventions).
• Human happiness and personality strengths are
  scientifically investigated with experiments,
  case studies and surveys.

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Why is Positive Psychology Different? (Shahar,
2007)

• Traditional psychology concentrates on studying
  human dysfunction and illness such as depression,
  anxiety, and fear.
• Positive psychology studies resilient,
  successful, talented, strong and happy
  individuals, families, teams, communities and
  business and government organizations.

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Enhancing mindfulness by STOP

• S Stop what you are doing
• Smile
• T Take a breath
• Take some time (count to 5)
• O Observe your body relax it
• Observe (body, mind, sensations)
• P Pause to notice a wonderful thing
• Proceed with what your were doing
• Source Fisher, T. (2005) Beginners mind
  cultivating mediator mindfulness ACResolution

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Consider this scientific survey

• At Florida State University, Tim Judge and his
  team began a study in 1979 with 12,686
  participants who were 14-22 years old which gave
  information on levels of their positive strength
  and well-being.
• His team then surveyed the participants in 2005
  to obtain data to calculate well-being and annual
  income at age 50.

Judge, T. A., Hurst, C. (2007).
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Well-Being, Positive Strength and Success

• The results (Judge Hurst, 2007) suggest that
  whatever your success at school or university,
  you are much more successful in life if you have
  high levels of resilience and positivity.
• Moreover, good exam scores, many years of
  schooling, and good SAT scores do not lead to
  success unless you have a have high level of
  resilience and positivity.

Judge, T. A., Hurst, C. (2007).
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Positive people tend to get a high income

• Positivity strength means having high self
  esteem, self-efficacy, locus of control and
  emotional control (i.e. factors leading towards
  high levels of resilience). ????????????,????,????
  ???(???????,???????)?

Judge, T. A., Hurst, C. (2007).
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Positivity and Income

• Highly positive people made a lot more money than
  low positive people (on average).
• Participants with a high school score of 2.0, low
  positive people made 50,100 (average) at age 50,
  but high positive people made 64,620 (average).
  
• With a high school score of 4.0, low positive
  people made 49,389 (average), while high
  positive people made 100,764 (average).

Judge, T. A., Hurst, C. (2007).
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More positive more money?

• This experiment suggests that if you are highly
  positive (high self-esteem ?????, high emotional
  stability ??????, high locus of control ????,
  high self-efficacy ?????) you will tend to get a
  lot more money no matter how well you do at
  school.
• How do you become highly positive?
• Thats what we are doing together in this course.

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High positivity is important in all areas of life
??????????????????
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Happiness Measure?????
10 extremely unhappy ?????20 very unhappy
?????30 quite unhappy ????40 a little
unhappy ?????50 Neutral ??,????????60 a
little happy ???? 70 quite happy ??? 80 very
happy ???? 90 extremely happy ???? 100
perfectly blissful

• Today, Ive generally been feeling
  ???????,?????? ______
• Over the last few days, Ive generally been
  feeling ?????? ,?????? ______
• Write the average of these two scores on the
  attendance sheet when it is passed around.

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Who is he? What did he do?
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Prof. Dr. Martin Seligman, 1998 President
American Psychological Association, father and
world leader of Positive Psychology, Director of
the Positive Psychology Center, University of
Pennsylvania
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What did he do?

• Psychologists split into two camps
• Academic psychology more interested in education
  and scientific experiments.
• Clinical psychologists interested in client
  therapy for depression and mental disorder.
• Dr. Seligman hoped to bring psychological science
  and practice together.

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Young Martie Seligman

• After his Ph.D., he conducted major psychology
  experiments on animals and then humans during the
  1970s - 1980s to investigate clinical depression
  and helplessness (very low positive people).
• Today, with bestselling books, Learned Optimism
  and Authentic Happiness, Seligman is recognized
  as the world's preeminent psychological authority
  on optimism (high positive people).

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Seligmans Early Learned Helplessness Experiment,
1967

• The first (experimental) set of dogs were placed
  in a box that continued to give the dog electric
  shocks until they learned to jump over a bar to a
  safe place they could help themselves.

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Learned Helplessness ?????

• The second (experimental) set of dogs were
  placed in a box that continued to give them
  electric shocks for a random period of time
  they could not help themselves.
• The third set of dogs (control group) sat in a
  box with no electric shocks.
• In the final stage of the experiment, all three
  sets of dogs were placed in boxes which gave
  electric shocks but the dogs all could jump over
  to the other side of a partition.

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Final Stage Escape ?? or Helplessness ??

• Across a large number of repetitions, in the
  final stage when all the sets of dogs could
  jump, the first (experimental) set of dogs
  quickly jumped over the partition and escaped the
  shock.
• The second set of dogs (learned helplessness),
  did not even try to jump even though they now
  could, but just lay on the bottom of the box
  being shocked.

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Final Stage Escape ?? or Helplessness ??

• The third set of dogs (the control ???) learned
  to jump over the partition to escape but not so
  quickly as the first group of dogs.
• Only the second group, who had learned to be
  helpless, did not try to jump to freedom.

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Experiments on People

• Similar experiments with people and annoying bad
  sounds show similar results.
• Both animals humans can learn helplessness. 
• When faced with situations where they were
  powerless to change an annoying element, 2 out of
  3 would cease trying to change the situation
  after failure.
• Further, when placed in a new situation with a
  different annoying element, they would make no
  attempt to fight even from the beginning. 

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But 1 in 3 Humans refused to be hopeless
??????????

• 1 in 10 seemed to be born with hopelessness,
  making no attempt even at the beginning to change
  an annoying element such as shocks.
• But 1 in 3 had optimism, being positively strong
  to act to improve their life regardless of
  hardship or failure.
• This later result became the focus of Seligmans
  research into optimism.

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Seligmans inspiration ???????

• Seligman weeding garden, 5-year old daughter
  throwing weeds.
• Seligman irritated, yelled at Nikki, who replied
  
• Daddy. From when I was 3 until I was 5, I was
  unhappy all the time. I cried every day. On my
  5th birthday, I decided I wasnt going to cry
  anymore. That was the hardest thing Ive ever
  done. If I can stop crying, you can stop being
  such an angry father.

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A Change of Heart ???????

• Seligman resolved to change - not to be always
  angry to make his daughter be better.
• Instead, he began to encourage her positive
  strength which she showed by talking to him so
  wisely (social intelligence ????).
• Can psychology build up human well-being and
  personality positive strengths?
• That became his mission as 1998 president till
  this day.

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Positive Psychology uses empirical scientific
research ???????????
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Seligmans PERMA model

• P Positive emotions
• E Engagement in life and work
• R Relationships and love
• M Meaningful purpose and goals
• A Achievement (esp. for goals)
• Source Seligman, M. www.authentichappiness.org

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My PERMASM model Positive Psychology
Interventions to

• P enhance Positive emotions
• E enhance Engagement in life work
• R enhance Relationships loving kindness
• M enhance Meaningful purposes
• A enhance Achievement toward goals
• S enhance Strengths (individual group)
• M Change (Morph, reframe, remake) negative
  emotions (fear, sadness, loneliness, grief,
  sickness) into opportunities for resilience

(based on Seligman, M. 2011. Flourishing)
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Course Assessments

• There is no exam
• There are 5 assessments
• Assessment 1 Each week send an email to
  markw.positive_at_gmail.com describing 3 good things
  that happened during the week (and why they were
  good because of P, E, R, M, A, S or M), I good
  person, and how you morphed one negative emotion
  into an opportunity for resilience.

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Email should include P, E, R, M, A, S or M at the
end of the description
Email To markw.positive_at_gmail.com Subject
2009140084 Arthur 2011-9-22 2009140084 Arthur
2011-9-22 Dear Mark, this week I am grateful
for 1. my girlfriend and I having a wonderful
discussion about our life goals together love
(R) and meaningful purpose (M) 2. playing
basketball (A) with my friends so much pleasure
and fun (P), especially because some girls were
looking on (R) 3. Studying hard for my exam
engaged fully in work (E) 4. So grateful for
talking with my best friend Tom because he is so
kind and wise (R). Regards, Arthur
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Assessment 2 (20) Group PPT

• Group PPT on applying Positive Psychology to some
  area of life or work
• In groups of 2-4 students, create a PowerPoint
  file (each student creates 5 slides with your
  name on them) applying positive psychology to
  some area of life teaching, management,
  hospitals, uni life, romantic love, friendship,
  family, money, fame, holidays, sport, coaching,
  work, career, sales, government, housework,
  having children, getting married, recovering from
  failure or illness, small business, or the
  construction, restaurant, hotel, real estate,
  advertising, entertainment, banking, airline,
  driving, supermarket, film and television
  industries.

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Assessment 3 First Speech (20)

• In week 7, each student will give a 2 minute talk
  about your 3 main personality strengths
• You will need to do the free Chinese Enneagram
  test at www.cnenn.cn
• You can also do the free character strengths test
  at www.authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu (go to
  the middle of the home page scroll down
  click)?

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Assessment 4 Second Speech (20)

• In week 12, each student will give a 2 minute
  speech about your 5 years goals, and your life
  goals
• You will include your goals in all the major
  areas of life including Financial planning
  Family Career and work life Education and life
  long learning Public service Self development
  Health-education-diet Pleasure Friends social
  life Music-art-fashion Home life
  Culture-religion-spirituality

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Assessment 5 (20)

• Attendance, participation, contribution to
  course (jokes, translations, comments)
• You will need to write at least one gratitude
  letter to your mother or father
• There will also be a short exam in the last week
  of this course

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Also, I would like some of you to read your
gratitude letters to inspire the whole class, for
example

• I took a long time to write letter. After I give
  to mother, I think she could never be happier.
  Most amazing thing is Im happier too. I
  understand when you make someone else happy you
  become happy. (Dylan)

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Questions to discuss

• It is important to study happiness scientifically
  because
• Happiness comes from .  
• Any of us can raise our baseline levels of
  happiness by
• My personality strengths are .

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References

• Ben-Shahar, Tal. (2007). Happier Learn the
  Secrets to Daily Joy and Lasting
• Fulfilment. McGraw-Hill New York
• Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990). Flow The psychology
  of optimal experience. New
• York Harper Row.
• Fredrickson, B. L. (1998). What good are positive
  emotions? Review of General
• Psychology, 2(3), 300 - 319.
• Fredrickson, B. L., Levenson, R. W. (1998).
  Positive emotions speed recovery
• from cardiovascular sequelae of negative
  emotions. Cognitions and Emotion,
• 12, 191220.
• Fredrickson, B., Mancuso, R., Branigan, C.,
  Tugade, M. M. (2000). The
• undoing effect of positive
  emotions. Motivation and Emotion, 24(4), 237
  
• 258.
• Jackson, S., Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1999). Flow
  in sports The keys to optimal experiences and
  performances. Champaign, IL Human Kinetics.
• Happiness. (2010, June 21). In Wikipedia, The
  Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 0154, June 22,
  2010, from http//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?tit
  leHappinessoldid369291403
• Revonsuo, A. (2007). Psychology and Coaching.
  Available online
• www.his.se/upload/71497/1_PC_Intro.ppt
• Seligman, M. E. (2002). Authentic Happiness. New
  York Free Press.
• Seligman, M. Learned Optimism How to Change Your
  Mind and Your Life. New
• York Pocket Books