POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY:

1
POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY

• happiness, flourishing and flow in learning and
  in life

2
Positive Psychology

• Background to Positive Psychology
• The importance of Happiness/Well-being
• Ideas and strategies to use with students (and
  for ourselves)
• Connections to other approaches used in teaching
  and learning

3
Positive Psychology

• Martin Seligman launched Positive Psychology in
  1998 when he became President of the American
  Psychological Association
• Positive Psychology identifies and studies the
  factors that create well-being rather than at
  cures for psychological illnesses
• It proposes to make people happier and more
  fulfilled by using and developing their
  strengths
• It is based on scientific research that has been
  carried out through controlled experiments and
  longitudinal studies

4
The Importance of Happiness/Well-Being

• Why is this important to us as L/S or SEN
  teachers?
• What difficulties do our students face?
• What effects can this difficulties have?

5
Difficulties that Students Face

• Mental Health Difficulties
• 8 of students 83,083 in number (Epsen
  Implementation
• Report p. 72)
• Adolescent depressive episodes
• affect between 5-10 of young people
  (Buckley,
• Gavin and McNicholas 2009)
• Depression is now ten times as prevalent
• as it was in 1960 in developed countries
• forty years ago, the mean age of first
  episode was 29.5 years-
• now it is 14.5 years (Seligman 2003)

6
Mental/Emotional Health

• In an analysis of well-being (using measures of
  emotional
• well- being, psychological well-being and
  social well-being),
• Keyes found that children without mental
  illness are not
• necessarily mentally healthy (Keyes, 2006)
• Indicators for individual positive mental health
  currently
• include the following key elements
• life satisfaction
• optimism/hope
• self-esteem
• resilience/coping
• social integration
• spirituality
• emotional well-being
• Scottish Association for Mental Health (2006)

7
Negative Emotions

• Negative emotions such as anger, fear, disgust
  and so on help us to respond appropriately to our
  environment their adaptive value is easy to
  explain and understand (B. Fredrickson, 2003)

8
Fredrickson 2003

• Barbara Fredrickson (2003) developed the
  Broaden-and-Build Theory of positive emotions. It
  explained that positive emotions are important to
  survival. They
• broaden and build cognitive processes
• expand cognition and behavioural tendencies
• increase the number of potential behavioural
  options
• Fredrickson found that the expanded cognitive
  flexibility that is evident during positive
  emotional states results in resource building
  that becomes useful over time
• .

9
Emotional Chemistry

• The brain is a supremely flexible organ that
  changes its chemistry in adaptive
• response to what is going around it . (
  Nettle, 2005)
• Every feeling we have is a neuro-chemical
  event
• Danger, stress and anxiety trigger the release
  of
• adrenalin and cortisol
• These narrow your focus, sharpen your thinking
  and temporarily
• increase your strength to enable you to run
  away fast
• Dopamine is the motivation chemical
• Its release into the bloodstream is
  energising
• It increases our ability to focus
• Serotonin is the feel good chemical and is
  calming and rewarding (MacConville 2008)

10
Emotional Chemistry(cont.)

• Endorphins are small neuropeptides produced by
  the body
• They are natural opiates (endogenous
  morphine)
• They are released every time you laugh,
  relax and exercise
• Each release makes more connections in
  the brain, creating new
• neural pathways
• They create more bonding in the brain so
  they expand cognitive processes
• They enable broader, more flexible, more
  creative thinking
• (MacConville 2008)
• We can increase our well-being by choosing to
  do activities that produce
• endorphins
• In the same way, we can also make our thinking
  broader and more
• flexible

11
Research

• The concepts and claims of Positive
• Psychology are supported by research evidence
  which includes
• physiological evidence
• neurological evidence
• psychological evidence

12
Happiness

• Increases positive emotions.
• Reduces the impact of negative emotions
• Nettle, Happiness The
  science behind your smile (2005)

13
What Happiness is Good For

• Briefly, happiness/positivity
• Increases our engagement in our everyday
  lives
• Broadens our mindset, our actions and our
  social
• resources
• Enables creative and more flexible, global
  thinking
• Improves attention, short term memory and
  problem-
• solving
• Allows us to build up intellectual and
  psychological
• reserves
• Undoes negative feelings
• Increases resilience and tolerance
• Sonja Lyubomirsky http//thesciencenetwork.org/s
  earch?topicsHumanFlourishing

14
What is Happiness?Take a minute to think about
it.
15
Three Levels of Happiness

• Level 1 Level 2
  Level 3
• (Momentary feelings)
  (Judgements about feelings)
  (Quality of life)  
• Joy Well-being
  Flourishing
• Pleasure
  Satisfaction Fulfilling ones
  Potential
• 
  
  
   
• More immediate
• More sensual and emotional
• More reliably measurable
• More absolute
  
  
  
• More cognitive
• More relative
• More moral and political
• Involving more cultural norms and values
• (Nettle, 2005)

16
Maslows Hierarchy of Needs
Fulfilling ones potential
Well-being and satisfaction
Physical, sensual needs
17
Levels of Happiness

• A study by Lyubomirsky (2007) has shown that our
  level of happiness is made up of three main
  components
• set point this is what we are born with it
  accounts for about 50 of our level of well-being
• circumstances account for about 10 of our level
  of well-being. Even if our circumstances change
  dramatically, we quite quickly return to our set
  point
• intentional behaviours the
• good news is that we have a
• lot of influence on our own level
• of happiness. Our own actions/activities
• account for about 40 of our level
• of well-being (MacConville 2008)
  
  

intentional behaviours
set point
circumstances
18
using Positive Psychology in our TEACHING
19
Approaches that Promote Happiness and Learning

• The following strategies have been found to
  develop positive emotions that are based on the
  exercise of strengths a happiness that Seligman
  calls authentic.

20
Practising releasing endorphins
through exercise, meditation, optimistic
thinking and relaxing can have huge impact on the
quality of students lives Ruth
MacConville (2008)

• An increase in happiness is generally
• achieved by pleasant activity training Nettles,
  (2005 p.151)

21
Effects of Exercise

• Produces serotonin and endorphins
• Gives feelings of self-esteem and
• mastery
• Allows Time-Out from stress potential
• for engagement/Flow/meditation
• Provides opportunities for social contact
• and reinforcing friendships
• Evidence from research
• SMILES
• - the Standard Medical Intervention and
  Long-term Exercise Study
• (Archives of Internal Medicine 1999159,
  2349-2356)

22
Exercise

• Younger children do not always get opportunities
  for outdoor play
• Restrictions at home and in school
• As students get older, many exercise less and
  less, girls in particular
• Many students opt out because of the
  competitive nature of sport

23
Meditation/Reflection/ Mindfulness

• Half an hours meditation each day is
  essential, except when you are busy. Then a full
  hour is needed.
• Meditation actually comprises a family of
  techniques
• that go by different names (Zen,
  transcendental, Vipassana etc.) and
• different categories (concentrative,
  mindfulness, contemplative)
• The core ingredient that underlies them all
  is the cultivation of attention
• An avalanche of studies has shown that
  meditation has multiple
• positive effects on a persons happiness
  and positive emotions, on
• physiology, stress, cognitive abilities
  and physical health as well as on
• other harder-to-assess attributes, like
  self-actualisation and moral
• maturity (Sonja Lyubomirsky, 2007
  250-251)

St Francis de Sales 1567-1622
24
Relaxation
HEALTH WARNING!!! Research shows that soaps in
particular leave the viewer slightly depressed
25
Optimistic Thinking

• Research shows that optimists are more likely
  to persevere
• in the face of difficulty
• PRACTICE
• Identify barrier thoughts
• Visualize a future where everything is as you
• wanted it to be youve tried your best,
  worked
• hard and achieved your goals. Describe in
  writing
• what you imagine.
• Identify long-term goals and break them into
  sub-
• goals if barriers come into your mind,
  generate
• resolutions

26
OPTIMISM

• Optimism is not about providing a recipe for
  self-deception. The world can be a horrible and
  cruel place, and at the same time it can be
  wonderful and abundant. These are both truths.
  There is not a halfway point there is only
  choosing which truth to put in your personal
  foreground (Lee Ross, quoted by Sonja
  Lyubomirsky, 2007 110)

27
Signature Strengths

• Chris Peterson and Martin Seligman devised a
  classification system for character strengths
• This classification is based on strengths that
  are traditionally acknowledged as representing
  what is best in humanity
• Seligman referred to these as signature strengths
  and described their classification as a
  classification of the sanities
• They provide a counterbalance to classifications
  of psychological illnesses

28
Happiness Challenge

• Three Good Things
• Wishing Others Well
• Feeling and Communicating
• Gratitude
• Practising Mindfulness

29

• Three Good Things
• The student keeps a daily record of three good
  things that have happened during the course of
  the day. The events may be small, but the
  student recalls what happened and perhaps
  records her/his contribution to the event.
• This foregrounds positive feelings in the
  students
• mind

30
Writing the Self

• Writing regularly about oneself is
• extremely effective in boosting
• positive emotions
• The writing does not need to be
• about happy events
• Nettle (2005) believes that it is
• effective because writing gives us
• space to be more mindful of our
• thoughts

31
WOW!Wishing Others Well

• Give opportunity for students to
• share/listen to good news
• choose a person to be kind to this week (needs
  very careful management and mature students!)
• write a letter to a prisoner of conscience
• FEELING GRATITUDE
• Suggest that they might
• Write a letter, visit or email someone to
• whom you are grateful for some thing and tell
  him/her how you feel

32
Random Acts of Kindness

• Closely related to WOW and to Three Good
  Things is the idea of doing one unsolicited
  Good Deed for another person each day. It
  could be
• Clearing the table
• Picking up something that someone has dropped
• Holding open the door
• Washing the car
• Putting out the wheelie bin
• Doing the shopping
• or one of thousands of other small but
  significant acts that make other peoples lives
  just a little bit more pleasant

33
Mindfulness

• We engage all the time in future-mindedness,
  or what Seligman calls mindlessness
• Activity
• In order to bring our minds into the present,
  a simple breathing exercise for a few moments can
  help to focus the mind on the present. This is
  done by simply sitting quietly breathing in and
  out, watching the breathing and thinking simply
  of the breathing. If the mind strays away from
  the breathing, observe that it has happened and
  just return to concentrate on the breathing
• This has the effect of slowing down, relaxing
  and opening the mind

34
Mindfulness Practise with Younger Students

• Ruth MacConville has some lovely suggestions for
  younger students
• Mind in a Jar - Fill a clean glass jar with
  water. Point out its clearness to the children
  and compare it perhaps to your mind when it is
  quiet a peaceful. Now put in a little bit of
  sand and swirl it around. Now its like your
  mind when its busy, full of all kinds of
  thoughts. Quietly watch the sand as it sinks to
  the bottom and your mind clears
• Rain Stick this is a tube with beads or rice
  inside. The children take it in turns to turn
  the rain stick over and listen to the beads
  falling. Listen to the silence when the rain
  stops
• (MacConville, 2008)

35
Flow

• Flow is a term coined by the psychologist Dr
  Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, an associate of Martin
  Seligman
• It describes a state of optimal experience and
  involvement in an activity during which we are
  performing at our best
• During flow individuals are completely involved
  in what they are doing our skill level matches
  the challenges of the task, we feel compelled to
  persist at what we are doing until we get it
  right and we lose track of time
• Flow provides an important pathway to happiness
  as it provides the deep satisfaction of
  successful engagement
• (Ruth MacConville, 2008)

36
FLOW
Csikszentmihalyi, (2002)
37
CONDITIONS FOR FLOW
COMFORT ZONE
STRETCH ZONE Scaffolding may be put in place to
support weaker students in achieving FLOW in
their work
This area equates to Lev Vygotskys Zone of
Proximal Development/Learning (Vygotsky, 1978)
PANIC ZONE
Tal Ben-Shahar (2007)
38
Setting Goals

• Csikszentmihalyi (1990) explains that having
  meaningful
• goals and a clear sense of purpose is
  essential to attaining
• flow
• Achievement of flow may be assisted in the
  classroom by
• the provision of clear goals and success
  criteria for all tasks that are set
• allowing adequate time for the students may
  engage with each task

39
Well-Being and Flourishing

• Well-Being Theory
• PERMA
• Positive Emotion
• Engagement
• Relationships
• Meaning
• Achievement

40
Happiness, Flourishing and Flow in Learning and
in Life
41
References and Further Reading

• Books
• Csikszentmihalyi, M. Finding Flow (1997)
• Csikszentmihalyi, M. Flow 2nd Edition (2002)
• Frederickson, B. Positivity (2009)
• Lyubomirsky, S. The How of Happiness (2007)
• MacConville , R.,Teaching Happiness (2008)
• Nettle, D., Happiness The science behind your
  smile (2005)
• Seligman, M., Authentic Happiness (2003)
• Seligman, M., Flourish (2011)
• Thich Nhat Hanh, Happiness (2009)
• Websites
• http//www.evenhappier.com/docs/broaden-and-build.
  pdf
• http//www.fredrickson.socialpsychology.org
• http//www.positivityratio.com
• http//www.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/24_01_11
  _happiness_challenge_final
• http//www.actionforhappiness.org
• http//www.icepe.ie (Teaching Happiness Positive
  Psychology for behaviour and learning)
  http//www.authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu/questi
  onnaires.aspx