Journal of Positive Psychology
Analysis of the article, How to increase and sustain positive emotion: The effects of expressing gratitude and visualizing best possible selves by Kennon M. Sheldon and Sonja Lyubomirsky.
This type of article is an analysis of a professional issue in the psychology field. The article analyses the benefits of positive emotions to individual’s intellectual, social and physical health. The issue of the relationship between emotional health and the wellbeing of an individual is a psychological subject. The type of research in this research article is Correlational research. This is because it measures the relationship between two variables. In this article, the research seeks to establish the relationship between positive emotions and stable health. Positive emotions in this case are demonstrated by expressing gratitude and visualizing best possible selves.
The main purpose of this article is to show that there is a positive correlation between the practice of expressing gratitude and visualization of best possible selves and positive emotions. The maj...
Personality predispositions can determine levels of extraversion, which determine the levels to which one seeks social support, thus determining positive affect. Similarly, personality predispositions can determine levels of neuroticism that may influence one’s style of coping in the face of both positive and negative external factors which can determine negative affect (Diener, 1996). Happiness, a core aspect of positive subjective wellbeing, involves maintaining a superior level of positive affect in comparison to negative effect, based on specific positive or negative emotions linked to the recent experiences in one’s life (Emmons & Diener, 1985). Positive emotions such as joy and pride must trump negative emotions such as frustration and sadness in the recent past or present in order for an individual to feel happy. Life satisfaction builds on this and is a cognitive valuation of the quality of an individual’s experiences as a sum throughout their entire life (Emmons & Diener, 1985). Individual personality traits have been found to influence the different patterns and levels of life satisfaction, positive and negative affects and simply general, overall happiness (McCrae, 1983).
One of the articles discussed using gratitude and life satisfaction on children to help alleviate mild or moderate depression. I plan to incorporate this article’s techniques and ideas in my professional practices. Most of the adults that I work with have mild or moderate depression and lack satisfaction in their lives. This article’s ideas may be helpful in my practice because it can help the client gain positive feelings and behaviors. Incorporating hope, gratitude, and optimism helps the client to be able to identify their own resilience in
MLA: Wallis, Claudia, et al. “The New Science of Happiness.” Time. 17 Jan. 2005. Academic Search Premier. Yale University Library. 11 Jan. 2006.
Its practice has been seen to be efficacious in healing and improving the quality of life of many people. Whether in terms of enhancing mental health or preventing illness, gratitude is one of life’s vitalizing ingredients. Clinical trials indicate that the practice of gratitude can have dramatic and lasting positive effects on a person’s life. It can lower blood pressure, improve immune function, promote happiness and well being, and spur acts of helpfulness, generosity and cooperation (Emmons & Stern, 2013). Emmons and Stern (2013) from their experiments, assert that gratitude has one of the strongest links to mental health and life satisfaction in any personality trait, more so than even optimism hope or compassion. They maintain that people who experience gratitude can cope more effectively with everyday stress, show increased resilience in the face of trauma-induced stress, recover more quickly from illness, and enjoy more robust physical health.
The studies given as examples and discussion focuses on teenagers and young adults, but includes anyone is struggling to find happiness. Evidence to Support Thesis: Point 1: The level of well-being is emphasized as more people continue to lose track of what makes them happy. Shawn Anchor is reminding people to capture the essence of simple contentment and asking his audience to think about what they value. Anchor’s book provides seven principles that involve having an open mind to becoming happier. Anchor includes other research studies as evidence to his claims throughout the book.
Positive Psychology is the strengths and virtues a person or a community poses that lead to its optimal performance and allow it to thrive.This is a beneficial study that has the chance to improve the lives of many as well as preventing some negative situations. This review looks into what Positive Psychology is and how it impacts our lives. The sources I selected look into a broad overview of Positive Psychology, and it looks into deeper more specific aspects of Positive Psychology. This review has to lead me to believe that if we see ourselves and the future in a positive way it will have a positive effect on our lives.
Through a series of assessment tools, she reveals the types of activities that we can commit to doing on a daily basis which will improve our level of happiness. She reinforces the numerous benefits of being happier. Happier people are more sociable and energetic, more charitable and cooperative, and better liked by others. Being happy boosts their immune systems, improves productivity, and can lead to a longer life. It allows them to be more creative and...
The field of positive psychology, founded by Martin Seligman (1998), seeks to influence individuals whose lives are “neutral” and increase their psychological well-being. Positive psychology offers a unique perspective on mental health through focusing on individual strengths rather than dysfunction, pathology, and mental illness (Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000). The goal of positive psychology is to assist individuals in creating meaningful lives through the promotion of positive emotions, individual character strengths, as well as, eudemonic happiness, as key components to optimal mental health. Like many other contemporary theories, positive psychology borrows principles and tenets of philosophies, which preceded its formal conception. The purpose of this paper is to compare and contrast virtue, character strengths, relationships, and happiness as presented by positive psychology with Aristotle’s virtue ethics theory.
Humans gravitate towards safe, loving, and happy experiences. But sometimes it’s difficult to be positive, especially when experiences feel overwhelming. In recent years, there has been a lot of research conducted on regulating emotions. With these strategies, we can learn how to control our feelings. There are two types of strategies: savoring and dampening. Savoring is the idea of noticing and relishing experiences, hardwiring your brain to focus on positivity. Dampening, on the other hang, is the act of suppressing or down-regulating positive emotions, out of fear, shyness, or modesty. There are many ways to promote positive emotions, but the focus of this paper will be on the differing implementation strategies. While there’s consensus amongst scholarship that savoring and dampening are effective ways in influencing life satisfaction, the scholars differ in their approaches leading to their conclusions.
Broaden-and-build theory is an alternative model, which was developed by Fredrickson, to catch positive emotion effects. The reason why it is called broaden-and-build is that positive emotions appear to broaden people’s momentary thought-action repertories and build their enduring personal resources. To support the idea, the general question of whether specific positive emotions differentially motivate particular behaviors was tested by CAVANAUGH, L. A., BETTMAN, J. R., and LUCE, M. F.. By testing the novel hypothesis that specific positive emotions may have different effects on prosocial behavior directed toward close versus distant others. The result finally shows that positive emotion will affect people’s behavior and
These are emotions that help us to be social. They include compassion, joy, love, loneliness, and euphoria. Scientists have been acting narrowly thus focusing on negative pro-social emotions. Of late, this perspective has been broadened to have the scientists think upright and be constructive. There are emotions such as altruism, gratitude, and forgiveness increases the mental health and well being of people and those who surround them. One can understand the aspects that lead to pro-social emotions. Such emotions start from the group and later affect an individual. The pro-social emotions can help improve the well being of an individual plus their mental health. Mental health involves psychological well being. This means, there is no spiritual illness (Colins, Oliver, & Henrik, 198). Broadly, psychological health is the mental state of a person functioning at an emotional level that is satisfactory. An individual would enjoy life under holism, or the constructive mental health. Prosocial emotions, therefore, contribute to the good health of people's
My journey of the process started with the PPI “Expressing Gratitude”. The task instructed to write down five things one is thankful for, each day, for a week. Wooh, Froh & Gerahty (2010) defined gratitude as a habit of noticing and being aw...
The Psychology of Happiness provides a comprehensive and up-to-date account of analysis into the character of happiness and where it stems. Using analysis from the disciplines of social science, physiology and economic science still as psychological science. Argyle explores the character of positive and negative emotions, and therefore the psych. He describes the effects of positive moods and happiness. Since science is the study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment many people feel that using science in research is very effective in preparing an argument. I feel that this text will be helpful
Only in recent years have psychologists begun to appreciate the benefits of happiness and positive emotion — benefits that include everything from enhanced creativity to improved immune-system function. Dr. Barbara Fredrickson at the University of North Carolina, a leader in the field of positive psychology, posed the question, “What good are positive emotions?” and came up with the following possibilities.
I believe that positive thinking has the power to attract positivity into one’s life for many reasons. It is a ve...