6. Keep Your Head Up:
An Introduction to Positive Psychology
7. Psychology in the 20th Century
• Primarily focused
on treating mental
illnesses and
disorders
• “Helped to make
miserable people
less miserable.”
(Seligman, 2004)
8. Origins of “Positive Psychology”
• 1998 –
Dr. Martin Seligman
became president of
the American
Psychological
Association and called
for increased research
into “positive
psychology.”
9. When Bad Things Happen...
Pessimists tend toward Optimists tend toward
permanence: “That's just temperance: “That was
how life is.” just a bad day.”
10. The “Study” of Happiness is Not New
The Booming $elf-help Industry
11. Science vs. Pseudoscience
Positive Self-help industry
Psychology • makes unrealistic and
• supported with unsupported claims
empirical evidence • extremely profitable for
• supported with authors
physiological and
neurological evidence
12. The secret of happiness?
Trailer for the film, The Secret
14. Is there a mind-body connection?
• There are neurological and • Acute stress is a useful
physiological indicators for evolutionary mechanism
happiness and positive throughout the animal
emotion. kingdom.
• Happiness and positive • Chronic stress is
emotion DO correlate with associated with many
better health. different health problems.
• However, illness will not • Anxiety seems uniquely
always be cured just by human; our frontal lobe
thinking positively. allows us to simulate, and
worry about, the future.
15. Three Surprising Facts of Happiness
1)The impact bias - we are very bad at predicting what
will make us happy.
2)Happiness is relative - our happiness is often
dependent on how we compare ourselves with others.
3)Peaks and endings - Happiness is greatly affected
by our memory of peaks and endings.
- (Bloom, 2009)
16. What will make you happy?
More money
More “stuff”
Romantic love
Achievements
Having kids
Safety and security
The impact bias
17. The Impact Bias
http://jonkalnas.blogspot.com/201
0_04_01_archive.html
People overestimate the
effect that future events
will have on their
happiness and sense of
well-being.
18. Would you rather...?
…get an 80% on a test …get an 85% on a test in
in a class where the a class where the
average is 75%? average is 90%?
Happiness is relative
20. The Happiest Countries in the World, According
to Gallup World Poll (2005-2009):
1. Denmark 8. Australia
2. Finland 12. Brazil
3. Norway 12. Panama
4. Sweden 14. Austria
4. Netherlands 14. United States
6. New Zealand 16. Belgium
6. Costa Rica 17. United Kingdom
8. Canada 18. Mexico
8. Israel 18. Turkmenistan
8. Switzerland 20. United Arab Emirates
21. Why are the Danes so happy?
Social safety net Lower
•free and universal expectations
health care •report lower amounts
•free higher education of ambition
•6 months paid •more modest desires
maternity leave and 6 and goals in life
months paid paternity
leave
Happiness is
relative
23. Three Types of Happy Lives
1. A life of pleasure and positive emotion
2. A life of passion and “flow”
3. A life of meaning and higher purpose
- (Seligman, 2004)
24. PEAKS AND ENDINGS
Would you rather....
…take a long, difficult, …take a long, difficult,
high-stakes test that high-stakes test that you
you didn't study at all didn't study at all for,
for? and then a short quiz
that you didn't study very
much for?
25. Synthetic Happiness – of the Mind
Which group of people do you think regrets their
experience the most?
•People who have become paralyzed because of an
accident?
•Innocent people who have spent time in jail after
being falsely accused of a crime?
•Prisoners of war (POW’s)
27. WORKS CITED
Bloom, Paul. The Good Life: Happiness. Yale University
OpenCourse. 2009. Retrieved from:
http://www.academicearth.org/lectures/the-good-life-happiness
Gilbert, Daniel. This Emotional Life: Rethinking Happiness.
Nova/WGBH Science Unit and Vulcan Productions. 2009.
Gilbert,Daniel. Why Are We Happy? [Video file]. Retrieved from:
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/dan_gilbert_asks_why_
are_we_happy.html
28. WORKS CITED
"The Pursuit of Happiness." 60 Minutes. CBS. KCBS, Los Angeles. 15 June 2008.
Television.
Sapolsky, Robert. Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers. New York, NY: W.H.
Freeman Co, 1994.
Seligman, Martin; Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly. Positive Psychology: An Introduction.
American Psychologist, Vol 55(1), Jan 2000, 5-14.
