Month: December 2013

Lecture 3: Flow, Positivity, Flourishing

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WHAT IS FLOW?
Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi, Flow: The classic work on how to achieve happiness (London: Random House, 2002). 

The mental state experienced during ‘an autotelic activity’ during which a person in an activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus marked by loss of sense of time and space.
Generally, flow occurs when there is a balance between skills and challenges in the individual’s functioning.
In relation to wellbeing, some studies have shown that the state of flow alone cannot sufficiently explain all the constructs associated with happiness and wellbeing.
Csikszentmihalyi himself accepts that people in flow may not acknowledge subjective wellbeing.

NINE CHARACTERISTICS OF FLOW (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990, 1996)

Clear goals
Balance of challenge and skill
Immediate feedback
No fear of failure
Distractions excluded from consciousness
Merging of action and awareness (concentration)
Not self-conscious of the activity
Transcendence of time & space
Autotelic – intrinsic motivation (see Deci & Ryan)

ARE WE HARDWIRED FOR NEGATIVITY?

Evidence from neuroscience suggests that human memory is better facilitated, marked by increased […]

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Lecture 4: Wellbeing: Subjective, Psychological & Social

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In the recent years, positive psychology has begun to explore wellbeing and happiness in the parlance of Greek philosophical terminology of hedonia and eudaimonia (Deci & Ryan, 2008).  While hedonia refers to those aspects of wellbeing that arises from pleasure oriented activities, eudaimonia refers to fulfilment of our potential as human beings.  Furthermore, positive psychology literature makes some distinction between psychological wellbeing, social wellbeing, and emotional wellbeing (Keyes & Lopez, 2002).
Subjective Wellbeing:   Diener (1984) has been consistent in the use of the term Subjective Well-Being, to include individual happiness, presence of positive affect, and absence of negative affect.  Subjective well-being is an individual experience, which excludes objective conditions like health, comfort, virtue and wealth.  In some literature the terms subjective wellbeing and emotional wellbeing are used synonymously (Snyder & Lopez, 2007).
Satisfaction with Life Scale examines Subjective Wellbeing.
Psychological Wellbeing: Ryff and colleagues have been critical of identifying psychological health with subjective […]

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Lecture 5 – Correlates of Happiness

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READING 1: Psychology of Happiness by David Myer
DOWNLOAD MY CLASSNOTES IN PDF: PP 5 Correlates of Happiness
Veenhoven, R.. (2009). World Database of Happiness: Tool for dealing with the ‘data-deluge’. Psychological Topics 18(2), 221-246.
Veenhoven, R. (2012). Cross-national differences in happiness: Cultural measurement bias or effect of culture? International Journal of Wellbeing, 2(4), 333-353.
 

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Lecture 6: Psycho-Social Substrates of Wellbeing

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Positive psychology makes a distinction between subjective wellbeing, social wellbeing and psychological wellbeing.  The literature of positive psychology makes use of different terminologies to name positive affective states and some of them are not yet clarified.  For instance, there is a confusion of terms – what Seligman (2002, p.115) prefers to call ‘gratification’, Csikszentmihalyi (2002) calls ‘enjoyment’.  These confusions suggest that psychological understanding of affective states is still a work in progress (Kristjánsson, 2010).  On the other hand, the complexity of terminology goes to show that pleasure, happiness and wellbeing lies in a spectrum of psycho-social states with a varying degree of valence.
Pleasure
Positive psychology suggests that pleasure (largely understood as hedonia) is not negative in itself.  It has a limitation insofar as exaggerations are concerned.  The exaggeration in intensity could lead to euphoria, and the exaggeration in frequency and duration could lead to habituation.  Subsequently, the state of euphoria could […]

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Lecture 7: Values in Action – Catalogue of Character Strengths

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Values in Action – Catalogue of Character Strengths
Click here for a PDF version: Character strengths summary

DOWNLOAD MY CLASSNOTES IN PDF: PP 7 Values in Action Intro
Peterson & Seligman, 2004
 A Summary by Sahaya G. Selvam
CLICK HERE TO TAKE AN ONLINE SURVEY OF VALUES IN ACTION
 

CS1. Creativity
Creavity can be observed in behaviours that exhibit, and ideas that express, great degree of originality and adaptive character (Peterson & Seligman, 2004, p.110).  It may be seen as a mental process, expressed by certain individuals, and can be analysed in terms of tangible products (Simonton, 2005, p.191).
CS2. Curiosity
Curiosity represents “one’s intrinsic desire for experience and knowledge” (Peterson & Seligman, 2004, p.125).  Curiosity is particularly noticed when someone seeks knowledge that goes beyond the principle of “utility of the information to the agent.” It is as if information is sought for its own sake (Loewenstein, 1994, p.75).
CS3. Open-mindedness
This character strength consists in the ability to seek actively […]

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