A Practical Guide to Positive Psychology E-Book

Bridget Grenville-Cleave

• Herausgeber: Icon Books
• Kategorie: Ratgeber
• Serie: Practical Guide Series
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 219

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012

Beschreibung

Positive psychologists seek to find and nurture genius and talent, and to make normal life more fulfilling, rather than treat mental illness.This Practical Guide explores how we can all have a "life of enjoyment", in which we savour the positive emotions that are part of healthy living; a "life of engagement" where we feel confident we can tackle the tasks we face; and a 'life of affiliation', being part of something larger than ourselves.Free of jargon but full of straightforward advice, case studies and step-by-step instructions, this is the perfect concise start to making your life better.

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Text copyright © 2012 Bridget Grenville-Cleave

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About the author

Bridget Grenville-Cleave holds an MSc with distinction in Applied Positive Psychology (MAPP) from the University of East London, UK, where she specialized in the well-being of professionals, leaders and managers. She is a founder member of the International Positive Psychology Association (IPPA) and the Centre for Applied Positive Psychology (CAPP).

With her background in business and organizational change and development, she founded Workmad Ltd, which specializes in applying positive psychology at work through training, consulting and coaching. Bridget works with a range of organizations in both public and private sectors, delivering positive leadership and coaching programmes and positive psychology masterclasses which provide a balance of empirical research and practical tools for personal and professional development. She is currently engaged in the development of a well-being curriculum for The Haberdashers’ Aske’s School as well as the University of East London MAPP ‘Foundations in Positive Psychology’ course.

She is a visiting lecturer on the Masters in Business Psychology course at London Metropolitan University and on the MAPP programme at UEL, as well as being a regular speaker at positive psychology conferences. Bridget is an accredited Strengthscope™ assessor and has studied Appreciative Inquiry under Professor David Cooperrider and Quality of Life Therapy under Professor Michael Frisch.

Bridget is the lead author of The Happiness Equation: 100 Factors that Can Add to or Subtract from your Happiness (Adams Media, 2008) with Dr Ilona Boniwell, and The Facebook Manager: the Psychology and Practice of Web-based Social Networking (Management Books 2000, 2009) with Dr Jonathan Passmore. Since its inception in 2007, she has also written a monthly column, combining applied positive psychology with the very latest research, for the specialist website Positive Psychology News Daily.

Acknowledgements

There are many people I’d like to thank for their help, encouragement and support in writing this book, particularly:

Ilona – for strengths-spotting

Molly and Charlie – making a difference in so many people’s lives

Neil and Hugo – step into style!

Karen – a constant inspiration

Natasha – kindness itself

Adrian, Alex, Andy, Anish, Caroline, Carrie, Jenny, Laura, Lou and Rani, Ros, Mel, Miriam, Naima, Sally, Stefan and Tony – for their support, ideas and case studies

Duncan Heath and the team at Icon Books – for great ideas, advice and feedback.

Author’s note

It’s important to note that there is much frequently-used research employed in positive psychology.

Where I know the source I have been sure to reference it, but my apologies here to the originators of any material if I have overlooked them.

Contents

Title page

Copyright

About the author

Acknowledgements

Author’s note

Introduction

1. What is happiness?

2. Barriers to well-being

3. Positive emotions

4. Engagement or flow

5. Positive relationships

6. Meaning and purpose

7. Accomplishment

8. Appreciative inquiry

9. Character strengths

10. Choice

11. Emotional intelligence

12. Gratitude

13. Mindfulness

14. Mindsets

15. Motivation and goals

16. Nutrition

17. Optimism

18. Physical exercise

19. Resilience

20. Savouring

21. Positive psychology of time

22. Where next?

Resources

Introduction

Happiness is not achieved by the conscious pursuit of happiness; it is generally the by-product of other activities.

Aldous Huxley

What is positive psychology? And why now?

Positive psychology is the scientific study of optimal human functioning and what makes life worth living. In other words, it is the psychology of the characteristics, conditions and processes which lead to flourishing. Researching what goes right for individuals, communities and organizations is every bit as important to us as understanding what goes wrong. Although when positive psychology was originally launched over a decade ago, it distanced itself from other branches of psychology, there is no doubt that it has its roots in the work of William James in the late 19th century, and humanistic psychology in the mid-20th century, as well as in the work of ancient philosophers such as Aristotle and Plato. The main difference is that, as a science, it focuses on discovering the empirical evidence for thriving. But it’s not science for its own sake – it’s the applications that we’re interested in. How can we use empirical research to improve our own well-being?

It’s fair to say that some of the research topics which now fall under the umbrella of positive psychology are not new and some even pre-date it. Topics such as optimism, motivation and emotional intelligence had been studied for many years before positive psychology came along. But there are many other areas of optimal functioning which were under-researched, and about which we knew very little, such as gratitude, hope and curiosity. The vast majority of psychology studies carried out over the past 40+ years have focused on the negative sides of life, such as anxiety, depression, low self-esteem and post-traumatic stress disorder. Positive psychology redresses this imbalance by focusing on the human traits and circumstances which lead to thriving. Although some of the research evidence may seem like common sense, there is a great deal which is new, surprising and even counter-intuitive.

Where does positive psychology come from?

Positive psychology originates from the University of Pennsylvania in the USA, where there is now a Positive Psychology Center (see the Resources section at the back of the book for details). The founders are psychology professors Martin Seligman, who is well-known for his pioneering work on learned helplessness and later on learned optimism, and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (pronounced Cheek-sent-me-high-ee), best known for his work Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience (see Chapter 5 for more on flow). The positive psychology movement began around 1998, when Seligman chose it as the theme for his inaugural address as President of the American Psychological Association. Since then, thousands of new research articles and books on the subject have been written, several new academic journals published (for example, the Journalof Positive Psychology, the Psychology of Well-being, the Journal of Happiness Studies and the International Journal of Well-being), and an international professional association, the IPPA, established.

As yet, over a decade after positive psychology appeared as a formal branch of psychology, there is no sign that our interest in the topics of happiness, well-being and flourishing is diminishing. In fact, the growth in the field, whether in university research projects, conferences and academic degree courses, or in books, blogs and workshops for the general public, gives every indication that positive psychology is here to stay. Even in the last few years, successive British governments have been interested in the idea of developing public policy for well-being. At the time of writing (April 2011), the Office for National Statistics has just completed its first nationwide consultation as part of a project to develop new measures of national well-being, and the first ever UK All-Party Parliamentary Group on Wellbeing Economics has been established to challenge GDP as the government’s main indicator of national success and to promote new measures of societal progress.

In England, noteworthy positive psychology players include Ilona Boniwell, course leader at the University of East London’s MAPP programme, and Professor Alex Linley, founder and director of the Centre for Applied Positive Psychology. As well as publishing many articles and books on the subject, both combine successful careers in academia with consulting work, applying positive psychology in real-life situations. Scotland has the Centre for Confidence and Well-being, headed by Carol Craig, whilst Wales has the Well-being Wales Network. Further details can be found in the Resources section.

About this book

This book has several objectives. Firstly, it aims to provide you with an overview of the most important theories and research findings within the field of positive psychology, whether these are long-established or relatively new topics.

Secondly, this book aims to be of practical use to you. Evidence suggests that around 40 per cent of our happiness is determined by intentional activities, that is, the things we do every day. That’s right, 40 per cent! So this book outlines dozens of different activities and exercises which show you how to apply the scientific findings to your own life, whether at work or at home. These suggestions, will give you a good idea of the kinds of things you can do (or stop doing) to improve your well-being.

Thirdly, it aims to be accessible. The first two chapters outline the origins of positive psychology, provide an overview of happiness and summarize the main barriers to well-being. The next five chapters cover the main topics of well-being theory and chapters 8–21 focus on the core elements. You don’t have to read every chapter in order; in fact each chapter covers one major topic, and each topic stands alone, meaning that you can pick the book up as and when you have 10 minutes to spare, dip in, and still find something useful, inspirational or thought-provoking.

Finally, I hope this book will be motivating, and that as you read each chapter, you will be encouraged to try new things. Don’t be put off by the simplicity of some of the activities. The ease with which you can do them makes it more likely that you’ll be successful. It may be the case that some of them do not suit you, and that’s fine. We are all individuals with our own personal preferences. But do try to tackle each suggestion with an open mind, and do not pre-judge.

Your own personal scientific experiment?

In 2007, when I was completing the Masters in Applied Positive Psychology at the University of East London, one course assignment was to write a personal portfolio about our own well-being, based on our experience of using some of the positive psychology exercises. As you read Introducing Positive Psychology, I would encourage you to do the same.

First of all, get hold of a notebook (or open a new file on your PC or smartphone) to use as a well-being journal in which to record the activities you try and how you get on with them.Then consider assessing your current level of well-being using one of the many happiness, well-being or life satisfaction questionnaires available. You can find several on the Positive Psychology Center’s website, including the four-question General Happiness Scale, the five-question Satisfaction with Life Scale and the 24-question Authentic Happiness Inventory. You will get a score for the questionnaires immediately and you’ll be able to see how your responses compare to those of others like you.  Even if you don’t want to take a formal well-being assessment, it will be useful to keep a well-being journal to record your observations and experiences, since you will be able to learn a great deal from your personal reflections.Dip into this book and try out some of the suggested activities. Record how you get on, the impact on your well-being and what you gain. Each activity poses questions on which you might like to reflect, in order to squeeze the maximum benefit from each one.When you finish the book consider re-assessing your well-being using the same questionnaire(s) you used for Step 2. Notice the positive differences that the activities and exercises make to your well-being.

You are in control of your own happiness

Despite the fact that we often talk about pursuing happiness, as if it’s something ‘out there’ which we can acquire if we look hard enough, the scientific evidence suggests that happiness is less about ‘having’ and more about ‘doing’. As British psychologist Oliver James pointed out in his book Affluenza, it’s a mistake to attach your sense of worth and well-being to something transient, like your looks, your job, money or fame, because these things may not last forever. Happiness isn’t a passive entity which can be obtained. More exactly, long-lasting happiness can be achieved by changing how you spend your time and your outlook on life. You can do this by trying the activities in this book. It has to be said that this will take time, effort and commitment on your part! The latest psychology research suggests that having the motivation and commitment to improve your well-being, as well as making a consistent effort, are essential in achieving your goal of being happier.

It’s also worth remembering that lasting happiness feels much more like run-of-the-mill contentment than unadulterated bliss! Don’t expect to set up permanent home on Cloud 9 since it’s likely that you’ll be disappointed: real life contains many downs as well as ups. A more sustainable strategy is to increase your understanding about what it means to be happy, and to discover and enjoy small day-to-day acts and activities which improve your well-being over the longer term.

So, with that guidance firmly under your belt, read on!

1. What is happiness?

One of the criticisms often levelled at positive psychology is that it’s all about the ‘big H’: happiness. I mean, happiness is a frivolous topic isn’t it? Certainly not one worthy of serious scientific endeavour. Yet when you start digging deeper, it becomes clear that happiness is not at all straightforward. In fact, it’s a pretty complex concept. In this chapter we’ll explore some of the components of happiness (or well-being as it’s often called), look at how they’re measured and why they matter.

Probably the simplest way to get a handle on happiness is to divide it initially into two basic components:

The distinction between these two aspects of happiness dates way back to the ancient Greek philosophers Aristippus (c. 435–356 BCE), who championed hedonism, and Aristotle (384–322 BCE), who advocated eudaimonism.

According to Aristippus, the goal of life is to maximize pleasure and minimize displeasure or pain. In positive psychology hedonic well-being is often used to refer to the happiness you get from feeling pleasure in the moment, pure and simple; it’s the ‘wine, women and song’ variety of happiness, the one which usually springs to mind when you’re asked what happiness is. It’s typically short-lived though; we have to keep topping up our reserves in order to maintain its effects (see more about this in Chapter 2). One of the problems with defining happiness solely in terms of sensory pleasure is that, paradoxically, some human desires, even if they are pleasure–producing in the short term, are not good for you in the long term.

And what about eudaimonic well-being? If happiness can ever have a serious side, this is it! As we suggested above, some people believe that pleasure on its own isn’t sufficient to describe the totality of human well-being. According to Aristotle, merely pursuing pleasure is vulgar; he advocated eudaimonism because he believed that true happiness is found indoing what is worth doing, not in having a good time. Eudaimonic well-being is a broad term used by positive psychologists to refer to the happiness we gain from having meaning and purpose in our lives, fulfilling our potential and feeling that we are part of something bigger than ourselves.

But even eudaimonic well-being is not problem-free. Some psychologists dislike its moral overtones; they argue that it isn’t psychology’s job to prescribe what is good for people. And paradoxically, eudaimonic well-being may not provide any pleasurable feelings at all! In fact, it may involve considerable personal hardship and effort over the longer term. Yet it is suggested that eudaimonia leads to greater life satisfaction than pure pleasure alone.

In practice, positive psychologists don’t agree on the definition of eudaimonic well-being (terms include ‘self-actualization’, ‘personal expressiveness’, ‘meaning’, ‘personal growth’, ‘engagement’ and ‘flow’). Nor do they agree on how it should be measured, and often the term eudaimonic well-being is used as a catch-all for any type of happiness that isn’t hedonic. But even if we’re not yet sure how to define eudaimonic well-being, most people would acknowledge that there’s more to true happiness than a few pints in the pub on Friday night and a game of golf on Sunday! Psychology research concurs with this: a recent study of over 13,000 people suggests that pursuing engagement or meaning are more strongly related to well-being than pursuing pleasure.

Another area of disagreement for positive psychologists is whether happiness is a subjective or objective phenomenon. Some definitions of eudaimonic well-being suggest that there is an objective standard against which people’s lives can be judged. On the other hand, there are psychologists who insist that happiness is a subjective phenomenon. They argue that it can only be measured by asking people to rate their own happiness. This leads us to another definition of happiness often used in positive psychology – Subjective Well-Being (SWB) – which is expressed in the following formula:

Satisfaction with Life + Positive Emotion – Negative Emotion

In simple terms this means that subjective happiness consists of three elements, one cognitive (or evaluative) and two affective:

Satisfaction with life: what I think about my life (does it measure up to my expectations and resemble my ‘ideal’ life?)

plus

The presence of positive emotion: how positive I feel

less

The presence of negative emotion: how negative I feel

Using Subjective Well-Being as the measure suggests that to increase our level of happiness overall we should focus on minimizing our negative mood and maximizing our life satisfaction and positive mood.

Measuring your Subjective Well-Being

First of all, measure your life satisfaction. You can use Diener and colleagues’ Satisfaction with Life Scale.

Then measure how you feel. To do this you can use the Positive and Negative Affect Scale (PANAS) which we look at in Chapter 11, or the Scale of Positive and Negative Experience (SPANE). See the Resources section for details of these assessment tools.

How did you fare? Were you surprised by the outcome? If the results weren’t as high as you’d like, how might you increase your life satisfaction and your positive mood, or decrease your negative mood? Write some notes in your well-being journal.

A positive psychology model of well-being

In his most recent book, Flourish, Martin Seligman, one of the founding fathers of the positive psychology movement, describes his new theory of well-being. His model (PERMA), which consists of five separate elements, draws on aspects of both hedonic and eudaimonic well-being:

Positive emotion is exactly what it says – the experience of positive mood and feelings which are uplifting. As we have already mentioned, there are various questionnaires you can use to measure positive (and negative) emotional states. We’ll explore positive emotions, their role in your happiness and their benefits in Chapter 3, and the concept of emotional intelligence in Chapter 11.

Engagement (or ‘flow’ as it’s often called) refers to the well-being you get from being totally absorbed in the task in hand, so much so that you lose track of time and feel completely at one with what you’re doing. When sports­people talk about ‘being in the zone’, they’re referring to their experience of flow. Flow is usually measured by asking people to reflect back on their day and record flow experiences or by having them carry an electronic beeper which randomly prompts them to think about and record what they’re doing at that moment in time. For more about flow, see Chapter 4.

Relationships are included in Seligman’s model because research suggests that good, caring and supportive interpersonal connections are essential to your well-being at any age in life. For more about positive relationships, see Chapter 5.

Meaning is important because it provides both a stable foundation and a sense of direction in life. Pursuing meaningful activities has been found to be more strongly related to happiness than pursuing pleasurable ones. There are many different measures of meaning, although it’s still a relatively under-researched area. The Sources of Meaning and Meaning in Life Questionnaire (SoMe) measures 26 different sources, including self-transcendence (such as spirituality), self-actualization (such as challenge and knowledge), order (such as tradition and holding on to values), and well-being and caring for others (such as community and love). For more on meaning, see Chapter 6.

Accomplishment is the latest psychological component in Seligman’s well-being model. It’s another broad category which includes everything from achievement, success and mastery at the highest level possible to progress towards goals and competence. For more information, activities and insights into accomplishment and its relationship to well-being, turn to Chapter 7.

Now let’s explore how these five facets of well-being appear in your life at the moment.

The Wheel of Well-Being

Thinking about your life in general, which of your day-to-day activities give you pleasure or joy? Which ones are engaging (put you into flow)? Which ones are centred­ on building supportive relationships (e.g. with family, friends, colleagues, customers or others)? Which activities are meaningful? And which ones give you a sense of accomplishment, and make you feel that you have made a difference?Once you have formed a snapshot of these in your mind, on a scale of 1–10 rate the pleasure, engagement, positive relationships, meaning and accomplishment in your life, where 1 is ‘none or very little’ and 10 is ‘a lot’. Mark your scores on the Wheel of Well-being overleaf.  There are no right or wrong answers to this exercise. Its purpose is to encourage you to reflect on how many of the five elements of well-being you experience in your everyday life.Do you have enough of those well-being elements that are important to you? Do you have an imbalance which doesn’t feel right, such as a focus on simple pleasure but not enough flow? Perhaps you feel short of more meaningful activities. Or maybe your life is packed with activities which contribute very little at all to your overall well-being. If your scores are not as high as you’d want them to be, what can you do to increase them? If you’re satisfied with your scores, what can you do to maintain the balance which is already working well for you? Jot down your thoughts in your well-being journal.

Wheel of Well-Being (PERMA)

One thing that often comes up when I do this kind of exercise in my training and coaching is that some people feel their lives are lacking in eudaimonic well-being. They experience positive emotions, engagement and enjoy good relationships but when all is said and done, they still think there’s something missing. If this feels like you then there are things you can do about it. Turn to Chapter 6 for more information and activities related to meaning and purpose.

Happiness is often categorized into two main components, hedonic (sensory pleasure) and eudaimonic (doing what is worth doing, having meaning and purpose).Although eudaimonic well-being is not well-defined in positive psychology, there is no doubt that many people­ feel that there is more to lasting happiness than mere pleasure.Subjective Well-Being is used by some psychologists to emphasize their view that happiness is an individual, personal experience, and that psychology should not be prescriptive.Seligman’s well-being theory has five facets: positive emotions, engagement, relationships, meaning and accomplishment (PERMA).How much each of the five facets matters to your well-being is a personal thing.

2. Barriers to well-being

In the previous chapter, we looked at various tried and tested pathways to happiness, such as the five components of Martin Seligman’s well-being theory: positive emotion, engagement, relationships, meaning and accomplishment. Further details about these pathways to well-being and accompanying activities for you to try can be found in their respective chapters.

But is happiness that easy to attain? Surely if it were simple, we’d all feel pretty upbeat all the time. In practice, there are several psychological obstacles which stand in the way of us achieving long-lasting happiness and contentment, and it’s worth knowing what these are so that we can try to overcome them. In this chapter we’ll explore the five main barriers to well-being.

Barrier 1: the negativity bias

The negativity bias refers to our tendency to pay more attention and give more weight to negative rather than positive emotions, experiences and information. In real life this means that you’re more likely to remember (and take seriously) an insult, a criticism or a piece of negative information or feedback than a compliment or a piece of positive information or feedback. From an evolutionary perspective this makes perfect sense, since we would not have survived as a species had we not been finely attuned to notice the actual dangers and possible risks all around us. But now that there are far fewer threats in our lives (whatever the media says), this in-built negativity bias can get in the way of our well-being.