POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGYGOOD OR BAD?

What is PP?

• The field of positive psychology has grown dramatically over the past decade and has many exuberant supporters and evangelists. Rather than focusing on distress and pathology, they emphasize human strengths and virtues, happiness, and the potential to derive positive meaning from stressful circumstances.

CriticsWriters and pychologists such asLazarusBarbara HeldBarbara EhrenreichEugene Taylor James Coyne have offered critiques of positive psychology

Criticisms• Failure to sufficiently recognize the valuable functions

played by “negative” emotions like anger, sorrow, and fear;

• Its slick marketing and disregard for harsh and unforgiving societal realities like poverty;

• Its failure to examine the depth and richness of human experience;

• Its growing tendency to promote claims without sufficient scientific support (e.g., the relationship between positive psychological states and health outcomes, or the mechanisms underlying “posttraumatic growth”).

What ‘negative’ psychology?• PP’s claim that psychology

has over-emphasized the negative is inaccurate.

• Psychology is mostly neutral: perception, memory, language, volition etc.

• A lot of positive before PP (e.g. Jahoda’s positive mental health, Humanistic psychology, Bandura’s self-efficacy, decades of stress and coping research (positive reappraisal, acceptance, social support)

How do we know what is good or positive?

• What people think is good – but can we trust them? (e.g. they may be spoiled or suffer from ‘status anxiety’).

• People’s experiences of positive subjective states (what feels good) – but can we really rely on feelings?

• Value assessment based on norms, beliefs, or culture – whose norms and beliefs? If some are right some must be wrong.

• Scientifically objective – but science does not deal with value judgements, does it?

• Conceptually objective – how far can we go with philosophy before going too far?

• Historically or universally objective – can we rely on the past or prove God?

10

The march of positivity

“Our popular culture and now… our professional culture are saturated with the view that we must think positive thoughts, we must cultivate positive emotions and attitudes, and we must play to our strengths to be happy, healthy, and wise.” (Held, 2004, p.12)

15

• We need the negative to fully appreciate the positive (the positive stops being positive if there is nothing else)

• The tyranny of positive may in fact reduce SWB: “In my on experiences as … a clinical psychologist, I have repeatedly noticed that some people seem to feel guilty, defective, or both when they can’t feel good. They sometimes apologize for not being able to smile in the face of adversity, as if they were committing an act of treason by feeling and acting unhappy.” (Held, 2004)

• It may lead to suppressing the negative.• It is against human nature (two sides of the same coin).• It is superficial. Research suggests that co-activation of

negative emotions and memories is also necessary for integration and growth (Larsen et al., 2003)

• Positive illusion may become positive delusion.

It may not be good to be always positive

20

Well-being v. development

• Do we inadvertently promote mediocre well-being?

• Perhaps the simpler people deal with stress easier.

• Development can be sometimes painful, effortful and asocial (Irving & Williams, 2001).

• Highly developed people are by definition in the minority. Is an empirical research based on the majority really informative and comprehensive? Procrustes psychology

30

Social factors also play a role!

• A side effect: victims of unfortunate circumstances and other sufferers may be blamed for their own misery.• They fail to exhibit the necessary optimism, strength, virtue and willpower

‘Happy slave’ - perhaps making people to be more happy in fact prevents galvanising the forces for social change.

40

Does PP make ‘happy slaves’ and ‘content bastards’?

SOME SPECIFIC ISSUES

POSITIVE EMOTIONS• What are positive emotions?• Why is fear negative emotion (certainly useful from

evolutionary perspective)?• Is it justifiable to identify positive emotions with pleasant,

and negative emotions with unpleasant (hedonic bias)?• Pleasant emotions can be negative (enjoyment in

suffering of others), and unpleasant positive (crying after a sad movie).

• Do positive emotions have some negative sides (e.g. superficiality)?

• In reality, our emotions are often mixed, have negative and positive side (e.g. love, pride, hope, anxiety etc.)

Are positive emotions really that good?

• Some research suggests that mildly depressed older women live longer (Hybels et al., 2002)

• …and cheerfulness (optimism & sense of humour) associated with younger age of death in longitudinal study (Friedman et al., 1993)

5

OPTIMISM AND HOPE

• Why is it good? Martin Seligman’s message sometimes too one-sided and messianic:– “Pessimists are losers on many fronts” (Authentic

Happiness)– Implicit message that “accentuating the positive” (and

ignoring the negative) is maximally beneficial.

• Defensive pessimism: cognitive strategy to set low expectations for upcoming performance, despite having performed well in previous similar situations (Norem & Cantor, 1986).

15

Benefits of DPDefensive pessimism can:• Cushion the potential blow of failure.• Motivate reflection and rehearsal.• Prevent naivety.• Harness anxiety for motivation• Apply “worst case scenario” technique used in CBT.

In comparison to equally anxious students who do not use defensive pessimism those who do (Norem & Chang, 2002):• Show significant increases in self-esteem and satisfaction over time.• Perform better academically.• Form more supportive friendship networks.• Make more progress on their personal goals.

20

FLOW• What is flow? • Is flow (as originally defined)

necessarily positive? What about a larger perspective?

• Is flow so important if it is only about pockets of experience? After all, how many activities in everyday life can we have that meet the criteria?

• How about a mental flow (day dreaming)?

• Would it be possible, by modifying its definition, to create life-flow that encompasses most of our waking life?

30

STRENGTHS• Is the evidence that is better to

work with your strengths than improve your weaknesses compelling enough?

• What are strengths?• Does the classification of

strengths make sense?• How comprehensive is the list?• Is the way of allocating

strengths really valid? Do we find strengths that we would like to have, that we aspire to, or the ones that we really have?

35

Wisdom and knowledge• Curiosity, interest• Love of learning• Judgement, critical thinking, open-

mindedness• Practical intelligence, creativity,

originality, ingenuity• PerspectiveCourage • Valour• Industry, perseverance• Integrity, honesty, authenticity• Zest, enthusiasmLove• Intimacy, reciprocal attachment• Kindness, generosity, nurturance• Social intelligence, personal

intelligence, emotional intelligence

Justice• Citizenship, duty, loyalty,

teamwork• Equity, fairness• LeadershipTemperance• Forgiveness, mercy• Modesty, humility• Prudence, caution• Self-control, self-regulationTranscendence• Awe, wonder, appreciation of

beauty and excellence• Gratitude• Hope, optimism, future-

mindedness• Playfulness, humour• Spirituality, sense of purpose,

faith, religiousness

Let’s remind ourselves:

40

Method and IMPLEMENTATION

How scientific is really PP?

10

Even if…

Even if we get everything right (theory, research, interventions), there are possible challenges regarding application:

• Do we have the right to be prescriptive?• Even if they do, how to translate it into practice?• Even if we can, how far can we go?• And, what if living well is not all it’s crack up to be?

25

How far can we go?• Well-being can be specific rather

than universal, so we may not be able to justifiably make generalisations.

• Interventions may have only superficial and short term effect, if done in isolation (rather than being a part of a coherent framework, a philosophy of one’s life.

• The value and potency of interventions may be lost if they are done for ‘wrong reason’ or artificially (relevant for training).

35

What if living well is not all it’s crack up to be?

• Why don’t people seek out what will make them happy? (Peterson, 2006)

• What if there is a meta-negative state that is provoked by living well?

• For example, people may find living well boring, or it may create anxiety, or it may limit freedom.

• What if there is something more important than well-being (e.g. self-destructive artist).

40

Samuel Becket: Waiting for Godot

• ESTRAGON: – I am happy.

• VLADIMIR: – So am I.

• ESTRAGON: – So am I.

• VLADIMIR: – We are happy.

• ESTRAGON: – We are happy. (Silence.) What do we do now, now

that we are happy?

Happiness of pursuit, rather than pursuit of happiness?

Bicycle psychology – balancing between left and right, and you can balance only when you are moving.

Examples:• Improve the world AND yourself• Accept AS WELL AS change• Both, experience and thinking matter• Independence AND inter-dependence• Use your strengths AND work on your

weaknesses• Being AND doing• Prepare for the worst and hope for the best• Positive and negative

Suggested reading• Christopher, J. C. & Richardson, F. C. (2008) Thinking

through Positive Psychology. Theory & Psychology, 18, 5, 555-561.

• Gable, S. L. & Haidt, J. (2005). What (and why) is Positive Psychology? Review of General Psychology, 9, 103-110.

• Haybron, D.M. (2008). Philosophy and the Science of Subjective Well-Being. in M. Eid & R.J. Larsen (eds) The Science of Subjective Well-Being. New York, London: The Gilford Press.

• Kingwell, M. (2000) Better Living. Crown Publications.• Lazarus, R. (2003). Does the positive psychology movement

have legs? Psychological Inquiry, 14, 93-109. • Slife, B. D. & Richardson, F. C. (2008) Problematic

Ontological Underpinning of Positive Psychology: A Strong Relational Alternative. Theory & Psychology, 18, 5, 699-723.

References• Irving, J. A. & Williams, D. I. (2001) The path and price of

personal development. The European Journal of Psychotherapy, Counselling and Health, 4(2), 225-235.

• Linley, P. A., Joseph, S., Harrington, S. & Wood, A. M. (2006) Positive psychology: Past, present and (possible) future. Journal of Positive psychology, 1(1): 3-16

• Pawelski, J. (2008) What does positive psychology mean by ‘positive’? jamespawelski.com/2008/06/28/what-does-positive-psychology-mean-by-positive/

• Ryff, C.D. and Singer, B. (1996). Psychological well-being: Meaning, measurement, and implications for psychotherapy research. Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, 65, 14-23.

• Sheldon, K. M. & King, L. (ed.) (2001). Positive Psychology [special issue] American Psychologist, 56(3), 216-263