Optimism and Hope

 Positive Psychology  No Responses »
Feb 142010
 

Source: “Pursuing Human Strengths” Martin Bolt, Chapter 8

Optimism and Psychological Well-being

Optimism is associated with a positive mood, a higher morale, and psychological health. Optimism helps us to resist distress from a wide range of sources.

Optimism and Physical Well-being

Optimistic people feel better, are healthier, and live longer. They have stronger immune systems recover faster from trauma.

Realistic Optimism

Realistic optimism avoids wishful thinking while maintaining a positive future outlook. Unrealistic optimism underestimates risks and may discourage appropriate preventive actions such as using contraceptives or quitting smoking.

Explanatory Styles and Coping Strategies

Optimists tend to explain problems in terms that are temporary, specific, and external, leading to initiatives to resolve the problem. Pessimists tend to explain problems in terms that are stable, global, and internal, creating a feeling of helplessness.

Charles Holahan and Rudolph Moos identified three coping strategies: active-cognitive strategies affect thoughts, active-behavioral strategies modify situations, and avoidance strategies inhibit awareness.

Psychology of Hope

We are intrinsically goal directed and readily imagine possibilities. Hope reflects both willpower and perceived ability (waypower).

Goals

Strategies for goal setting include clearly establishing desired outcomes in all major areas of life. Bowls should be periodically reviewed, added, and deleted as necessary. Goals should be visualized as vividly in concretely as possible. Goal should be prioritized, with important ones receiving the most attention.

Learning optimism

Reflecting on previous successes reaffirms our potential for future success. We must understand adversity, and create beliefs that have real consequences.

Communal hope

Hope and happiness usually exist within the context of a community. Social support networks increased hope in all manner of situations. Individualism can be damaging to hope. Hopeful goals are best when they seek to serve and benefit others.

Overview of Positive Psychology

 Positive Psychology, Psychology  No Responses »
Jan 152010
 

Source: “Pursuing Human Strengths,” Martin Bolt, Introduction

The field of positive psychology embraces a particular set of perceptions:

1. We create our personal and social worlds. High-functioning people take responsibility for dynamically exercising opportunities for choice, change, and control.

2. We cannot control all elements of our personal and social worlds. Recognizing these external constraints improves our choices.

3. Scientific research is especially important for accurately understanding the relationships between the subjective elements considered by positive psychology.

4. Positive psychology has been not so much newly invented as newly emphasized. Concepts of virtues, values, and character are of long and enduring interest.

5. Psychology has allowed us to develop objectives scales to quantify human strengths and their biological, environmental, and cognitive influences.

6. While psychology conducts research on value judgments, it must be recognized that value judgments affect the conduct of research. No part of human development can be studied in isolation. For instance, we require both autonomy and relatedness.

Personal Growth Initiative Scale (PGIS)

 Positive Psychology, Psychology  No Responses »
Jan 152010
 

Source: “Pursuing Human Strengths,” Martin Bolt, Introduction

The Personal Growth Initiative Scale was published in 1998 by Christine Robitschek. The PGIS incorporates choice, change, control, and clear direction. She believes that personal growth must be a deliberate undertaking. A high score reflects a person who: “recognizes and capitalizes on opportunities for personal change. They search out and create situations that will foster their growth. In contrast, people with low scores actively avoid situations that challenge them to grow.”

“PGIS scores seemed to be strongly positive way related to psychological well-being and negatively related to psychological distress.” “PGIS spores or positively linked to assertiveness, internal locus of control, an instrumentality (knowing how to reach an important goals).” According to Bert Hodges, “Values provide distant but real guides that help us to find our way, that help us in the journey of life. Values provide not only place but perspective; they indicate where we have come from and where we’re going.”

Values will vary according to a person’s world view and life goals. Mihal Csikszentmilalyi says that a meaningful, productive life involves both differentiation and integration. Differentiation results from taking proactive responsibility for personal development. Integration results from also accepting responsibility for our relationships with others in our social networks. While it is healthful to be able to function atonymously, we also need to feel connected and have a sense of belonging. For instance, adolescents need to grow up, but do better if they retain strong connections with their parents.

Personal Growth Initiative Scale (PGIS) Exercise

Original source: Robitschek, 1998.

Using the scale, indicate the extent to which you agree or disagree with each statement.

1 = definitely disagree
2 = mostly disagree
3 = somewhat disagree
4 = somewhat agree
5 = mostly agree
6 = definitely agree

1. _____ I know how to change specific things that I want a change in my life.

2. _____ I have a good sense of where I’m headed in my life.

3. _____ If I want to change something in my life, I know how to initiate the transition process.

4. _____ I can choose the role I want to have in a group.

5. _____ I know what I need to do to get started toward reaching my goals.

6. _____ I have a specific action plan to help me reach my goals.

7. _____ I take charge of my life.

8. _____ I know what my unique contribution to the world might be.

9. _____ I have a plan for making my life more balanced.

_____TOTAL SCORE

To score your responses, simply add the numbers you checked to obtain a total score. PGIS scores range from 9 to 54. People who score higher (31.5 is the midpoint) recognize and capitalize on opportunities for personal change. More than that, they search out and create situations that will Foster their growth. In contrast, people with low scores actively avoid situations that challenge them to grow.

Human Freedom: Change

 Positive Psychology, Psychology  No Responses »
Jan 122010
 

Source: “Pursuing Human Strengths,” Martin Bolt, Introduction

“Change” reflects our ability to adjust typical patterns of behavior. The way we think about the ability of ourselves and others to change affects how we think about and judge behavior. Entity theorists believe that our characteristics change very little. They are more willing to make generalized character judgments based on fewer observed behaviors. Incremental theorists believe that we are more able to make desired changes. They are more willing to seek opportunities for and apply themselves toward personal development. An incrementalist would certainly be more likely to make an effort to change.

One’s attitude toward the human potential for change is reflected in the relative importance of ability vs. effort in achieving success or demonstrating intelligence. Albert Einstein sounds like an incrementalist when he is quoted as saying “genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.” If one believes that their characteristics are fixed, they may interpret poor performance on a task means that they are stupid, worthless, or a complete loser. Others are able to interpret failure as the mark of effort and see the need to intensify or redirect their efforts. One path leads to pessimism, learned helplessness, and self-reinforcing failure. The other path leads to optimism, sustained effort, preparation to seize opportunities, and self-reinforcing experience with success.

While positive attitudes and hard work do not guarantee success, they clearly promote it. Lucky breaks , social support, health, and even genetic gifts are important facilitators for many people who are admired as “successful.” The book “Outliers” by Malcom Gladwell makes a fascinating study of opportunistic success. Nonetheless, cultivated attitudes and habits about the potential for change creates an environment that rewards effort toward desired change.

“Parents and teachers can also teach students to relish a challenge. Doing easy tasks is often a waste of time. The fun comes in confronting something difficult and finding strategies that work. Finally, adults should help children value learning more than grades. Too often kids rely on grades to prove their worth. Sure, grades are important. But they are not as significant as learning.” (p. 10)

Human Freedom: Choice

 Positive Psychology, Psychology  No Responses »
Jan 122010
 

Source: “Pursuing Human Strengths,” Martin Bolt, Introduction

“Choice” reflects our freedom to strive for self-determination. We all have the experience of considering options, choosing a behavior, and experiencing the consequences. The American culture is structured around the concept of freedom. We cherish the concept, nurture the capacity, and defend the right to make choices. We are more likely to sign petitions if someone has tried to coerce us into not doing so. Like Romeo and Juliet, we may become more passionate about an option that we feel is being denied to us. The concept of “reverse psychology” depends upon related principles.

Autonomy, acting with a sense of true choice, may be considered a “fundamental human need.” A sense of autonomy increases or interest in and commitment to the things we do. Conversely, restricting choice decreases our interest in an activity. Our sense of autonomy, our human freedom of choice, increases are commitment, ability to achieve, and level of satisfaction.

The Question of Human Behavior

 Psychology  No Responses »
Jan 122010
 

Source: “Pursuing Human Strengths,” Martin Bolt, Introduction

“The stream of causation from past to future runs through our present choices.” —David G. Myers, 2002

Individuals and groups have shown an astonishing capacity for both great good and great evil. World War II produced unprecedented levels of national violence. Individuals who risked themselves to help others escape from certain extermination are our modern heroes. Caretakers of the gravely disabled sacrifice large parts of their own lives in service to others. We honor those able to demonstrate a common levels of virtues such as compassion, commitment, and self-control.

It would be tragic if we did not attempt to understand the source and foundation that produced and sustained these virtues. Surely, we should be able to cultivate such human strengths in ourselves and others. This is the purpose of positive psychology. Martin Seligman states: “The main purpose of a positive psychology is to measure, understand, and then build the human strengths and the civic virtues.”

Although we easily form opinions about purpose and motivation based on personal observation and anecdote, we produce hugely divergent explanations. We embrace beliefs ranging from predestination and genetic predisposition to environmental influence and total personal responsibility for individual choices. A careful study of why people behave in the ways they do admits most of these influences on our behavior. Most importantly, our opportunities and capacities to make choices and control the direction of our lives, validates the efforts of positive psychology to build human strengths and foster civic virtues. In short, the study of goodness is a good thing.

Positive Psychology – Human Strengths

 Positive Psychology, Psychology  No Responses »
Jan 112010
 

Source: “Pursuing Human Strengths,” Martin Bolt, Preface

The weakness of psychology, during its short history as a science, has been its primary focus on human weaknesses rather than on human strengths. That began to change dramatically when Martin Seligman was elected president of the American Psychological Association. Seligman leveraged his research on learned helplessness and hopelessness into a new focus on learned optimism and happiness.

A primary focus of positive psychology is on human strengths, a core set of virtues. The intent is to study, measure, and understand these strengths so that they can be purposefully developed, increasing both subjective and objective psychological well-being.

Responsibility – Both researchers and individuals have a responsibility to understand the factors that influence thinking and behavior, and to use this knowledge to increase the healthful development of individuals and societies. Responsibility is vital for the development of other strengths.

Love – Hereditary nature and environmental nurture both contribute to human development. Attachment styles, developed in early life, have a powerful impact on adult relationships.

Empathy – The ability to recognize and consider the feelings of others is a vital step in psychological development. Empathy is necessary for forgiveness and altruism.

Self-control – the ability to accept delayed gratification, instead of only immediate rewards, is also vital to psychological maturity. Purposeful achievement requires a persistent cycle of goal setting, reflection, and self regulation.

Wisdom – intelligence involves a great deal more than the ability to acquire rote knowledge. Wisdom is associated with reasoning ability and the productive application of knowledge in a complex social environment.

Commitment – our goals must have meaning and reflect a satisfying purpose if we are to pursue them with persistence. But there are important differences between intrinsic and extrinsic motivators.

Happiness – positive emotions such as happiness were required for salutogenesis. It is irresponsible for psychology to focus on pathology.

Self-respect – while self-esteem serves to artificially heighten a sense of entitlement, self-respect involves a realistic valuation of one’s potential within society.

Hope – learned optimism can be an effective therapy for the hopelessness of depression. Hopefulness helps us to sustain effort through difficult times. Community support is vital for individual and collective well-being.

Friendship – individual support is also effective in promoting personal and collective well-being. Shared responsibility also helps to sustain persistent effort to achieve goals.

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