PSYC A236F
POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY &
MENTAL HEALTH
LECTURE 2
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LECTURER: MR. LOUIS HUANG
EMAIL: LHUANG@OUHK.EDU.HK
BEFORE WE START,
THINK ABOUT…
• What is a good life?
• What is happiness?
• What defines a satisfying
life or a life well-lived?
• What kind of life do you wish to lead?
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• And in the end, how do you hope people
will remember you?
LECTURE OUTLINE
1. Why a Psychology of Well-being?
2. What is Happiness? Two Traditions
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3. Comparing Hedonic & Eudaimonic Views
of Happiness
WHY A PSYCHOLOGY OF
WELL-BEING?
“How are you doing?”
• How should we evaluate the well-being of a
society, a community, an individual life?
• What measurable qualities should we use?
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• Objective V.S. Subjective Measures of Well-Being
WHY A PSYCHOLOGY OF
WELL-BEING?
Objective Measures of Well-Being
• Economic indicators
• unemployment, poverty, income, inflation, inequality, etc.
• Physical health indicators
• longevity, major illnesses, infant mortality, obesity, etc.
• Mental health indicators
• depression, drug abuse, anxiety disorders, & suicide, etc.
• Community and family well-being indicators
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• divorce, single-parent families, child abuse, & crime, etc.
WHY A PSYCHOLOGY OF
WELL-BEING?
Objective Measures of Well-Being
• Misery index
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• Give us info about “How many people are suffering
from significant problems that diminish the
quality of their lives?”
• But do not directly measure health & happiness
• Traditional psychologists
focus on preventing and
treating the problems
reflected in the misery index
WHY A PSYCHOLOGY OF
WELL-BEING?
Positive Psychology – Critique on Traditional
(Objective) Measures of Well-Being
• Incomplete measurement: only examine the
presence/absence of illness & negative functioning
• Misleading assumptions: the presence of strengths &
positive functioning were not measured
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• Limits of objective measures & importance of subjective
judgments
WHY A PSYCHOLOGY OF
WELL-BEING?
Absence of Mental Illness ≠ Mental Health
• HOWEVER, only 17%
of Americans enjoy
complete mental health
(flourishing)
• 10% of Americans are
languishing (incomplete
mental health)
Mental Illness and Mental Health
30
25
26%
20
15
17%
10
10%
10%
5
0
All Disorders in
Given Year for U.S.
Adult Population
Mood Disorders
Flourishing
(Keyes)
Languishing
(Keyes)
Source: Mental disorders data from National Institute of Mental Health. The numbers
count: Mental disorders in America, Rev. 2006. Retrieved August 2007 at http://www.
nimh.nih.gov/publicat/numbers.cfm. Flourishing/languishing percentages from Keyes,
C.L.M. (2007). Promoting and protecting mental health and flourishing:
A complementary strategy for improving national mental health.
American Psychologist, 62, 95–108.
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• 26% of American adults
suffer from a diagnosable
mental disorder in a
given year
MISLEADING ASSUMPTIONS OF
OBJECTIVE MEASURES OF WELL-BEING
Source: Peterson, C. (2006). A Primer in Positive Psychology. Oxford University Press
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Objective life circumstances, money, income are actually very
weakly related to happiness
MISLEADING ASSUMPTIONS OF
OBJECTIVE MEASURES OF WELL-BEING
Lyubomirsky, Sheldon, and Schkade (2005) offered the
following heuristic for thinking about the determinants:
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Happiness = set-point + life circumstances + volitional activity
MISLEADING ASSUMPTIONS OF
OBJECTIVE MEASURES OF WELL-BEING
Positive and negative life circumstances:
• Being accepted into graduate school
• Getting promoted
• Getting married
• Voluntary job changes
• Winning lottery
• Experiencing the death of a close friend
(Brickman et al., 1978; Boswell et aI., 2005; Fujita & Diener,
2005; Lucas & Clark, 2006; Suh et aI., 1996)
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• Having financial problems
ADAPTATION TO
GOOD AND BAD EVENTS
• Positive and negative life
circumstances affect
subjective well-being
initially, but after 1 or 2
years they return to
stable baseline levels of
well-being
Average within-person trajectories for life
satisfaction before & after various life events.
The panel shows reaction and adaptation to
marriage, death of a spouse, and divorce.
Adapted from Lucas (2005), Lucas, Clark,
Georgellis, and Diener (2003), and Lucas,
Clark, Georgellis, and Diener (2004).
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Lucas’s adaptation
research (2003, 2004, 2005):
HEDONIC ADAPTATION
To know more, please view the video “Would winning the lottery make you
happier?” https://youtu.be/juO4zxsjSjw
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(AKA HEDONIC TREADMILL 享樂適應/快樂水車)
STABILITY IN WELL-BEING
DESPITE LIFE CHANGES
Temperament and Subjective Well-Being
• Research showing strong genetic influences on
subjective well-being
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• 40% positive emotions,
55% negative emotions,
80% of long-term subjective
well-being appear inherited
• Set point determines
general level of cheerfulness
POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY’S
ALTERNATIVE MEASURES
1. Measure happiness directly, not indirectly
•
No inferences - are we happy or not?
2. Define and measure aspects of positive functioning
directly
•
•
What is a good life beyond absence of misery?
How many show positive mental health, optimal functioning,
flourishing?
3. Give primacy to subjective nature of health &
happiness
People’s interpretation of their life matters as much as facts
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•
LECTURE OUTLINE
1. Why a Psychology of Well-being?
2. What is Happiness?
Two Traditions
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3. Comparing Hedonic & Eudaimonic Views
of Happiness
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Two Views of Happiness and Well-Being
WHAT IS HAPPINESS &
WELL-BEING?
1. Hedonic View – Happiness & Satisfaction (SWB)
• Defining a good life in terms of personal happiness
• Happiness is person’s own subjective judgment of
the overall balance of “good” & “bad” in their life
• Everything from alcohol consumption and eating
chocolate, to a warm bath can bring us pleasure
• Chief goal of life is the pursuit of
happiness and pleasure
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• Emotional well-being
(Keyes, 2007)
HEDONIC HAPPINESS
Subjective well-being (SWB) takes a broad view of
happiness, beyond the pursuit of short-term or physical
pleasures defining a narrow hedonism.
Subjective
well-being
Presence of
+ve affect
(Diener, 1984; Diener et al., 1999; Westerhof, 2001)
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Life
satisfaction
Relative
absence of
–ve affect
WHAT IS HAPPINESS &
WELL-BEING?
2. Eudaimonic View of Happiness
• More than emotion & satisfaction
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• Nozick's (1974) “Experience
machine” (your lifetime is in a
tank with your brain wired up to
yield any experiences you want)
• Pleasure, disconnected
from reality, does not affirm
or express our identity as
individuals
• There is a deeper and more
“authentic happiness”
WHAT IS HAPPINESS &
WELL-BEING?
2. Eudaimonic View –
Self-Realization & Optimal Functioning
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• Happiness as Self-realization (Aristotle)
• Expression and fulfillment of inner potentials
• Living in accordance with your daimon (your true self)
• Happiness results from striving
towards self-actualization
• Much in common with humanistic psychology’s
criteria for health development & optimal
functioning
WHAT IS HAPPINESS &
WELL-BEING?
2. Eudaimonic Happiness
• Experiences of personal expressiveness lead to
Eudaimonic Happiness
• Fully engaged in life activities that fit & express our
deeply held values & our sense of who we are
• Experience a feeling of fulfillment, of meaningfulness,
of being intensely alive
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• Who we really are and
who we were meant to be
WHAT IS HAPPINESS &
WELL-BEING?
2. Eudaimonic Happiness
• Ryff’s 6 elements of psychological well-being:
1. Self-acceptance:
a positive and acceptant attitude toward aspects of self in
past and present;
2. Purpose in life:
goals and beliefs that affirm a sense of direction and
meaning in life;
3. Autonomy:
self-direction as guided by one’s own socially accepted
internal standards;
4. Positive relations with
others:
having satisfying personal relationships in which empathy
and intimacy are expressed;
5. Environmental mastery:
the capability to manage the complex environment
according to one’s own needs;
6. Personal growth:
the insight into one’s own potential for self-development.
(Ryff, 1989; Ryff & Keyes, 1995)
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• Each of them is important in the striving to become a better
person and to realize one’s potential
HEDONIC HAPPINESS V.S.
EUDAIMONIC HAPPINESS
Waterman, 1993
>>
No. of activities
produce eudaimonic
happiness
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No. of activities
produce hedonic
happiness
HEDONIC HAPPINESS V.S.
EUDAIMONIC HAPPINESS
Waterman (1993, p.681)
• “If you wanted another person to know about who
you are and what you are like as a person, what FIVE
activities of importance to you would you describe?”
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• List five activities: 1, 2, 3, 4 & 5.
• Rate each activity twice by using 3 hedonic enjoyment
(HE) & personal expressiveness (PE) criteria
HEDONIC HAPPINESS V.S.
EUDAIMONIC HAPPINESS
1. This activity gives me the
1.
strongest sense of
enjoyment and pleasure. I’m
relaxed and content.
2.
2. When I engage in this
activity, I forget about my
problems and lose track of
time. Easy to do…go with
3.
the flow.
3. When I engage in this
activity, I feel happier and
more excited than I do in
other activities.
PERSONAL
EXPRESSIVENESS
This activity gives me my
strongest feeling of really
being alive and expressing
my best potentials.
When I engage in this activity,
I feel this is what I was meant
to do.
When I engage in this activity,
I feel more intensely involved
than I do in most activities, a
feeling of special fit or
meshing, high concentration,
challenge, and effort.
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HEDONIC ENJOYMENT
HEDONIC HAPPINESS V.S.
EUDAIMONIC HAPPINESS
Results (Overlapping but Different)
• Hedonic enjoyment
• Activities that made people feel relaxed,
excited, content or happy, those led to
losing track of time & forgetting personal
problems
• Activities that created feelings of challenge,
competence, and effort, & that offered the
opportunity for personal growth & skill
development
*50-66% of the time, personally expressive activities
generated a comparable level of hedonic enjoyment
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• Eudaimonic happiness
POSITIVE AFFECT &
MEANINGFULNESS
Positive Affect
Meaningfulness
Summary term for pleasurable More personally expressive &
emotions (e.g., joy,
engaging activities that may
contentment, laughter, & love) connect us to a broader and
even transcendent view of life
• Pleasure is seen as a shallow & unsatisfying
substitute for deeper purpose in life
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• HOWEVER, the line between positive affect &
meaning in life is NOT that clear (King et al., 2006)
POSITIVE AFFECT &
MEANINGFULNESS
Positive emotions
enhance meaning
Positive emotions as
markers of meaningful
events
+ve emotions open up our
thinking to more imaginative
& creative possibilities by
placing current concerns in a
broader context
Progressing toward important
goals (or meaningful activities)
makes us feel good
e.g., Mid-Autumn Festival childhood memories
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e.g., a fun evening with friends
may lead you to think of the
importance of relationships in a
satisfying life
Connections between +ve
affect & meaning are
represented in our memories
as well-learned linkages
POSITIVE AFFECT &
MEANINGFULNESS
• Positive emotion and meaning were highly correlated
• Positive emotion may bring an enhanced sense of
meaning and purpose
• Meaningful activities & accomplishment bring enjoyment
& satisfaction to life
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• Effect of +ve emotion was above & beyond that of goal
progress assessments to predict enhanced life meaning
• Prime with +ve emotions - rated life as more meaningful &
made clearer discriminations between meaningful &
meaningless tasks – compared to participants in neutral
emotional conditions
• Two-way street - each contributing to other
LECTURE OUTLINE
1. Why a Psychology of Well-being?
2. What is Happiness? Two Traditions
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3. Comparing Hedonic & Eudaimonic
Views of Happiness
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COMPARING HEDONIC AND
EUDAIMONIC VIEWS OF HAPPINESS
HEDONIC VIEW OF HAPPINESS
• Hedonic View – Happiness =
Positive Emotions + Satisfaction
• Focus mainly on SWB studies
• Quick and easy measures –
easy to assess
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• Reason why a person is
happy/unhappy is NOT
specified or measured
HEDONIC VIEW OF HAPPINESS
• Hedonic View – Happiness =
Positive Emotions + Satisfaction
• Regards the bases for happiness as
an empirical question to be answered
by research
• Research-driven approach
“Research-driven” approach
Research
Facts
• Get the research facts first, and
create the theory after
• Not imposing on people a definition
of well-being allows people to judge
for themselves of their own criteria
Theory
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• Advantage
EUDAIMONIC VIEW OF
HAPPINESS
• Eudaimonic View - Personal Expressiveness,
Optimal Functioning, Positive Mental Health, and
Meanfulingness
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• Self-actualization: Fulfillment of
basic needs & inner potentials
• Psychological health/
effective functioning
EUDAIMONIC VIEW OF
HAPPINESS
• Eudaimonic View - Personal Expressiveness,
Optimal Functioning, Positive Mental Health,
and Meaningfulness
“Theory-driven” approach
• Theories of well-being are
developed first and then
evaluated empirically
Theory
• Unlike hedonic view of happiness,
the psychological & social traits,
behaviors, and needs that are the
Research
bases of happiness and
psychological health are described
• Complicated, lengthy & involved assessment
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• Theory-driven approach
COMPLEMENTARITY AND
INTERRELATIONSHIP
• Well-being measures are organized around broad
aspects of both hedonic and eudaimonic well-being:
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• Happiness
• Personal growth/personal expressiveness/
meaningfulness
• Substantial correlations between measures of
hedonic and eudaimonic well-being (r =.60)
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WHAT IS YOUR FOCUS?
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END OF
LECTURE 2
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Prepared by: Louis sir