Research suggests that while major life events cause temporary emotional fluctuations, an individual's overall happiness tends to remain stable over time by returning to a baseline level. Consequently, the long-term impact of even dramatic events on happiness is often much less significant than people might expect. This stability is largely due to a process of emotional adaptation. However, certain severe events, like long-term unemployment or major disabilities, can cause lasting changes to one's happiness set point.

Stability of Happiness

Happiness can be understood through several distinct, though not mutually exclusive, perspectives. Key viewpoints include: a spiritual perspective emphasizing virtue and reverence; a contentment-focused view centered on inner peace and satisfaction with life; and an engagement perspective that defines happiness through rewarding and exciting involvement in one's career and hobbies.

Perspectives on Happiness

Psychologist Martin Seligman's model of happiness consists of three distinct elements: the pleasant life, the good life, and the meaningful life. This concept is often illustrated with a Venn diagram where each element is a circle. True happiness is found at the intersection of all three circles, representing a combination of daily pleasures, skill-based enrichment, and service to the greater good.

Seligman's Three Elements of Happiness

In psychology, happiness is conceptualized as a stable, long-term condition known as subjective well-being, not simply as a temporary positive feeling. This distinction is crucial, as it is the enduring nature of happiness that is the primary focus of research by psychologists and social scientists, rather than the momentary moods people experience daily.

Enduring Happiness vs. Transient Mood

Research indicates that, on average, people around the world tend to be relatively happy. They generally report experiencing a greater number of positive feelings compared to negative ones.

General Human Happiness Levels

Extensive research has explored the factors that contribute to sustained joy and contentment. Many of these studies are correlational, indicating relationships rather than direct causation. Key factors found to be correlated with happiness include age, family and social relationships, money, education, employment, religion, and culture.

Factors Correlated with Happiness

Contrary to common assumptions, research has found no significant positive correlation between happiness and certain life factors. Key examples include parenthood and objective physical attractiveness, which studies have shown to have little to no link to an individual's overall well-being.

Factors Not Significantly Correlated with Happiness

Refers to how people predict their future emotional states and how these predictions influence their decisions and behavior.

Affective Forecasting

The measurement of happiness on a societal scale serves as a critical tool for public policy. By analyzing data on well-being, governments can identify the sources of happiness or distress within the population and subsequently develop targeted programs to improve quality of life. This approach advocates for considering the impact on public happiness when making decisions on major social and political issues, such as poverty, taxation, healthcare, and environmental policies.

Using Happiness Metrics to Inform Public Policy

The concept of flow suggests that deep engagement in an intrinsically rewarding activity is a more significant contributor to a happy and fulfilling life than material wealth or possessions. Finding an activity that is so absorbing that it becomes its own reward is presented as a primary pathway to achieving genuine well-being.

Flow as a Key to Happiness and Fulfillment

While people around the world generally report being happy, research indicates that there are notable differences in the average levels of happiness reported across various nations.

National Differences in Happiness Levels

Optimism is the inclination to maintain a positive outlook and expect favorable outcomes. It is often conceptualized as a generalized tendency for one to believe that good things will happen. Another perspective defines optimism as the tendency to view life's difficulties and stressors as temporary and external to oneself.

Optimism

Positive affect refers to the experience of pleasurable engagement with one's environment, encompassing feelings like happiness, joy, enthusiasm, alertness, and excitement. This feeling state can manifest in various ways, being brief and momentary, long-lasting, or even a stable, trait-like characteristic of an individual's personality.

Positive Affect

Happiness is conceptualized as an enduring state of mind, often called subjective well-being, that goes beyond temporary positive moods. It encompasses two key aspects: experiencing pleasure and positive emotions in daily life, and a deeper sense of fulfillment derived from using one's skills and talents to enrich both their own life and the lives of others.

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Emotion and Motivation Psychology is a field dedicated to understanding the interplay between our feelings and our actions. It examines various theories that explain why we engage in certain behaviors, exploring the drivers behind them. This includes investigating how fundamental physiological needs and our social experiences shape our motivations and subsequent actions.

Emotion and Motivation Psychology

Positive psychology is a field of research that was formally established in 1998 when Martin Seligman, then president of the American Psychological Association, called for a new focus on building human strength and psychological well-being. Often described as the 'science of happiness,' this area of study seeks to identify and promote the qualities that contribute to a more fulfilled life. It represents a significant shift from traditional psychology's emphasis on pathology, faults, and problems, instead concentrating on people's strengths and the factors that enable individuals to lead happy and contented lives.

Positive Psychology

Research on psychological well-being in recent years has focused on the factors that constitute optimal levels of human flourishing and their relationship to physical health, work performance, social relationships, and a range of other outcomes. Mechanisms of self-regulation such as psychotherapy, positive psychology interventions, and contemplative practices have been studied in relation to changes in well-being.

Psychological Well-being

Spielman, R. M., Jenkins, W. J., & Lovett, M. D. (2020, April 22). Psychology (2nd ed.). OpenStax. https://openstax.org/books/psychology-2e/pages/1-introduction

OpenStax Psychology (2nd ed.) Textbook

Motivation

The study of psychology is driven by fundamental questions about our actions and internal states. These inquiries explore the underlying causes of behavior, the specific drives for essential activities like eating and sex, the biological basis for feelings, and the universality of emotions across cultures.

Fundamental Questions in the Study of Behavior

Human actions are not solely driven by internal physiological requirements; they are also significantly shaped by social experiences. The interactions, cultural norms, and relationships within a person's social environment play a crucial role in influencing their motivations and behaviors.

Influence of Social Experiences on Behavior

Analyze the following scenario. Identify and differentiate between the internal drivers (related to feelings and personal satisfaction) and the external drivers (related to social factors and tangible rewards) that influence the individual's motivation.

Analyzing Motivational Drivers

Emotions are defined as subjective experiences that result from the combination of physiological arousal (the body's physical responses) and cognitive appraisal (the mind's interpretation of the situation). These two components work together to create the feeling we identify as an emotion.

Definition of Emotion

Happiness

- Expressing kindness
- Gratitude
- Humility
- Awe
- Mindfulness
- Optimism
- Telemedicine / Telehealth 

Interventions Used in Positive Psychology

Positive psychology practices can be implemented beneficially in a number of spaces, such as worksites, schools, and healthcare settings.  It focuses on positive emotions and strengths rather than mentally ill health and its consequences, which can mitigate some of the stigma surrounding mental health.

Utility of Positive Psychology in Promoting Public Mental Health

Health promotion is defined by the increase in control an individual has over their health and also in the ways in which an individual can improve their health. 

Health Promotion 

  - Redirecting focus from Pathology and disorder to positive feelings 
  - Shed light on the ways in which an individual can function optimally 
  - Remove stigma surrounding health (ex. Health isn't exclusively about 
     the absence of illness) 

Major Goals of Positive Psychology on Health 

 - Positive Psychology is promoting the undermining of mainstream psychology
 - Positive Psychology is reinforcing negative views on pathology and mental illness studies
 - Adaptation
 - Goals 
 - Temperament 
 - Heritability
 - Forecasting 
 - Recall biases 
 - accuracy of measurements relating to well-being
 - influence on well-being

Criticisms of Positive Psychology

A subcategory of overall health relating to one's emotional well-being by one's ability to successfully overcome everyday stressors, to realize one's inner potential, and to work in a manner that gives back to the self and to their community.

Mental Health

Flow is a state of deep engagement and absorption in an activity, making the experience intrinsically rewarding. The term itself originated from individuals' spontaneous descriptions of this feeling when an activity was going well. This state is not limited to creative or leisure pursuits but can also be found in work or academic study—essentially any activity that is sufficiently engrossing.

"Flow" in Positive Psychology

 What promotes excellence in performance? A researcher studying how sports psychology and positive psychology intersect brought forth this pictural in attempt to answer that question.

 Promoting excellence in performance

Benefit finding is the process of deriving positive growth from adversity.

Benefit finding

Positive peace psychology is an emerging subfield that extends the core principles of positive psychology to a global scale. It focuses on applying these principles to address widespread conflict, hatred, and distrust. The ultimate goal of this field is to understand how to overcome oppression and promote well-being and peace within the international community.

Positive Peace Psychology

Positive psychology investigates a range of subjects aimed at understanding and fostering human flourishing. Key areas of study include prosocial behaviors and virtues like altruism, empathy, kindness, forgiveness, compassion, and mindfulness. The field also explores creativity, the role of positive emotions, savoring life's moments, and the connection between psychological states and physical health, such as enhanced immune system functioning.

Topics in Positive Psychology

Located at the University of Wisconsin–Madison's Waisman Center, the Center for Investigating Healthy Minds is an organization established in 2008 and led by neuroscientist Dr. Richard J. Davidson. It is dedicated to conducting rigorous scientific research on positive mental qualities like kindness and compassion. The ultimate goal of this research is to develop mental health training approaches that help people live happier and healthier lives.

Center for Investigating Healthy Minds

Positive psychology is a field of scientific inquiry that seeks to understand the elements contributing to a better life for everyone. Its goal is to identify the foundations of hope, optimism, happiness, healthy relationships, flow, and authentic personal fulfillment.

The Promise of Positive Psychology

Based on the case study below, contrast the likely primary focus of a psychologist emphasizing the study of pathology and dysfunction with that of a psychologist specializing in building human strength and well-being. What would each professional prioritize in their sessions with the client?

Contrasting Psychological Approaches

In response to a perceived absence of any unifying framework that clarifies the dimensions of human flourishing that can be actively cultivated, researchers identified four core dimensions that are central to the subjective experience of well-being. The practice of these four dimensions can be strengthened through training. 

1. Awareness 
2. Connection 
3. Insight 
4. Purpose 

Four Dimensions of Well-being 

Five main components:
- Positive Emotions
- Engagement
- Relationships
- Meaning
- Accomplishments

PERMA Model of Wellness

Three main components:
- Life satisfaction
- Positive affect
- Negative affect

Diener's Model of Subjective Well-Being 

Positive psychological attributes that foster well-being are connected to favorable physical health outcomes, such as improved cardiovascular health. This link is primarily mediated through biological functions and health-promoting behaviors like diet, physical activity, and sleep quality.

Link Between Psychological Well-being and Physical Health

Several key attributes are recognized for their role in fostering psychological well-being. These include having a sense of meaning and purpose in life, experiencing a sense of autonomy, cultivating positive emotions, and achieving satisfaction with life.

Qualities Promoting Psychological Well-being

Read the following scenario. Analyze the distinct factors contributing to the individual's high level of psychological well-being, explaining how each element supports a flourishing life.

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