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Positive Psychology, 1.05 (V) What Do We Mean by the "Positive" in Positive Psychology?

1.05 (V) What Do We Mean by the "Positive" in Positive Psychology?

[MUSIC] What do we mean by the positive and positive psychology? In it's most basic sense, the positive is pretty easy to understand. It refers to what we want, for ourselves and our world. We want to feel good, we want to have close relationships with our family and friends. We want to use our unique abilities in ways that help us succeed and make the world a better place. We want our lives to have meaning. Positive phycology uses scientific methods to study these topics to try to understand what makes us flourish and to identify concrete steps we can take to increase our well-being. To understand why positive psychology has been such an important development in psychology, we need to know something of the context into which it was born. As Martin Seligman and the other founders of the field observed, by the end of the 20th century, clinical psychology had come to focus almost exclusively on what we don't want for ourselves and our world. It had come to focus on the study and treatment of mental illness. Positive psychology is based on the fundamental insight that treating mental illness is not the same thing as promoting mental health. Getting rid of what we don't want in our lives does not automatically bring what we do want. When I was a child, my family had a garden on my grandparents' farm. I spend a lot of summers pulling weeds out of that garden. But if we had not also planted vegetables and flowers, we would not have had a garden at all. Just a field of dirt. Intentionally planting and cultivating the corn, tomatoes, zucchini, and zinnias, we wanted to grow was an essential part of having a good harvest. This basic sense of the positive is pretty easy to understand. It's not just the absence of the negative. It refers to things we value like joy, serenity, courage, optimism, altruism, peace, perseverance, creativity, and love. And these things don't automatically come by fighting against sadness, anxiety, fear, selfishness, boredom and hatred. They have to be cultivated and nurtured. Things get rather complex though, once we move beyond the basic understanding of the positive in positive psychology. In part, this is because it's difficult to separate the positive from the negative in our lives. Can you think of something that happened in your life that at the time, you would have labeled negative, but looking back on it, you would now label positive? Even traumatic events can sometimes lead to great personal development to what researchers call post traumatic growth. Conversely, can you think of something you did that seemed positive at that time? But that now you wished you had not done. Some negative experiences lead to positive outcomes and some positive experiences lead to negative outcomes. Furthermore, the positive is complex because it's on a continuum. Some things are more positive than others. For example, we might value the deep sense of connection and meaning that can arise from helping another person. Over the sweet but fleeting feeling of doing something pleasurable for ourselves. In our lives we often find ourselves trying to decide not just what is positive, but what is optimal. In its broadest sense, the positive in positive psychology is about helping us understand how we can lead our lives well. This requires a balance between aiming for the things we want and moving away from the things we don't want. It also means keeping in mind that sometimes we need to choose the things we don't want in order to get the things we want even more. These are complex choices, and positive psychology research aims to provide us with information we can use to make them more effectively. The fundamental questions asked by positive psychology are not new. Historical records indicate that basic concerns about what makes life worth living and how to improve it have long been at the center of human attention. For millennia and across cultures, religious figures, poets, musicians, artists, philosophers, and historians have explored these questions. Confucius, living in China 2,500 years ago, was an early and influential thinker who considered these questions. He emphasized the importance of proper social relationships for individual and societal well-being. Born in Greece shortly after Confucius' death, Socrates studied the rigorous methods of inquiry philosophers had developed to understand the physical world. More interested in the human world though, Socrates applied these methods to the investigation of how to live this life well. He had a tremendous influence on Plato, who wrote many dialogue exploring a range of topics fundamental to him in flourishing. These topics includes virtue, justice, courage, piety, truth, pleasure, creativity, beauty, and love. Plato's most famous student was Aristotle, who wrote extensively about human flourishing and the character needed to achieve it. More recently, as psychology had emerge as a separate discipline in the last 150 years. Questions of how to live life well have guided the work of many psychologist. William James who has been called the father of American psychology had an intense interest in optimal human functioning. Nearly 100 years before the official founding of positive psychology, James studied what he called healthy mindedness, and called for a branch of psychology to investigate human powers and how their full range can best be unlocked in different types of people. In the mid 20th century, the humanistic psychologist Abraham Maslow emphasized the importance of human potential and the self-actualizing desire we have to realize our potential. Focusing on growth and the choices that can lead to it, he actually use the term positive psychology in his writing. The field of positive psychology arose at the end of the 20th century, when psychologist like Martin Seligman and others began developing ways of studying various aspects of positive human experience and positive human functioning scientifically. Instead of relying merely on introspection or on case studies, researchers began using rigorous empirical methods of inquiry to study the experiences, judgements, and behaviors of large numbers of people. Looking to see how these connected to outcomes of well-being and human flourishing.


1.05 (V) What Do We Mean by the "Positive" in Positive Psychology?

[MUSIC] What do we mean by the positive and positive psychology? In it's most basic sense, the positive is pretty easy to understand. It refers to what we want, for ourselves and our world. We want to feel good, we want to have close relationships with our family and friends. We want to use our unique abilities in ways that help us succeed and make the world a better place. We want our lives to have meaning. Positive phycology uses scientific methods to study these topics to try to understand what makes us flourish and to identify concrete steps we can take to increase our well-being. To understand why positive psychology has been such an important development in psychology, we need to know something of the context into which it was born. As Martin Seligman and the other founders of the field observed, by the end of the 20th century, clinical psychology had come to focus almost exclusively on what we don't want for ourselves and our world. It had come to focus on the study and treatment of mental illness. Positive psychology is based on the fundamental insight that treating mental illness is not the same thing as promoting mental health. Getting rid of what we don't want in our lives does not automatically bring what we do want. When I was a child, my family had a garden on my grandparents' farm. I spend a lot of summers pulling weeds out of that garden. But if we had not also planted vegetables and flowers, we would not have had a garden at all. Just a field of dirt. Intentionally planting and cultivating the corn, tomatoes, zucchini, and zinnias, we wanted to grow was an essential part of having a good harvest. This basic sense of the positive is pretty easy to understand. It's not just the absence of the negative. It refers to things we value like joy, serenity, courage, optimism, altruism, peace, perseverance, creativity, and love. And these things don't automatically come by fighting against sadness, anxiety, fear, selfishness, boredom and hatred. They have to be cultivated and nurtured. Things get rather complex though, once we move beyond the basic understanding of the positive in positive psychology. In part, this is because it's difficult to separate the positive from the negative in our lives. Can you think of something that happened in your life that at the time, you would have labeled negative, but looking back on it, you would now label positive? Even traumatic events can sometimes lead to great personal development to what researchers call post traumatic growth. Conversely, can you think of something you did that seemed positive at that time? But that now you wished you had not done. Some negative experiences lead to positive outcomes and some positive experiences lead to negative outcomes. Furthermore, the positive is complex because it's on a continuum. Some things are more positive than others. For example, we might value the deep sense of connection and meaning that can arise from helping another person. Over the sweet but fleeting feeling of doing something pleasurable for ourselves. In our lives we often find ourselves trying to decide not just what is positive, but what is optimal. In its broadest sense, the positive in positive psychology is about helping us understand how we can lead our lives well. This requires a balance between aiming for the things we want and moving away from the things we don't want. It also means keeping in mind that sometimes we need to choose the things we don't want in order to get the things we want even more. These are complex choices, and positive psychology research aims to provide us with information we can use to make them more effectively. The fundamental questions asked by positive psychology are not new. Historical records indicate that basic concerns about what makes life worth living and how to improve it have long been at the center of human attention. For millennia and across cultures, religious figures, poets, musicians, artists, philosophers, and historians have explored these questions. Confucius, living in China 2,500 years ago, was an early and influential thinker who considered these questions. He emphasized the importance of proper social relationships for individual and societal well-being. Born in Greece shortly after Confucius' death, Socrates studied the rigorous methods of inquiry philosophers had developed to understand the physical world. More interested in the human world though, Socrates applied these methods to the investigation of how to live this life well. He had a tremendous influence on Plato, who wrote many dialogue exploring a range of topics fundamental to him in flourishing. These topics includes virtue, justice, courage, piety, truth, pleasure, creativity, beauty, and love. Plato's most famous student was Aristotle, who wrote extensively about human flourishing and the character needed to achieve it. More recently, as psychology had emerge as a separate discipline in the last 150 years. Questions of how to live life well have guided the work of many psychologist. William James who has been called the father of American psychology had an intense interest in optimal human functioning. Nearly 100 years before the official founding of positive psychology, James studied what he called healthy mindedness, and called for a branch of psychology to investigate human powers and how their full range can best be unlocked in different types of people. In the mid 20th century, the humanistic psychologist Abraham Maslow emphasized the importance of human potential and the self-actualizing desire we have to realize our potential. Focusing on growth and the choices that can lead to it, he actually use the term positive psychology in his writing. The field of positive psychology arose at the end of the 20th century, when psychologist like Martin Seligman and others began developing ways of studying various aspects of positive human experience and positive human functioning scientifically. ポジティブ心理学の分野は、20世紀の終わりに生まれました。マーティンセリグマンなどの心理学者は、ポジティブな人間の経験とポジティブな人間の機能のさまざまな側面を科学的に研究する方法を開発し始めました。 Instead of relying merely on introspection or on case studies, researchers began using rigorous empirical methods of inquiry to study the experiences, judgements, and behaviors of large numbers of people. 単に内観や事例研究に頼るのではなく、研究者は厳密な経験的調査方法を使用して、多数の人々の経験、判断、行動を研究し始めました。 Looking to see how these connected to outcomes of well-being and human flourishing. これらが幸福と人間の繁栄の結果にどのように関係しているかを見てみましょう。