Positive Psychology And Happiness
How does Positive Psychology contribute to our understanding of health and happiness?
This essay begins by looking at the definitions of happiness, health, and well-being. It then moves on to speaking about happiness and the areas of study related to happiness within Positive Psychology. From there, the Hedonic and Eudaimonic views on happiness are discussed, as well as the Broaden and Build theory of positive experiences and emotions. Then the essay briefly covers the topic of well-being, before specifically focusing on stress management, and finally offering a critique of Positive Psychology’s contributions to our understanding of health and happiness.
To begin, there is a distinction between happiness and well-being. Happiness can best
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The Hedonic view comprises more of the Pleasant Life, while the Eudaimonic view comprises more of the Meaningful Life. The Hedonic view concerns itself with an individual’s personal evaluation of how much “good” there is in their life. Happiness is subjective, and measured empirically. If a person is satisfied with the amount of “good” they have, they will feel satisfied, and any positive emotion or experience after that will add to their happiness. The Eudaimonic view proposes that happiness is more than just an emotion and a sense of satisfaction, and is instead reliant on self-realization. The Eudaimonic approach to happiness explores things like delayed gratification, exercising, morals and values. It is proposed that that by living in accordance with morals, a personal code of ethics, one’s perception of oneself and what’s important in the world; one can achieve happiness and a greater sense of well-being than one may be able to …show more content…
(Compton, 2005) In this attempt to explain the purpose of positive emotion Frederickson proposes that positive emotion broadens one’s awareness and encourages exploration, which over time leads to a building of resources and skills. By contrast, negative emotions cause more narrow behaviours, usually concerned with immediate survival or safety. When linked with our understanding of happiness so far, and the proposed views on happiness, It could be posited that the Broaden and Build theory implies a type of snowball effect. By experiencing enough positivity over a period of time, people acquire skills and resources that may be hedonically evaluated as “good”, or eudaimonically used to increase overall well-being. This could then lead to temporarily increased happiness, which may lead to more exploratory thoughts and behaviour as proposed by
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