positiv Flashcards
eastern philosophy
The 4 noble truths
Eastern philosophy
The 4 noble truths
1 Suffering - Att vara en levande människa innebär en stor del fysiskt och psykiskt lidande, lidande som smärta, stress, ångest, död. Alla levande varelser är ibland i lidande. Vad är det som skapar lidande? Motvilja och begär, även impermanence, att vi klänger oss fast vid saker och vill att livet ska vara som det alltid vart.
2 The origin of suffering. En viktigt del av mänskliga lidandet är skapat av Craving, Clinging and Aversion. Då blir lidandet ökat. Människor har förmågan att förstå detta.
3 The Cessation of Suffering. Genom att förstå att rollen som Craving/clinging/aversion. Så är lycka möjligt. Om vi slutar att förstärka det som redan är dåligt och slutar att försöka undvika det oundvikliga. No selfishness, no desiring things that make us more unhappy, no fighting for social status, not being obsessed by the past and the future, etc.
4 On the way leading to the cessation. Den fjärde ädla sanningen säger att vägen till nirvana ä The eightfold path
åttafaldiiga vägen
Åttafaldiiga vägen
Samadi
Right effort 6
Striving to prevent that evil and mentally unhealthy/negative states arise and overcome them when they have arisen. Striving to produce mentally healthy/positive states and maintain them.
7
Right mindfulness:
Wakefulness, lucidity, alertness. Skillfully paying attention. Being intensely aware but without grasping or rejecting. Mindfulness of the breath, the body, sensations, outer world, emotions, thought, desires…
Right concentration: 8
Focusing trained in meditation to give stability to the mind. Leads to serenity and equilibrium, makes one less vulnerable to negative impulses, anxiety, and respond to problems with wisdom and compassion.
Vanliga komponenter i eudaemonia och hedonic i huvudsaklig positiv psykologi
Vanliga komponenter i eudaemonia och hedonic i huvudsaklig positiv psykologi
Definitions of hedonic contain:
PLEASURE
POSITIVE AFFECT, subjective wellbeing, emotionally wellbeing
ENJOYMENT
LIFE SATISFACTION
FEELING OF HAPPINESS
LOW STRESS
Definitions of eudaemonia contain:
Definitions of eudaemonia contain:
GROWTH / SELF REALIZATION / DEVELOPMENT OF POTENTIALS..
MEANING/LONG TERM PERSPECTIVE/CONTRIBUTING TO A BRODER CONTEXT
AUTHENTICITY/AUTONOMY/ INTEGRITY
VIRTUE/USING THE BEST IN ONSELF
POSITIVE RELATIONSHIPS/ SOCIAL WELL-BEING
COMPETENCE/ ENVIRONMENTAL MASTERY/ FLOW
AWARNESS/CONTEMPLATION/MINDFULNESS
The happiness formula H=S C V
H = happiness enduring, non momentary, looking your life as whole
S = biological setpoints, genetics and others psychobiological constants for wellbeing
C = external circumstances of your life aimed to increase wellbeing: money, work, social status, education, climate housing
V = voluntary activates performed to increase your internal wellbeing
C bara 10 procent
V 40 procent internal state of mind
Voluntary activities = intentional and effortful practices mediation, sport, using virtues and strengths (expressing gratitude, being compassionate, being brave.. finding flow.
Broden-and-build theory
Broden-and-build theory barbra fredriksson
The benefits of positive emotions, for long term growth and development.
Broaden our thought-action reportories, more and more varied positive thoughts, more creative, wee solutions, flexible
Undo negative emotions, joy weakens stress
Enhance resilience, help us cope better
Build psychological repertoire, reinforce social, physical, intellectual resources.
Can trigger an upward development spiral.
Positive emotions are not seen by Fredrickson as ends in themselves but as means for living a better life
These resources feed each other and as we put them into action, we generate yet morepositive emotions (such as feeling gratitude when thanking a friend for a gift or kindgesture), which in turn build yet more resources. And so the positive upward spiral ofbroadening and building takes us towards flourishing, allowing us to become our “bestversion of ourselves”.
The VIA Classification of Strengths and Virtue
Wisdom – this virtue incorporates strengths related to the acquisition and use of knowledge. creativity, perspective
Humanity – interpersonal strengths. love, kindness, social intellegence.
science of positive psychology operates on three different levels
Science of positive psychology operates on three different levels
The subjective level, the individual level and the group level.
The subjective level includes the study of positive experiences such as joy, well-being, satisfaction, contentment, happiness, optimism and flow. This level is about feeling good, rather than doing good or being a good person.
At the individual level, the aim is to identify the constituents of the ‘good life’ and the personal qualities that are necessary for being a good person
Group level, the emphasis is on civic virtues, social responsibilities, nurturance, altruism, civility, tolerance, work ethics, positive institutions and other factors that contribute to the development of citizenship and communities and reaching beyond oneself.
Emotional intelligence
Emotional intellegence
Refers to the capacity to recognize and manage our own emotions and the emotions of others close to us.
It is often claimed to be more important than IQ for career success and for achievement of one’s life goals.
Perceiving emotions This is an ability to identify emotional messages in facial expressions
Managing emotions Emotional management or regulation is not about eliminating troubling emotions (life would be limited if this was the case), but about learning how to gain control over them.
Hedonism
Aristippus njutning är meningen med livet, så mycket som möjligt med en gång. Nästan som dagens samhälle.
Aristippus: ´´the art of life lies in taking pleasures as they pass and the keenest pleasures are not intellectual, nor are they always moral´´
Målet är inte lycka eftersom det är tröttsamt att samla nöjen som ger glädje. Dygder är användbara endast om de genererar omedelbara nöjen.
Istället: välj njutningen på direkten istället för att vänta på mer lycka i framtiden.
Vilka är de troliga hedonistiska argumenten mot nutida självisk hedonism?
Gemensam självisk hedonism:
“Dina nuvarande nöjen kan förstöra dina framtia nöjen”
Moral hedonism: “dina egoistiska nöjen kan förstöra andras nöjen
Eudaemonism
Eudaemonism
Aristotele
The highest good = what is desirable for itself, is not desirable for the sake of some other good, and all other goods are desirable for its sake = happiness (eudaimonia)
Eudaimon har två meningar, eu betyder god och daimon betyder divinity
Att vara Eudaimon (lycklig/flourishing) är högsta målet och alla andra mål som hälsa, rikedom eftersträvas eftersom det främjar det, inte för att välbefinnande består av det.
What differentiates the humanity from other species is
our capacity to guide ourselves by using reason - to be intelligent, to think well.
Att leva väl (eudaimon) betyder att leva rationellt, vilket innebär att utveckla sina personlighets drag som människor behöver för att leva livet till det bästa/yttersta
Viktigt: Happiness is, hence, not an experience or a feeling, happiness is eudaemonia, is acting/being virtuous
Aristoteles:
But one needs also other goods, as friends, wealth, health, power, därför att ens eudaemonia är hotat om man är extremt fattig, ful, förlorat barn eller goda vänner
Epicurus 341-270 BC
Epicurus: pleasure is all that matters fo the good life.
However, not momentary pleasures but a life full of pleasure.
Therefore, we should not seek every pleasure, some pleasures generate later pain and we should not avoid all pains, because some lead to greater pleasures.
The aim of life is not maximizing pleasures but real pleasure is freedom from pain and distress = the highest pleasure.
(Högsta njutning är att vara en dygdig människa, generös, snäll, vänlig. Inte dricka alkohol. Vara en människa som är nykter och lugn) vara i trädgården och äta goda oliver med vänner och familj.
Epicurus is, in part, an eudaemonist because for him virtue is necessary for happiness. Still, he does not identify virtues activity, in whole or in part, with happiness (as the stoics or Aristotle do). Virtue is just an instruments for pleasure.
Stoicism
Njutning inte viktigt. Utveckla dygder är allt. Tyckte att cynikerna hade rätt, men var bekvämare.
The stoics held that virtue, wisdom, courage, justice and temperance is necessary and sufficient for happiness/eudaimonia. Pleasure has nothing to do with it. But it is sometimes just a preffered indifferent.
The virtues person, by simply being virtuous, has everything that matters for happiness, and thus can be deprived of wealth, health, pleasure… without losing what is sufficient for happiness: virtue
However things that are ´índifferents´´pleasure,money,status,power, sex.. can contribute to hapiness/euadimonia BUT only as a part of a virtuous life.
Exercising virtue implies understanding the real value of pleasure, money etc. by just, self-controlled, wise and courageous when in contact with these indiffirents
Kan ha funnit en historisk koppling med buddhismen, alexander den store va i indien och kan ha fått kontakt med buddhism. KBT inspirerat av Stoicism.
More wellbeing?
1 train your body 2 train your mind 3 be kind to others 4 value and thank for, what is positive in life and people 5 use virtues and strengths
Compassion
Existence is seen in Buddhism as characterized by impermanence and suffering
According to Buddha, there is no permanent, substantial, self and to get rid of the belief in its existence is a fundamental source of wellbeing.
Being free from egocentrism, selfishness, self-obsession… contributes to attain the highest forms of wellbeing.
Without self-obsession and selfishness, you experience the suffering of others as so important as your own (through compassion) and their happiness as important as yours (through lovingkindness).
Definitions of hedonia contain
Definitions of hedonia contain:
- Pleasure
- Positive affect, subjective wellbeing, emotional wellbeing
- Enjoyment •Life satisfaction
- Feelings of happiness
- Low distress/comfort/relaxation
Definitions of eudaimonia contain:
Definitions of eudaimonia contain:
Growth/self-realization/development of potentials
Meaning/long-term perspective/contributing to a broader context
Authenticity/autonomy/integrity Virtue/using the best in oneself
Positive relationships/social well-being
Competence/environmental mastery/flow
Awareness/contemplation/mindfulness
SELF-DETERMINATION THEORY:
three fundamental/universal needs for:
•Autonomy (choosing one’s life), •Competence (trusting one’s capacities) •Relatedness (having close and safe social relations
AUTHENTIC HAPPINESS:
the authentic happiness
model got upgraded to a well-being model, consisting of the same three elements plus an extra two – accomplishment (the pursuit of achievement, success and winning for their own sake) and relationships (connecting with other people). The first letters of all the five components result in PERMA
PERMA
Positive Emotion •Engagement •Relationships •Meaning •Accomplishments
Happiness (SWB
Subjective well-being (SWB)
is a self-reported measure of well-being, typically obtained by questionnaire.
It posits “three distinct but often related components of wellbeing:
frequent positive affect,
infrequent negative affect,
and cognitive evaluations such as life satisfaction
Cognition and Emotion
COGNITION
(common-sense approach): language, problem solving, decision making, attention, memory…
EMOTION (common-sense approach):
“things that happen in the body” (heart rate, sweating, gestures…), difficult to control and apparently immune to reasoning (= “irrational”), related to pleasure and pain, they make us act…
Boniwells shopping list
Empirically validated Interventions to increase wellbeing:
Boniwells shopping list
Three good things
Every night for a week, look back at your day just before you go to bed and think of three things that went well for you during the day. Write them down and reflect on your role in them.
A gratitude visit
Think of a person you feel grateful to for something that they have done for you in the past. Pick up a piece of paper – or your laptop – and write a letter to them, describing what they did and what effect it had on you and your life.
Random acts of kindness
Options can range from donating blood to taking your neighbour’s dog for a walk, from visiting your elderly aunt to giving someone a free tube ticket.
Active-constructive responding
First, we should try to understand what happened – through paying close attention to the person, listening, asking questions, being interested and enthusiastic. The second stage is celebration and capitalizing on the success – open a bottle of champagne, call your close relatives and friends to tell them the news,
Identifying and using signature strengths
Try to use these strengths more often during the following week and notice how this makes you feel. This exercise won’t make you happy for ever, but it can improve your mood quite dramatically in the short term
Using your strengths in a new way
If one of your signature strengths is love of learning, you may choose to spend a couple of hours researching a topic that always interested you in some way. If it is appreciation of beauty and excellence, you might enjoy spending your lunch hour visiting a museum [you may also be interested to know that a half-hour museum visit dramatically reduces the concentration of the stress hormone cortisol in your body
Savouring
Noticing and savouring life’s small and big positive occurrences is a powerful tool for increasing one’s overall well-being. We can find them in our daily lives or intentionally focus on specific activities. Positive psychologists have identified several techniques that promote savouring,
Physical exercise
Best possible self
Consider a desired future image of yourself – imagine that everything has gone the way you hoped for, that you have achieved what you aimed for, that your best potentials have come to be realized. Write about and vividly imagine yourself in that future and continue engaging with this exercise for the course of four weeks. This exercise enhances optimism and helps to achieve a better integration between one’s priorities and goals
Positive reminiscence
What are signature strengths?
They are linked to personality traits.
Signature strengths are those that represent ‘the real you’, bringing a feeling of excitement when you discover and use them.
A person excels in their signature strengths quickly, has a sense of yearning to put them into practice and feels invigorated and intrinsically motivated when using them.
Once the signature strengths are discovered, they can be applied to areas such as work, relationships, play and parenting
