Positive Psychology Issues - Report Example

figure (i) depicts happiness and subjective well being. Hapiness ensures indivudual satisfaction leading to the the development of joyful family and society at large.

Figure (ii) symbolized hope. Young people are said to be more hopeful than the aged. This is because of their vast energy and deap zeal to accomplishing their present and future plans. Some the youths’ goals include acieving a career goal and a happy family. Their strong feeling of hope thus gives them the assurance of meating them throgh a strong focus that when combined with gratitude increases their happiness.

Figure (iii) on the other hand depicts positive psychology. This enables the development of mentally healthy positive character who can fit well in the society. It further helps in imparting virtues into individuals. Among these virtues is gratitutude which erradicated any feeling of sadness and stress. This calls for thanks giving, even for small things, every single day.

• Conclusion

Other than focusing on the negative aspect of life as was the case in historical psychologists as shown by Seligman (2010), the positive psychology aims at the establishment of positive human and boosting of psychological well-being. This was first embraced by Seligman in 1998 during his speech to the Psychological Association of America, where he asked psychologists to refocus their ideas on participating in the development of positive life as opposed to focusing on repairing negative aspects of life (Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000). As such, psychologist should aim at eradicating life misery through the creation of measures geared towards the intervention of negative human life aspects. By working on morals, psychologists should endeavor on imparting virtues that lead to good character molding, such as forgiveness and gratitude, which are key in ensuring positive human development and social fitting of individuals.

Positive psychology leads to the development of different strengths: starting from that of character, heart and minds. Character strength helps community members to have strong sense of self-satisfaction while that of mind appreciates human nature. Strength of the heart on the hand is essential to humans as it is the one that aids in the establishment of strong social interaction thus shaping individuals’ social life. In addition, the combination of the above psychological strengths has also been shown by various studies to aid in fastening human recovery from illness, meaning that focusing on the positive psychology is invaluable in the repair of social negatives.

Further, positive psychology aids in imparting strong meaning to life through its incorporation with various religions. Positive psychology aids in strengthening individuals already with social virtues as well as impart them into those who do not have them. This is because individual well-being is highly dependent on happiness, which is founded on social virtues that ensure fulfilment of human desire of being happy. Positive psychology boosts subjective well-being which consists of cognitive and affective components. Studies have shown that boosting individuals’ health leads to improvement in productivity: both in work and in the society (Diener & Chan, 2011). In addition, wellbeing has been shown to increase the life expectancy of individuals including those that live with physical illnesses as advocated by Lamers et al. (2012).

Age acts as factor to individual’s level of hope. Aged society members (around sixty year and above) have been shown to be less hopeful with life due to reduced determination of handling their set goals as opposed to the energetic youth and middle aged persons. The responsibility of caring for the other family members has also been shown to be a contributor to the reduced hope in the old community members. However, young parents at the child bearing age are more hopeful than those nearing their job retirement age as the later are much concerned with the utilization of the retirement resources and their health thus reducing their focus on goal realization. Goals change with individual’s age, as such, throughout the period of being young and of middle age, individual usually manage to meet some of their set goals, such the career choice (Hofstetter & Cohen, 2014). External pressure such as the trends of the economy also challenges aged individuals’ ability to maintain their direction of life as they act as stumbling blocks.

Furthermore, individual’s marital status plays a vital role in determining one’s hopefulness. This is determined by the nature of the relationship. Relationships where couples appreciate and value each other cultivate strong hope as opposed to being in unenduring marriage. That notwithstanding, individuals from broken marriages, either through divorce or separation caused by partner’s death, have little hope in comparison with the happily married society members. This can be explained by the fact that separation of any form among the married means withdrawal of the partner’s support and contribution towards the realization of any set goals thus making one weak and less determined. In addition, when a formally married individual is left alone, he/ she experiences increased parenting burden as responsibilities are no longer shared. Such unshared family tasks may thus mean increased strain on one’s resources and income. Therefore, this forces one to handle current family concerns neglecting any future plans that the family may have had. However, notable difference between the married and the singles in term of hope may fail to noticed, this is because many singles live such lives from choice to enjoy freedom which they purport to be their joy (Baranowska, Matysiak & Mynarska, 2014).

Subjective well-being has various definitions including virtuous or holiness, positive living, or positive effect obtained through pleasant individual emotions. Members of the society maintain this as an emotional mindset that prevails both at times of joy and in its absence. Studies have shown that subjective well-being consists of three characteristics. These include being subjective to individual’s experience, existence of positive measures and assessment of all persons’ life in all aspects.

Major studies have shown the following to be the real cause of happiness:

• Subjective satisfaction: This links subjective wellbeing to the conditions that are objective. As such, satisfying and individual’s needs, has been shown to be a great source of happiness as this reduced stress and maintains the mind in good moods.
• Income: studies have shown income to be directly proportional to one’s subjective well-being. Further, income as a factor is directly related to satisfaction which then leads to increased happiness. This explains why many studies have found that wealthier individuals live happier life as compared to the poor in a society. This is because rich people do not undergo mental stress looking for satisfaction to their basic needs. However, such difference is only evident in societies where extreme income gaps exist. This is because in communities where wealth is fairly distributed among members, there lacks individuals living in extreme poverty, meaning that all members can afford basic needs thus income levels no longer serves as distinguishing factor between those who live in happiness and those who do not.
• Individual’s personality: Internal personal attitude determines individual’s level of happiness more than external factors. Human brains have the ability to cope in any condition more so through the strong hope for better tomorrow. This has further been supported by various studies that have shown demographic factors to have a secondary influence on person’s happiness when compared with one’s personality, which is in most cases based on individual’s attitude.
• Biological influences: Individual well-being as per Schwanen and Wang (2014) is contributed to by three major factors: genetics, intentional activities and circumstances caused by life. Studies indicate that genes contribute up to 50% of the wellbeing variance. Intentional activities such as good behavior and positive cognition gave about 40% of variance as pointed out by Lyubomirsky et al. (2011), while life circumstances such marital status and income contribute around 10% variance on individual’s happiness. Studies have also suggested that subjective wellbeing can be enhanced through individual involvement in social activities including expression of gratitude.

Link between gratitude and well-being

Emmons and McCullough (2003), argue that gratitude carries some of the properties of happiness. This can further be proven through the broaden-and-build theory advocated for by Fredrickson (2001). The theory reiterates that thinking, as well as attention can be broadened through the acquisition of positive emotions. Similarly, gratitude has further been argued to be cultivated through individual reciprocation, leading to the development persevering personal character which then leads to the ones well-being.

Coping hypothesis can further be used to show the link between gratitude and well-being. The hypothesis suggests that grateful people manage to fit in a community through some given strategies that enable them to tolerate. These strategies include seeking social support both emotionally and instrumentally, establishing adaptive behavior to social conditions and handling social problems with open mind that enables them to cope as well as find possible benefits from the problems faced. As such, these strategies enable them to cultivate more appreciation to life and avoid stress. This is because stress has been shown to arise from individual’s inability to cope with situations challenging his/her mental ability. Due to this, appreciative people manage to live stress free life with stabilized feeling that ensure one’s well-being (Wood et al., 2007).

Gratitude also enables one to count and appreciate blessings. This includes viewing individual’s positive occurrences as blessings and being thankful for them. Through this, one is thus able to enhance his/her well-being by neglecting life constrains that minimize a person’s chances of rejoicing. Such situations utilize gratitude as a coping technique at times of adversity through the recollection of former happy moments, an approach that helps in diverting attention from the difficulties and limitations to a rejoicing mood. From this account, it is thus clear that as gratitude serves a strong ointment to challenging life instances by ensuring accommodating mindset that enables one to remain happy and be able to interact well with the other society members thus establishing strong social relationship and well-being.

Reference

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