Positive Psychology: The Science of Happiness

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Positive Psychology: The Science of Happiness

Ever heard the expression, "If you want to be happy, study happpiness"?

Well, positive psychology is the empirical study of human happiness and its related states of joy, thriving, fulfillment, engagement, and flow.

Whereas traditional psychology operates using a medical model to diagnose and treat mental illness, positive psychology instead shines a light on human happiness and tries to understand its inner workings.

In short, traditional psychology asks, "What's wrong and how do we fix it? How do we cure mental illness?"

On the other hand, positive psychology asks,

positive emotion

"When people are really happy, what's going on? And, how do we take what's working and build it into our lives?"

Now, I do not mean to disparage traditional psychology. Traditional psychology has helped the world in many wonderful ways and helps people build self-awareness and decrease suffering.

However, decreasing suffering is not necessarily equal to a positive state of happiness.

Martin Seligmann, a former head of the American Psychological Association and a prominent researcher, uses this analogy:

On a sliding scale of happiness, traditional psychology tries to get you from -7 to +1 and make a tough situation less bad. Positive psychology focuses on helping you get from +1 to +10; positive psychology tries to take an okay situation and make it incredible.

The core idea in positive psychology is that in the study of human happiness, we shine a light on what's right and what's working. This approach has several major tenets.

FOCUS ON STRENGTHS
Positive psychology focuses on building upon natural strengths for lasting happiness.

If you'd like to assess your natural character strengths, please visit Authentic Happiness, Martin Seligmann's website. You can take the VIA Survey of Character Strengths under engagement questionnaires. (It's free.) There are also many other wonderful free questionnaires there as well.

Also, please check out my Using Your Strengths page for more information.

FLOW AND ENGAGEMENT
Drawing upon your signature strengths, using them frequently, and being "vitally engaged in life" can build the state of flow.

In essence, flow is when you are "in the zone."

flow

Although we associate being "in the zone" with elite athletes and creative geniuses, most people have some times when they experience flow.

The researcher Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, the master researcher on flow, lists the following as typical of states of flow:

No self-consciousness
Merging of action and awareness
Sense of control
Intrinsic motivation
Balance of skills and challenge
Time transformation - seems to stop or even passes without you noticing it

Think about your own life. When do you experience flow? It could be anything that draws upon your signature talents - sports, writing, presenting, coaching, art, problem solving. Most people can isolate specific activities - or times they performed those activities - when they slip into flow.

GRATITUDE
Another core idea is the cultivation of gratitude. Research reveals that although each of us generally has a set point for happiness, we can increase our happiness over the long term by cultivating gratitude.

Keeping a Gratitude Journal is an excellent practice recommended by positive psychologists. This exercise, which will help you train yourself to be grateful for what you have, can have a profound effect in your outlook. Here's how it works:

Each night before bed, write down three things that went well that day.
Next to each thing that went well that day, write down your role in making each happen. For example, you might write: "Good lunch with John. B/c I'm a thoughtful friend."

In addition to gratitude journals, positive psychologists also recommend taking time to cultivate strong relationships and to savor beautiful moments, events, and things.

Another practice in positive psychology is building optimism, a trait of happy people. Here's a practice called One Door Closes/One Door Opens:

Think back through your life and identify times when loss or suffering happened. Then, think about what good thing came out of each situation. What door opened when one closed? What do you notice. Then, apply this to today. What good thing might come out of a tough situation?

POSITIVE EMOTIONS
Positive psychologists also examine the power of positive emotions. Barbara Federickson, a researcher at UNC Chapel Hill, has researched the power positive emotions have to help us "broaden and build." That is, they broaden our perspective and help us build valuable social resources and relationships that build happiness and support us in tough times.

In her research, one powerful way to build positive emotions is Loving-Kindness meditation. If you're interested in trying it, please see my types of meditation page for instructions.

Positive Psychology has brought the world a wonderful gift and rapidly advanced the understanding of human happiness.

While philosophers and spiritual traditions have long debated the roads to happiness, this new field has brought scientific empirical tools to measure the things that actually change people's experience of happiness.

If you are interested in being happy - which most people are - I would strongly encourage you to read more.

I would recommend starting with Authentic Happiness, by Martin Seligmann. This book provides an excellent overview of the emergence of this new field and its major principles.

Then, there are many excellent books by some of the most prominent researchers:

Martin Seligmann (foundations of positive psychology)
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (flow, engagement)
Barbara Frederickson (positive emotions)
Tal Ben Shahar (daily practices for happiness)

Enjoy!

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