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Appendix A: Annotated Bibliography for a Positive Social Science
Appendix B: Mission Statement and Conclusions of Akumal 1
Appendix C: The Grand Cayman Meeting Minutes
Appendix D: Book Series Prospectus: Advances in Positive Psychology/Human Strengths
Appendix E: Studying Truly Extraordinary People: Minutes of a Meeting
Appendix F: Tentative Table of Contents for The American Psychologist, January 2000
Positive Psychology: Proposal for a Network
Martin E.P. Seligman
Professor of Psychology
University of Pennsylvania
1998 President
American Psychological Association
Appendix A: Annotated Bibliography for a Positive Social Science
Contributors:
Positive Subjective Experience
Lisa Aspinwall, Ph.D. Barb Fredrickson, Ph.D.
University of Maryland University of Michigan
with the considerable assistance of
Doug Hill and Jong Han Kim
University of Maryland
The Positive Person/The Positive Life
Laura A. King, Ph.D. Jon Haidt, Ph.D.
Southern Methodist University University of Virginia
with the considerable assistance of
Christie K. Napa
Southern Methodist University
The Positive Community
Dov Cohen, Ph.D. Jon Haidt, Ph.D.
University of Illinois-Urbana University of Virginia
Corey Keyes, Ph.D.
Emory University
with the considerable assistance of
William Altermatt and Joe Vandello
University of Illinois
Laura A. King, Ph.D., Chair
Associate Professor of Psychology
Southern Methodist University
Dallas, TX 75275-0442
Table of Contents
| Preface | Page |
| Figure 1 (attached) | |
| I. Positive Subjective Experience | 1 |
| A. General Positive Emotions and Affect | 2 |
| B. Distinctions Among Positive Subjective States | 5 |
| 1. Subjective Well Being and Happiness | 7 |
| 2. Flow/Enjoyment | 9 |
| 3. Joy/Play | 9 |
| 4. Interest/Intrinsic Motivation | 11 |
| 5. Optimism and Hope | 11 |
| 6. Future-Oriented Feelings | 16 |
| 7. Task Related Feelings | 17 |
| A. Effectance/Mastery | 18 |
| B. Velocity/Progress Toward Goals | 18 |
| C. Challenge Appraisals/Physiological Correlates | 19 |
| 8. Serenity/Relaxation/Calm | 21 |
| 9. “Shared Fate” Or “We-Ness” | 21 |
| II. The Positive Person/Positive Life | 24 |
| A. Defining the Good Life | 25 |
| B. Satisfaction with Life/Happiness | 28 |
| C. Meaning and Purpose | 30 |
| D. Productivity/Self Control | 33 |
| E. Creativity, Talent, Genius | 36 |
| F. Self Determination/Intrinsic Motivation/Autonomy | 39 |
| G. Resilience/Coping | 43 |
| H. Moral Goodness/Empathy & Altruism | 45 |
| I. Religion | 52 |
| J. Courage | 54 |
| K. Generativity and Wisdom | 56 |
| L. Intimacy/Love | 59 |
| III. The Positive Community | 63 |
| A. Visions of The Good Society | 64 |
| B. Fairness, Justice, Autonomy | 67 |
| C. Cultural Achievement | 70 |
| D. Health and Mental Health | 72 |
| E. Cooperation and Interpersonal Relationships | 74 |
| F. Physical Environment |
Preface
“shall we not, like archers who have a mark to aim at,
be more likely to hit upon what we should?
If so, we must try, in outline at least, to determine what it is…”
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Book I
The Structure of the Bibliography
The structure of the bibliography is conceived as a pyramid (see Figure 1)—starting from the very specific micro-level phenomena of positive emotions and broadening and embedding those phenomena into the good person and the good life. The person is then broadened and embedded into the consideration of the community. The movement from specific to broad is also reflected in the breadth of disciplines included in each section. The positive subject experience section contains work that is drawn primarily from psychology, psychophysiology, and some ethology. This consideration includes a consideration of the shades of positive emotion and the role of emotion in coping, goal directed activity, and self-regulation. Finally, some consideration is given to the cultural context of emotion. The next level is the positive person and life. At this level, work is drawn primarily from psychology, philosophy, and sociology. Consideration is given to historical treatments of The Good Life. In addition, empirical work and theoretical perspectives on human strengths such resilience, generativity, productivity, and meaning making are included. The person is then broadened into the essential relationships—marriage, family and friendships—how we contribute to our communities and how we leave a legacy for the next generation. This broadening leads logically to a consideration of the broadest level—the good community. Here research is included from the disciplines of sociology, anthropology, psychology, political science, economics, and philosophy. At this macro-level consideration is given to the institutional forces that influence and shape the positive life.
The Fuzzy Boundaries of the Bibliography
It is worthwhile to consider some of the overlap that is implicit in the three divisions. As can be seen in Figure 1, at the borders of the divisions we have some of the most important goods of life—subjective well-being, goal striving, relationships, generativity. It is worthwhile to consider the ways in which the different levels impinge on and implicate each other. For example, all of the divisions consider motivation. At the level of subjective positive experience, we have the emotional experiences of “interest” and flow which provide the affective core of intrinsic motivation. Regulating interest is a crucial element of self-regulation which, in turn, contributes to achievement, which itself occurs and is given meaning within a cultural context. Another demonstration of the interplay between emotional experience and the person is goal striving. Most theories of the good life include a sense of purpose that is provided by meaningful goals toward which an individual may strive. Theories of self regulation (e.g., Carver & Scheier, 1990) emphasize the way that positive and negative moods serve as a gauge of progress in goal pursuit. A final example is provided by the interplay of physical environment and emotion. Environmental factors such as crowding impinge on the subjective emotional state, in turn contributing to the capacity for prosocial or antisocial behavior.
One caveat about categorization: In no case should the classification of an entry be considered more important than the entry itself. The degree of overlap was evident immediately when all three sections included identical articles in their first drafts. Prime examples are work on perceived control and environmental factors or life satisfaction and positive mental health. Such research crosses into all three areas of the bibliography. Rather than debate the placement of a specific entry, most items appear where the contributors felt they belonged. No one area was viewed as sovereign. The divisions exist for ease of navigation and nothing else.
I. Positive Subjective Experience
Prepared by
Lisa G. Aspinwall
University of Maryland
Barbara L. Fredrickson
University of Michigan
With the assistance of
Doug Hill, University of Maryland
JongHan Kim, University of Maryland
We are grateful to Sonja Lyubomirsky and Nick Kuiper for the entries under subjective well-being and happiness and humor, respectively.
This bibliography was assembled as a guide for the creation of a positive psychology research node on Positive Subjective Experience to be headed by Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi, University of Chicago. The selection of works was guided by the goal of understanding the nature and function of different positive subjective states, their antecedents, their consequences, and their potential for promoting individual and social well-being. Specific topics of interest include 1) feelings of subjective well-being and happiness, 2) future-oriented positive feelings, such as optimism and hope, 3) emotions associated with goal-striving, such as effectance, interest, and flow, 4) socially-oriented positive feelings, such as love, fellow-feeling, and belonging, 5) feelings of peace, calm, relaxation, transcendence, gratitude, acceptance and faith; and 6) cross-cultural differences in the nature and function of the above states.
The scientific study of positive subjective experience has suffered from two unfortunate trends in the field of psychology. The first is the view of positive states as trivial. For many years -- and even today -- the prevailing view of positive feelings are that they are trivial, ephemeral, unworthy of scientific study, and even potentially dangerous, as they are feared to compromise careful thinking, productive behavior, and prudent action. The second trend is to paint all positive states with the same broad brush instead of examining distinctions among different positive states. While there are some common properties and functions of positive states, there are also some important, intriguing, and understudied differences. As a result of these two unfortunate tendencies in the field, the study of negative feelings in all their forms is predominant, and we know relatively little about different kinds of positive subjective experience and their relation to thinking, behavior, social interaction, and health. We know even less about cross-cultural similarities and differences in the nature and function of positive subjective experience.
A central goal of the proposed node is the rigorous scientific study of such experiences, their antecedents, and their consequences. Elucidating these aspects of positive feelings will allow the development of individual, situational, and community level interventions to promote goods feelings as the strong social bonds, human productivity, and creativity they seem to foster. Such research also has the potential to yield valuable insights in the areas of neuroscience, immunology, social behavior, creativity, parenting, teaching, and self-regulation. To this end, we have highlighted strong empirical and/or theoretical contributions to the study of positive subjective experience in a number of life domains.
A. GENERAL POSITIVE EMOTIONS AND POSITIVE AFFECT
Ashby, F. G., Isen, A. M., & Turken, A. U. (in press). A neurological theory of positive affect and its influence on cognition. Psychological Review.
This paper advances a new theory about the brain mechanisms that underlie the effects of positive emotions on cognitive processes. The authors suggest that increased levels of circulating dopamine in two specific areas of the frontal cortex create the more flexible and open processing style characteristic of positive subjective states. Supportive empirical evidence drawn from multiple research laboratories is reviewed. This paper is likely to be highly influential as it is the first to draw from multiple levels of analysis to examine the neuropsychological mechanisms underlying the effects of positive mood on creativity and decision making. The paper’s conclusions also call attention to the role of the executive attention system in many of the more intriguing phenomena involving flexibility in judgment and behavior among people in a positive mood.
Aspinwall, L. G. (1998). Rethinking the role of positive affect in self-regulation. Motivation and Emotion, 22, 1-32.
This article reviews recent evidence that suggests that positive mood may play a beneficial, multifaceted, and flexible role in self-regulatory processes that cannot be explained by most current theories. In contrast to the view the positive moods compromise careful thinking or lead people to avoid negative information, evidence suggests that, under some conditions positive mood seems to facilitate careful processing of goal-relevant information, even negative information. Additionally, evidence suggests that people in a positive mood respond more flexibly and constructively to important information about themselves and their environments. Three theoretical frameworks (mood as input, processing advantages conferred by positive mood, and mood as resource) that may account for these facilitating effects of positive mood on self-regulation are discussed. These processes may work together to explain the benefits of positive mood on a wide range of tasks.
Cabanac, M. (1992). Pleasure: The common currency. Journal of Theoretical Biology, 155, 173-200.
This article advances Cabanac’s earlier work that demonstrates that pleasure signals biological usefulness. According to this view, any stimulus that corrects an “internal trouble” will be experienced as pleasurable. Experiences of pleasure, in turn, motivate and individuals to pursue these biologically useful stimuli.
Fredrickson, B. L. (1998). What good are positive emotions? Review of General Psychology, 2, 300-319.
Noting first that positive emotions do not fit existing models of emotion, this paper advances a new evolutionary theory to describe the form and ancestral function of a subset of positive states, including joy, interest, contentment, and love. This new model posits that these positive emotions serve to broaden an individual’s momentary thought-action repertoire, which in turn has the effect of building that individual’s physical, intellectual, and social resources. Empirical evidence for the broaden-and-build model is reviewed, and implications for emotion regulation and health promotion are discussed.
Fredrickson, B. L. & Levenson, R. W. (1998). Positive emotions speed recovery from the cardiovascular sequelae of negative emotions. Cognition and Emotion, 12, 191-220.
This paper introduces and provides empirical support for the undoing effect of positive emotions. Positive emotions, the authors argue, have a special capacity to undo the cardiovascular reactivity that lingers following negative emotions. Thus, whereas negative emotions may prepare individuals for specific actions, positive emotions may undo this preparation, efficiently restoring quiescence.
Folkman, S. (1997). Positive psychological states and coping with severe stress. Social Science Medicine, 45, 1207-1221.
This article advances a revised model of coping processes that, for the first time, gives positive emotions a key role. Even in the midst of severely distressing events, such as care-giving and bereavement, people experience positive emotions. Folkman links these positive emotions to people’s efforts to find positive meaning within their adverse circumstances. Positive emotions not only give people momentary relief from their distress, but also energize and sustain coping efforts. Supportive evidence from Folkman’s research program on bereaved caregiver is featured.
Isen, A.M., & Levin, P.F. (1972). Effect of feeling good on helping: Cookies and kindness. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 21, 384-388.
In the first paper to link positive subjective experience to prosocial behavior, the authors report two experiments that show that people experiencing positive affect or “a warm glow” are more likely to help others. Both studies were conducted in naturalistic settings (a library and a shopping mall). The first study showed that people who have just received a cookie unexpectedly are more likely to volunteer for a study in which they would be helping another person, but less likely to volunteer for a study in which they would be distracting and hindering another person. In the second experiment, participants who had just found a dime in a pay-phone change slot were more likely to help a confederate who had dropped some papers. These studies suggest that positive affect plays an important role in helping behavior. Apparently, when people feel good, they are more willing to help others. Positive feelings may lead people to behave in ways that maintain them and may also alter how they view the costs and rewards of helping others.
Isen, A. M. (1987). Positive affect, cognitive processes, and social behavior. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 20, 203-253.
In this classic paper Alice Isen reviews her program of experimental laboratory research on the cognitive and social effects of positive affect. She evidence shows that positive emotions “enlarge the cognitive context.” The thinking styles of people experiencing positive affect are more creative, flexible, and open. Her data also show that, perhaps as a consequence, positive affect also enhances altruistic behavior.
Isen, A.M. (1993). Positive affect and decision making. In M. Lewis & J.M. Haviland (Eds.), Handbook of emotions (pp. 261-277). New York: Guilford.
In this comprehensive review, Isen maintains that positive mood has distinct and salutary effects on cognitive processes, such as creativity, problem solving, and decision making. Some of these gains may be due to the impact of positive mood on the retrieval of information from memory. Specifically, to the extent that positive valence serves as a large organizational category in memory, positive mood primes diverse and unusual associations and more flexible categorization of stimuli that may facilitate creative decisions and effective problem solving. An especially important aspect of Isen’s conceptualization is that positive mood (and people’s motivation to maintain it) leads to avoidance of negative information only when such avoidance has relatively few costs (i.e., when the task is unimportant). Specifically, Isen argues that people in a positive mood will avoid only nonessential stimuli that are incompatible with their mood; if negative information is urgent or essential (i.e., when real loss is possible), people in a positive mood will expend cognitive effort to process this information with no discernible disadvantage. Consistent with this view, Isen and her colleagues find that people in a positive mood sensibly avoid large risks in several studies of risk-taking and gambling. Finally, Isen reviews her large set of rigorous experimental studies showing that positive mood facilitates some kinds of complex decision making and problem solving in important real-world contexts, such as medical decision making. These results suggest that people in a positive mood not only solve problems more quickly, but also more thoroughly and efficiently.
Kahneman, D., Diener, E., & Schwarz, N. (1999). Well-being: Foundations of hedonic psychology. New York: Russell Sage.
This forthcoming edited volume explores the emotional underpinnings of subjective well-being from a variety of perspectives. The opening chapter by Kahneman offers a provocative new model for measuring “objective happiness” by tracking momentary variations in people’s subjective states.
CONTRIBUTORS: Daniel Kahneman, Arthur A. Stone, Saul S. Shiffman, Martin DeVries, Randy J. Larsen, Barbara L. Fredrickson, Norbert Schwarz, Fritz Strack, George Loewenstein, David Schkade, Paul Rozin, Michael Kubovy, Eric Eich, Ian A. Brodkin, John L. Reeves, Anuradha F. Chawla, William N. Morris, Nico H. Frijda, Ed Diener, Richard E. Lucas, Nancy Cantor, Catherine A. Sanderson, E. Tory Higgins, Heidi Grant, James Shah, Howard Berenbaum, Chitra Raghaven, Huynh-Nhu Le, Laura Vernon, Jose Gomez, Christopher Peterson, Shane Frederick, Susan Nolen-Hoeksema, Cheryl L. Rusting, Michael Argyle, David G. Myers, Peter Warr, Bernard M.S. Van Praag, Paul Frijters, Eunkook Suh, Robert Sapolsky, Tiffany A. Ito, John C. Cacioppo, Joseph LeDoux, Peter Shizgal, Kent C. Berridge, Bartley G. Hoebel.
Lewis, M. & Haviland, J. M. (1993). Handbook of Emotions. New York, NY: Guilford Press.
The goal of this edited volume was to begin an interdisciplinary dialogue on current research on emotion. The first section has useful disciplinary summaries for philosophy, history, anthropology, sociology, psychopathology, and neurophysiology. The second section covers biological and neurophysiological approaches. Subsequent sections cover psychological processes, social processes, and selected emotions. A major contribution of this volume is a number of core chapters on positive subjective states. Most notably, Hatfield and Rapson have a chapter on love and attachment processes, Ruch has a chapter on exhilaration and humor, and Diener & Larsen have a chapter on emotional well-being.
Ryff, C. D. & Singer, B. (1998). The contours of positive human health. Psychological Inquiry, 9, 1-28.
This article critiques approaches to health and wellness that rely solely on medical definitions of health, and suggests that philosophical perspectives on the “goods” in life is also necessary for understanding human flourishing. Drawing from philosophical traditions, Ryff & Singer argue that leading a life of purpose and having quality connections to others are the core features of positive human health. These sources of meaning, the authors argue, generate positive emotions. Emotions, being the nexus between mind and body, are proposed to be the pathway between meaning and health.
Trope, Y., & Pomerantz, E. M. (1998). Resolving conflicts among self-evaluative motives: Positive experiences as a resource for overcoming defensiveness. Motivation and Emotion.
This set of empirical studies examines the role of prior positive or negative mood on how people approach negative information about themselves. People who have just experienced success in one domain or who are in a positive mood are more likely to seek out useful negative feedback about their liabilities, whereas those who have just failed seem only to want to learn about their strengths. Trope’s self-evaluation perspective is an important corrective to views of human motivation as guided by self-enhancement at the expense of self-improvement, and this series of studies suggest that positive mood may serve as a resource that allows people to learn from their mistakes. See also Trope, Y., & Neter, E. (1994). Reconciling competing motives in self-evaluation: The role of self-control in feedback seeking. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 66, 646- 657.
B. DISTINCTIONS AMONG POSITIVE SUBJECTIVE STATES
de Rivera, J., Possel, L., Verette, J. A., & Weiner, B. (1989). Distinguishing elation, gladness, and joy. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 57, 1015-1023.
This article reports on a series of theory-driven studies that distinguish the bodily transformations, action tendencies, and outcomes of three distinct positive emotions: elation, gladness, and joy. Data suggested that elation is connected to having wishes and fantasies fulfilled, whereas gladness is connected to having a hope fulfilled. Although less definitive, evidence also suggested that joy is connected to experiencing deep meaning in connection with others.
Ellsworth, P. C. & Smith, C. A. (1988). Shades of joy: Patterns of appraisal differentiating pleasant emotions. Cognition and Emotion, 2, 301-331.
This article reports of series of studies, derived from appraisal theories of emotions, aimed at distinguishing various types of positive emotions. Ellsworth and Smith conclude that positive emotions are somewhat less differentiated than negative emotions. Even so, discernable differences are found among six positive emotions: interest, hope/confidence, challenge, tranquility, playfulness, and love.
Feldman Barrett, L., & Russell, J.A. (1998). Independence and bipolarity in the structure of affect. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, ***.
This technically complex, but exceedingly important analysis provides a useful and sophisticated solution to many years of debate concerning the dimensional structure of both positive and negative emotions (e.g., are happiness and sadness two ends of a continuum, or separate entities?). Using a variety of sophisticated statistical techniques, Feldman Barrett and Russell demonstrate that two orthogonal (independent) dimensions are necessary to characterize the full range of emotion terms. These dimensions are pleasantness (bad--good) and activation (deactivated, activated). For example, emotions such as calm are pleasant deactivated states, whereas an emotion such as joy is a pleasant activated state. On the negative side, an activated negative state would be anxiousness, whereas a deactivated negative state would be depression. Thus, happiness and sadness are opposites on one dimension of affect (pleasantness), but they may differ on the other (activation). They further analyze many of the widely used measures of emotion in the field and demonstrate that they fail to capture both dimensions adequately and in some cases confound these dimensions completely. These results are likely to prompt a sea change in the conceptualization and measurement of emotion that will affect research across many areas of psychology.
Izard, C. E. (1977). Human emotions. New York: Plenum Press.
Izard’s early work builds gracefully on the contributions of Silvan Tomkins. This early book provides rich theoretical accounts of the distinctions between interest and various levels of joy, ranging from contentment to elation.
Lazarus, R. S. (1991). Emotion and adaptation. New York: Oxford University Press.
This classic book provides the definitive presentation of Lazarus’ cognitive-motivational-relational theory of emotion. Central to this view is that emotion result from meanings people forge from their current circumstances. Distinct emotions, according to Lazarus and other appraisal theorists, arise from distinct core relational themes. Chapter 7 details the distinctions among four positive emotions: happiness/joy, pride, love/affection, and relief.
Lewis, M. & Hatfield, J. M. (1993). Handbook of Emotions. New York: Guilford.
This edited volume contains a number of core chapters on positive subjective states. Most notably, Hatfield and Rapson have a chapter on love and attachment processes, Ruch has a chapter on exhilaration and humor, and Diener & Larsen have a chapter on emotional well-being.
Shaver, P., Schwartz, J, Kirson, D.,& O’Connor, C. (1987). Emotion knowledge: Further exploration of a prototype approach. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology 52, 1061-1086.
This article explores the hierarchical organization of the emotion prototypes based on 135 emotion concepts. Drawing from research on the development of emotions and people’s everyday descriptions of emotions, Shaver and his colleagues reported 5-6 basic or primary emotion prototypes: love, joy, anger, sadness, fear, and perhaps surprise. These prototypes may be useful in determining how emotion-related information is processed in a variety of real-life situations, including social interactions, and may also provide a means of integrating findings concerning cross-age and cross-cultural similarities and differences in emotion concepts, and the development of emotion knowledge.
Weiner, B., & Graham, S. (1989). Understanding the motivational role of affect: Lifespan research from an attributional perspective. Cognition & Emotion, 3, 401-419.
Examined the attributional antecedents and the behavioral consequences of pride, gratitude, guilt, anger, and sympathy in a large sample from a wide age range (aged 5-95 yrs) to study changes throughout the life span. The elderly participants were characterized as kind and altruistic: Pity and helping increased through the life span, whereas anger decreased. Relations between attributions, emotions, and judged behavior did not decrease among the very elderly. Particular attributions ma y give rise to feeling states, and these emotions then guide specific actions.
1. Subjective Well-Being and Happiness
Argyle, A. M. (1987). The psychology of happiness. London: Methuen.
In this classic work, Argyle tackles questions such as, What constitutes happiness? and Why are some people happier than others? He proceeds to chronicle numerous psychological and sociological studies, which have shown that the most important determinants of happiness are social relationships, work, and leisure. In addition, Argyle shows that “objective” variables, such as wealth, social class, age, sex and nationality, do not greatly influence happiness. He analyzes several psychological theories of happiness, such as the role of personality, aspirations, adaptation, and social comparison, and suggests methods for enhancing happiness.
Brickman, P., Coates, D., & Janoff-Bulman, R. (1978). Lottery winners and accident victims: Is happiness relative? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 36, 917-927.
In this paradigm-changing paper, Brickman and his colleagues report a study in which they interviewed three groups -- recent victims of a disabling accident, individuals who had recently won up to a million dollars in a lottery, and a comparison group. Strikingly, their results suggested that lottery winners were not significantly happier than the comparison group of individuals and that accident victims (paraplegics and quadriplegics) were not as unhappy as one might expect. The authors invoked adaptation-level theory to explain these findings. That is, both contrast and habituation processes may operate to prevent the winning of a fortune from elevating happiness as much as might be expected, and also work to make the experience of permanent disability less depressing than might be expected. Additionally, contrast with the peak experience of winning was found to lessen the impact of ordinary pleasures (e.g., watching television), thus reducing the happiness of the lottery winners. Interestingly, the disabled respondents reported greater enjoyment of everyday activities, a finding that sparked research interest concerning changes in values and priorities following adversity.
Costa, P. T., Jr., & McCrae, R. R. (1980). Influence of extraversion and neuroticism on subjective well-being: Happy and unhappy people. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 38, 668-678.
Costa and McCrae present a model of individual differences in happiness. Using a sample of over 1,000 male adults (ages 35 to 85), they report finding that the personality trait of extraversion influences positive affect or satisfaction and the personality trait of neuroticism influences negative affect or dissatisfaction. Additionally, these personality differences predicted differences in happiness 10 years later. (For further supporting evidence, see McCrae, R. R., & Costa, P. T. (1991). Adding Liebe und Arbeit: The full five-factor model and well-being. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 17, 227-232.
Diener, E., Suh, E., Lucas, R. E., & Smith, H. L. (in press). Subjective well-being: Three decades of progress -- 1967 to 1997. Psychological Bulletin.
In 1984, Diener wrote a seminal review of the state of the field of subjective well-being (composed of positive affect, negative affect, and life satisfaction), emphasizing theories of happiness that stressed psychological factors. In this current state-of-the-art review and update, Diener and his colleagues extensively evaluate current evidence for previously proposed correlates of happiness (Wilson, 1967) -- e.g., youth, health, religion, self-esteem, job morale -- and discuss in detail the modern theories of subjective well-being, including the role of dispositional factors and coping strategies, adaptation-level theories, and goal theories. They proceed to suggest future directions in the evolution of the field of happiness and well-being -- for example, advancing beyond correlations to understand the causal pathways to happiness and attempting to understand the interaction of psychological factors with life circumstances in producing happiness.
Lykken, D. & Tellegen, A. (1996). Happiness is a stochastic phenomenon. Psychological Science, 7, 186-189.
In this influential and controversial paper, Lykken and Tellegen offer evidence for a strong genetic influence on levels of subjective well-being. Using a sample of 2,310 middle-aged twins, they calculated that socioeconomic status, educational attainment, family income, marital status, and religious commitment each accounted for no more than 3% of the variance in well-being. In contrast, from 44% to 52% of the variance in well-being was found to be associated with genetic variation. Based on a retest of smaller samples of twins after intervals of 4.5 and 10 years, the authors estimated that the heritability of the stable component of well-being approaches 80%, which is similar to that for height. They conclude that well-being may have a “set point” or a “set range” of genetic origin. Other authors have pointed out that 48-54% of the variance in well-being remains to be explained, and that well-being is not a static quality, but one that must be maintained (for discussion and related research, Lyubomirsky, S., & Tucker, K.L. (1998). Implications of individual differences in subjective happiness for perceiving, interpreting, and thinking about life events. Motivation and Emotion, 22, 155-186.
Ryff, C. D. (1989). Happiness is everything, or is it? Explorations on the meaning of psychological well-being. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 57, 1069-1081.
Ryff critiques the contemporary subjective well-being literature as being founded on conceptions of well-being that have little theoretical rationale and, consequently, as have neglected the definition and assessment of its essential features. In turn, from the extensive literature on positive psychological functioning (e.g., Maslow, Jung, Rogers), she distills six important characteristics of happiness, including self-acceptance, positive interpersonal relations, autonomy, environmental mastery, purpose and meaning in life, and personal growth. In this influential paper, Ryff operationalizes these proposed dimensions of happiness using a large representative sample of men and women (young, middle-aged, and old). (For further supporting evidence, see also Ryff and Keyes (1995). The structure of psychological well-being revisited. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 69, 719-727.)
Wilson, W. (1967). Correlates of avowed happiness. Psychological Bulletin, 67, 294-306.
According to Wilson’s analysis of the literature in 1967, the happy person is a young, healthy, well-educated, well-paid, extraverted, optimistic, worry-free, religious, married individual with high self-esteem, high job morale, modest aspirations, of either sex, and of varying intelligence. To explain individual differences in well-being, he proposes two theoretical postulates -- 1) the prompt satisfaction of needs causes happiness, while the persistence of unfulfilled needs causes unhappiness and 2) the degree of fulfillment required to produce satisfaction depends on one’s adaptation or aspiration level, which is influenced by past experience, social comparisons, personal values, etc.
2. Flow/Enjoyment
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990). Flow: The psychology of optimal experience. New York: HarperPerennial.
This classic and accessible text provides a comprehensive overview of Csikszentmihalyi’s flow theory. Flow is the intense enjoyment that people experience when they are fully immersed in activities that provide challenges to match their skills. This book details the psychological conditions and typical activities that lead to flow experiences. Flow experiences, Csikszentmihalyi argues, determine the quality of life.
Csikszentmihalyi, M. & Rathunde, K. (1998). The development of the person: An experiential perspective on the ontogenesis of psychological complexity. In W. Damon (Series Ed.) & R. M. Lerner (Vol. Ed.), Handbook of Child Psychology: Vol. 1. Theoretical models of human development (5th ed., pp. 635-684). New York: Wiley.
This chapter expands upon flow theory to position flow as fundamental to the development of intelligence and psychological complexity across the lifespan. The key role of dialectical thinking in producing optimal states of engagement as well psychological complexity and flexibility provides the link between flow and human growth and development. Supportive evidence from the authors’ research on flow in child and adult development is reviewed.
3. Joy/Play
Boyer, W. A. R. (1997). Enhancing playfulness with sensorial stimulation. Journal of Research in Childhood Education, 12, 78-87.
Boyer reviews research showing that playfulness is associated with academic and behavioral success and that playfulness serves as a constructive means of learning about the world. He reports a study testing an intervention designed to increase playfulness in pre-school children. This intervention consisted of ten lessons emphasizing the development of the senses through guided imagery and exploration of the environment. Results indicated that the intervention increased total playfulness, as well as three specific categories of playfulness: social/emotional, manifest joy, and humor. These results suggest that playfulness is not a fixed personality trait as genetic theories maintain, but rather a factor which can be influenced by a stimulating environment.
Knutson, B., Bergdorf, J., & Panksepp, J. (1998). Anticipation of play elicits high-frequency ultrasonic vocalizations in young rats. Journal of Comparative Psychology, 112, 65-73.
Considerable evidence has accumulated demonstrating that rats emit low frequency vocalization in adverse conditions—during submissive behavior, in the presence of predators, etc. This article presents a series of studies investigating whether rats might vocalize at high frequencies as an expression of appetitive motivation for social interaction. Young rats engage in rough and tumble play that is unique to their age group. In a series of six studies, young rats were observed playing and anticipating play. The results demonstrate that rats laugh, albeit at high-frequency levels inaudible to the unassisted human ear while playing and in anticipation of play. These effects are independent of arousal and are systematically related to aspects of later play behavior (rats who emit more high frequency ultrasonic vocalizations (USVs) also are more likely to place their paws on the backs of their playmates). In addition, these high frequency USVs are not a by product of the physical activity of play, as is demonstrated by the occurrence of these vocalizations in anticipation of play. These high frequency USVs are also seen in adult rats when exploring with conspecifics and during courtship. This work is significant in that it provides a gateway to conducting animal studies on the brain substrates of joy.
Martin, R.A. & Lefcourt, H.M. (1983). Sense of humor as a moderator of the relation between stressors and mood. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 45, 1313-1324.
In the late 1970's Norman Cousins published his book on how laughter had helped cure him from a life-threatening disease. Although this book stimulated wide-spread interest in discussing the potentially beneficial effects of humor, it was an entirely antecdotal case study.This paper by Martin & Lefcourt (1983) represented one of the first contemporary psychology approaches to the scientific study of humor, as it provided empirical data regarding the relationship between stress and affect, as moderated by humor. It showed that stress had a different relation to well-being for people high in humor and laughter. This article provided "scientific respectability" to an area of research that has often been discussed, but rarely tested in a controlled empirical fashion, set the standard for measurement in this area, and has served as a major stimulus for empirical research on humor and its effects on health and well-being. See, for example, Kuiper, N.A., & Martin, R.A., Laughter and Stress in Daily Life: Relation to Positive and Negative Affect, Motivation and Emotion, 22, 133-153.
Panksepp, J. (1998). Attention deficit hyperactivity disorders, psychostimulants, and intolerance of childhood playfulness: A tragedy in the making? Current Directions in Psychological Science, 7, 91-98.
This brief article introduces the idea that play promotes brain development -- particularly in the frontal lobes—in areas critical to regulating attention and behavior, and thereby enabling learning.
4. Interest/Intrinsic Motivation
Renninger, K. A., Hidi, S. & Krapp, A. (Eds.). (1992). The role of interest in learning and development. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
This edited volume presents a range of perspectives on the critical role of emotion of interest in learning, development, and education. Interest is variously construed as a person variable (e.g., profile of individual interests), a situational variable (e.g., the interestingness of a given topic), and an emotional state. Diverse empirical approaches are featured.
Sansone, C. & Morgan, C. (1992). Intrinsic motivation and education: Competence in context. Motivation and Emotion, 16, 249-270.
This article reports on a study of 297 students, ranging from 1st grade to college. The data suggest that there may be multiple routes to interest, which can be aided or obstructed by the quality and quantity of information we choose to provide students. The results also suggest that the need to attend to how the student perceives and defines academic activities in order to optimize the match between his or her goals and potential feedback. The potential to foster interest in education, then, may not depend solely on the ability and efforts of teachers or educational materials, but also on the ability and efforts of individual students to self-generate feelings of interest and intrinsic motivation. These ideas -- and their implications for strategies for changings one’s phenomenal experiences to futher motivation and persistence -- are further elaborated in Sansone, C., & Harackiewicz, J. M. (1996). "I don't feel like it": The function of interest in self-regulation. In L.L. Martin & A. Tesser (Eds.), Striving and feeling: Interactions among goals, affect, and self-regulation (pp. 203-228). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Vallerand, R. J., Fortier, M. S., Guay, F. (1997). Self-determination and persistence in a real-life setting: Toward a motivational model of high school dropout. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 72, 1161-1176.
This article reports on a prospective study of 4,537 high school students. The results showed that when teachers, parents, and school administrators fail to support student autonomy, student’s perceptions of their own competence and autonomy are eroded. This erosion, in turn, lowers their self-determined motivation for school, and increases their likelihood of dropping out.
5. Optimism and Hope
Armor, D. A., & Taylor, S. E. (1998). Situated optimism: Specific outcome expectancies and self-regulation. In M. P. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 30, pp. 309-379). New York: Academic Press.
Armor and Taylor developed the concept of “situated optimism” to describe domain-specific (as opposed to general) optimistic beliefs. In contrast to the prevailing view that “optimistic biases” (the belief that one is less at risk of negative outcomes and more likely to experience positive outcomes than similar others) are always harmful, the authors identify several ways in which these beliefs are fundamentally based in reality and serve to fuel constructive action. Specifically, optimistic beliefs are bounded (that is, they don’t get too far out of line), strategic (they help people meet their goals and are used selectively, rather than indiscriminantly), and responsive (that is, they are adjusted to match features of a situation). These findings suggest that there is a strategic element to optimistic beliefs -- that we are able to hold them (and enjoy their motivational benefits) when they will serve us well (situation is controllable) and when they won’t get us into trouble (they can’t be disconfirmed), but temper them when they may put us at risk (failure, disconfirmation, embarrassment). Consistent with this point, research on the role of optimism at different points in making decisions and implementing goals suggests that people seem to use their optimism to fuel actions toward goals, but to suspend it when making important planning decisions about how to meet their goals (see, e.g., Taylor & Gollwitzer, 1995).
Aspinwall, L.G., & Brunhart, S.M. (1996). Distinguishing optimism from denial: Optimistic beliefs predict attention to health threats. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 22, 993-1003.
This paper reported the first experimental attempt to determine whether optimistic beliefs help or hinder people’s efforts to acquire useful negative information about themselves. College students were given the option of reading information about the risks and benefits of their own health behaviors (as determined by pretesting) or those of behaviors they did not practice. The results were striking: students who were optimistic (either dispositionally or about their health in particular) paid spent more time reading risk information and showed greater recall for it in a follow-up session than did pessimists. The results were especially strong for information about the risks of optimists’ own behaviors, a finding that is completely inconsistent with a characterization of optimism as functioning like denial or rose-colored glasses. No evidence was found to support the belief that people with positive beliefs maintain them by avoiding negative information. Instead, positive beliefs are associated with increased attention to such information.
Aspinwall, L.G., Richter, L., & Hoffman, R.R. (in press). Understanding how optimism “works”: Mediators, moderators, and future research directions. In E.C. Chang (Ed.), Optimism and pessimism: Theory, research, and practice. Washington: American Psychological Association.
With few exceptions, optimists appear to achieve better outcomes in a wide range of situations, including adjustment to life-threatening and chronic illness (e.g., cancer, AIDS), to major new situations (the transition to college, emigration), and to the small hassles of daily life, yet studies consistently indicate that optimism is not associated with intelligence, academic achievement, wealth, or other characteristics that might convey advantages in adjusting to adversity. How, then, are optimistic beliefs translated into good outcomes in such a wide range of life domains? This chapter reviews what is known about how optimistic beliefs are associated with good outcomes and examines some intriguing evidence concerning greater flexibility in the cognitive processing and behavior of optimists that may explain their ability to adapt successfully to new situations, especially those that are negative or threatening. The authors review evidence that optimism is associated with the successful moderation of beliefs and behavior, depending on important features of a situation or problem, such as whether the situation is controllable or not. If a stressor is controllable, optimists appear to cope actively with it; however, if it is uncontrollable, optimists are more likely to report accepting the problem, rather than trying to change it. Using evidence from a laboratory experiment on task persistence, research on the optimistic bias, and experiments on optimists’ processing of threatening health information, the authors suggest that optimists’ greater ability to distinguish controllable from uncontrollable situations may be part of a larger pattern of successful moderation of belief and behavior that may account for optimists’ success in so many life domains.
Carver, C.S., Pozo, C., Harris, S.D., Noriega, V., Scheier, M.F., Robinson, D.S., Ketcham, A.S., Moffat, F.L., Jr., & Clark, K.C. (1993). How coping mediates the effect of optimism on distress: A study of women with early stage breast cancer. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 65, 375-390.
Carver and his colleagues (1993) examined the role of optimism in coping and adjustment in a sample of women adjusting to surgery for breast cancer. Compared to pessimists, optimistic women were more likely to indicate that they had accepted the reality of the fact that they had surgery for breast cancer, reported greater use of humor in coping, and reported lower levels of denial (refusing to believe the surgery had happened) and disengagement (giving up attempts to cope with the aftermath of the surgery). Each of these coping strategies was in turn related to lower psychological distress at various follow-up assessments in the year following the surgery. This study conclusively established that some of the benefits of optimism are due to optimism’s association with more constructive and fewer destructive coping methods. For further information about the psychometric properties and predictive validity of the Life Orientation Test measure of optimism, see Scheier, M.F., Carver, C.S., & Bridges, M.W. (1994). Distinguishing optimism from neuroticism (and trait anxiety, self-mastery, and self-esteem): A re-evaluation of the Life Orientation Test. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67, 1063-1078. For a comprehensive review of the physical and mental health benefits of optimism, see Scheier, M.F., Carver, C.S., & Bridges, M.W. (in press). Optimism, pessimism, and psychological well-being. In E.C. Chang (Ed.) (in press), Optimism and pessimism: Theory, research, and practice. Washington: American Psychological Association.
Chang, E.C. (Ed.) (in press), Optimism and pessimism: Theory, research, and practice. Washington: American Psychological Association.
This forthcoming major volume considers in detail current research on the nature, antecedents, and consequences of optimism and pessimism, as well as future research directions and potential applications. Noteworthy features are the inclusion of both the Carver and Scheier approach (dispositional optimism as generalized positive expectancies) and the Seligman, Peterson et al. explanatory style approach (as well as related work on hope and defensive pessimsim), a noteworthy focus on social behavior and health, and a strong intervention focus that considers both adults and children. Contents: 1. Defining optimism and pessimism. a. Optimism and pessimism from a historical perspective. (D. Conway); b. Optimism, pessimism, and self-regulation (C. Carver & M. Scheier ); c. Optimism, pessimism, and defensive pessimism (J. Norem); d. Optimism, pessimism, and hope. (C. Snyder); e. Optimism, pessimism, and explanatory style (M. Seligman et al.); 2. Antecedents of optimism and pessimism. a. Biological factors. 1.Biological foundations (M. Zuckerman); b. Psychological factors. 1. Optimism and pessimism as self-protection. (J. Brown); c. Social/Environmental factors. 1. Social learning. (D. Cervone et al.); 2. Cultural factors. (E. Chang); 3. Consequences of optimism and pessimism. a. Psychological consequences of optimism and pessimism. 1.Optimism, pessimism, and treatment for depression (children). (M. Seligman et al.); 2. Optimism, pessimism, and treatment for disorders (adults) (J. Pretzer et al.); 3.Optimism, pessimism, and psychological well-being. (M. Scheier & C. Carver); b. Physical consequences of optimism and pessimism. 1. Optimism, pessimism, and physical well-being. (C. Peterson); 2. Optimism, pessimism, and daily health (H. Tennen & G.Affleck); c. Social consequences of optimism and pessimism. 1.Optimism, pessimism, and social/group behaviors? (W. Dember); 4. Future directions. a. Teaching optimism or pessimism? (J. Norem & E. Chang); b. One, two, or more constructs? (G. Marshall); c.Moderators and mediators of optimism and pessimism. (L. Aspinwall);
Epstein, S., & Meier, P. (1989). Constructive thinking: A broad coping variable with specific components. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 57, 332-350.
In an attempt to account for why intelligence does not always predict success for real life problems other than educational attainment, the authors propose a more practical kind of intelligence. which they call Constructive Intelligence. The authors designed set of measures called the Constructive Thinking Inventory (CTI) to measure this practical intelligence and predict life success in important areas, including mental health, physical health, family relations, and success in work. The CTI consists of a Global Constructive Thinking scale, as well as six sub-scales that make up different aspects of Constructive Thinking (emotion coping, behavioral coping, categorical thinking, superstitious thinking, naïve optimism, and negative thinking). The CTI was found to predict life success in all of the previously mentioned areas better than other existing measures. This study shows that the CTI can predict important outcomes that intelligence cannot, and has implications for identifying skills that can be taught to increase chances of life success.
Gillham, J. (Ed.)(in press), The Science of Optimism: Research and Essays in Honor of Martin Seligman. Philadelphia: Templeton Foundation.
This forthcoming tribute to Marty Seligman reviews current and classic contributions to the scientific study of hope and optimism. Contributions examine the neurobiology of control, stress resistance, and coping; the relation of optimism to human health, growth and resilience; the role of optimism and hope in coping with bereavement, preventing depression, and processing negative information; interventions in children; the role of optimism in family relationships; the relation of optimism to faith and religiosity, and cultural and historical analyses of optimism in leaders.
Greenberg, M. (1997). High-rise public housing, optimism, and personal and environmental health behaviors. American Journal of Health Behavior, 21, 388-398.
This groundbreaking study examined the relationship of optimism to perceptions of problems and constructive social change among residents of a troubled public housing project in central New Jersey. Optimists in this largely African-American and Hispanic sample were just as likely as pessimists to perceive problems in their neighborhood, but they reported greater actions to protect their personal health and the health of their neighborhood through civic participation, volunteer work, and other activities. This study is important for three reasons: 1) it links optimistic beliefs to actions undertaken to improve one’s community, 2) it provides evidence that the benefits of optimism may generalize to groups other than the affluent whites who populate most studies of chronic illness, and 3) it provides a counterargument to the view that only advantaged people are optimistic (that is, that optimism is a luxury in an unkind world).
Peterson, C., Seligman, M.E.P., & Vaillant, G.E. (1988). Pessimistic explanatory style is a risk factor for physical illness: A thirty-five-year longitudinal study. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 55, 23-27.
This extraordinary longitudinal study tracked physical health outcomes of 99 of the healthiest and most successful members of the Harvard classes of 1942-44, from age 25 to age 60. Those who showed evidence of a pessimistic explanatory style at age 25 (determined by an analysis of interview transcripts when participants were asked to discuss their difficult wartime experiences) were rated as having worse physical health later in life, even when both physical and mental health at age 25 were taken into account. These results suggest that explaining negative events in pessimistic ways -- by seeing such events as internally caused, as stable, and as affecting many domains of life -- constitutes a life-long vulnerability factor for physical illness. Importantly, other work, such as Seligman’s (1991) Learned Optimism book, suggests that such explanatory styles can be changed. For related evidence on the health costs of pessimism, see also Schulz, R., Bookwala, J., Knapp, J. E., Scheier, M. F., & Williamson, G. M. (1996). Pessimism, age, and cancer mortality. Psychology and Aging, 11, 304-309.
Reed, G. M., Kemeney, M. E., Taylor, S. E., Wang, H. J., & Visscher, B. R. (1994). Realistic acceptance as a predictor of decreased survival time in gay men with AIDS. Health Psychology, 13, 299-307.
Some theories have suggested that acceptance of a fatal condition is psychologically adaptive. The authors of this study found that the opposite was true in a longitudinal study of gay men with AIDS. In this sample, realistic acceptance predicted more active coping, but it also predicted increased mortality even when other risk factors were taken into account. The median survival time for men who did not display realistic acceptance was twice that of those who did (18 mos. vs. 9 mos.; note that these data was collected in 1988 when overall survival rates were much lower.) This study was one of the first to link people’s hopeful attitudes about their illness to survival data. The authors review other studies which have found that positive beliefs lead to better adjustment and coping among people with life-threatening and/or chronic illnesses.
Seligman, M. E. P. (1991). Learned optimism. New York: A.A. Knopf.
In this influential popular book, Seligman draws on his long-term program of human and animal research on learned helplessness and depression to examine an important flip side of this question -- how does optimism work, and can it be learned? He examines why optimists fare better in politics, sports, sales, and other life domains. He further examines several specific ways in which pessimists can learn optimistic ways of thinking, such as learning to view setbacks as temporary, not taking everything personally, recognizing that beliefs are not facts and can thus be challenged and changed, and focusing on problem-solving actions. Interventions derived from this work have been used successfully to prevent depression in children and adults.
Snyder, C. R. (1994). The psychology of hope: You can get there from here. New York: Free Press.
Snyder’s “wills and ways” theory of hope defines hope as a two-dimensional construct. One dimension is agency (the will), the sense of successful determination in meeting goals in the past, present, and future. The second dimension is pathways (the ways), the sense of being able to generate successful plans to meet goals. Snyder and his colleagues postulate that these two aspects of hope are reciprocally derived, additive, and positively related, but they are not identical. For example, one could conceivably generate multiple avenues of goal attainment, yet not believe that he/she has the ability to accomplish the goal. Conversely, one could believe that one is capable of goal attainment, yet not be able to conjure up the necessary means of achieving the goal. Snyder and his colleagues have shown that hope may be a trait or a state, and is related to superior outcomes in a number of life domains.
Taylor, S.E., & Brown, J.D. (1988). Illusion and well-being: A social psychological perspective on mental health. Psychological Bulletin, 103, 193-210.
Taylor and Brown present the provocative argument that a social psychology of mental health involves investment in positive illusion about the self. In contrast to traditional views of mental health as reflecting an engagement with reality and an objective view of the self and others, Taylor and Brown argued that research on self esteem and self enhancement tends to support, instead, the idea that positive illusions about the self the basis of healthy mental functioning. This viewpoint has been the subject of enormous debate.
Tiger, L. (1995/1979). Optimism: The biology of hope. New York: Kodansha.
This book advances the idea that tendencies toward optimism developed over the course of human evolution to counteract the downside of having evolved a large cortex that could newly imagine the future. While envisioning the future is essential to planning and goal-striving, it can also lead to demoralizing thoughts, such as images of possible defeat, dispair, even death. Compared to pessimists, optimists would have been more likely to cope, forge ahead, achieve success, and thus live long enough to reproduce.
6. Future-Oriented Feelings
Aspinwall, L.G., & Taylor, S.E. (1997). A stitch in time: Self-regulation and proactive coping. Psychological Bulletin, 121, 417-436.
This paper integrates research on stress and coping with research on self-regulation (the process through which people control and direct their own actions), personality, and social cognition to examine how people act in advance to prevent or reduce potential sources of stress. To the extent that people are successful in anticipating and warding off potential stressors, their actions may go unstudied. For example, the person who correctly anticipates impending layoffs at her job and acquires extra training, bolsters her relationship with her boss, or applies for other jobs, is less likely to show up in a study of long-term unemployment. Similarly, the person who responds early and correctly to signs that an important relationship is deteriorating may act to improve the relationship, but she is unlikely to show up in a study of marital distress. The paper presents a model for understanding the resources necessary to identify and counteract potential stressors, attentional factors in responding to negative events and information, their relation to appraisals of such information, and preliminary coping efforts undertaken to address the potential stressor. The model also is unique in that it considers how people make use of the information elicited by their early efforts to shape subsequent appraisals and coping efforts. One important contribution of this paper to the study of stress and coping is its portrayal of people as active and constructive agents in the face of potential stress, not as reactive recipients of stressful events. Finally, the paper also considers the beneficial role of positive beliefs, such as optimism and control beliefs, in this process.
Friedman, S.L., & Scholnick, E.K. (Eds.) (1997). The developmental psychology of planning: Why, how, and when do we plan? Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Planning is a complex activity in which we bring together cognitive, emotional, and motivational resources to reach desired goals. Often, we must also overcome the impulse to respond to the immediate situation and instead focus our attention and efforts on this desired goal. This follow-up to editors’ (1987) volume, Blueprints for thinking: The role of planning in cognitive development, examines planning from a variety of perspectives, including social, motivational, cognitive, and cultural determinants of strategy selection and use. Individual chapters consider the development of future thinking in children, the interrelation of emotion regulation, instrumental control, and planning, planning skills in adolescence and their relation to contraceptive use and nonuse, interpersonal and social aspects of planning, and the role of optimism and control beliefs in planning and proactive coping.
Jones, J. M. (1994). An exploration of temporality in human behavior. In Schank, Roger C. (Ed), Langer, Ellen (Ed), et al (1994). Beliefs, reasoning, and decision making: Psycho-logic in honor of Bob Abelson. (pp. 389-411). Hillsdale, NJ, USA: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
Jones identifies time as a psychological construct with meaning for cognitive and affective aspects of experience, as well as significant influence on human behaviors. Temporal perspective is presented as the composite representations of past, present, and future along several dimensions (extension, density, valence, accessibility, content, and structure). People and culture may vary in the way in which the dimensions manifest themselves, as well as in their relation to overall temporal perspective. He describes preliminary data demonstrating the utility of a scale to measure temporal orientation and its relationship to personality and selected behavioral characteristics.
7. Task Related Feelings
a. Effectance/Mastery
Ben-Sira, Z. (1985). Potency: A stress-buffering link in the coping-stress-disease relationship. Social Science & Medicine, 21, 397-406.
Studied a representative sample of 1,179 Israeli adults to investigate the factors that facilitate maintaining an individual’s emotional homeostasis despite occasional failures in initially coping with stressors due to resource inadequacy. Ss were administered measures of potency (mastery/anomie), physical health, stress, successful coping, and resources. Data support the hypothesis that potency, a feeling of confidence in one’s own capacities and in the meaningful orderliness of society, fulfills a tension-bounding function by weakening the association among the components of the coping-stress-health relationship, thus moderating the deleterious effect of occasional failures in coping on homeostasis and health. Data further allude to potency being enhanced both by accumulation of successful coping experiences and by social support.
b. Velocity, progress, movement toward goals
Carver, C.S., & Scheier, M.F. (1990). Origins and functions of positive and negative affect: A control process view. Psychological Review, 97, 19-35.
Carver and Scheier have written the most readable applications of control theory to personality, social and health psychology. In this article, they integrate emotional life into the systems approach to self-regulation. In control theory, self-regulation occurs in a dynamic system of negative feedback loops in which people seek to close discrepancies between their current and desired states. For such a system to work some kind of monitor is necessary to track progress. Carver and Scheier argue that our emotions serve as gauges of the effectiveness of our goal pursuit. We feel happy, excited or elated as our progress at closing gaps is assessed as quite good or better than expected. In addition, negative emotions indicate that progress is slower than expected or nonexistent.
Hobfoll, S. E. (1989). Conservation of resources: A new attempt at conceptualizing stress. American Psychologist, 44, 513-524.
A central part of Hobfoll’s thesis is that people are motivated to retain, protect, and build resources and that much of their behavior under conditions of stress, as well as during nonstressful conditions, can be understood this way. These resources can be objects, personal characteristics (mastery, self-esteem, learned resourcefulness), conditions (employment, tenure, marriage) or energies (time, money, knowledge) that are valued by the individual or that serve as a means for the attainment of resources. In Hobfoll’s framework, stress is defined as the loss of resources, the potential loss of resources, or the failure to gain resources in proportion to one’s investment in a task. When resources are threatened, people act to protect them or to restore them. When resources are not threatened, people act to build them for future use. This approach resolves several problems in the conceptualization of stress, such as the confounding of the process of stress with the outcome of stress, and highlights the value of psychological, social, and other resources in people’s behavior. Interventions based on this work -- to increase social support resources and personal resources such as mastery -- have been successful to date.
Hsee, C. K. & Abelson, R. P. (1991). Velocity relation: Satisfaction as a function of the first derivative of outcome over time. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 60, 341-347.
The authors suggest that satisfaction with an outcome depends not only on the amount of change (displacement) in an outcome, but also on the rate of change (velocity) of an outcome. In other words, the perception of movement toward an outcome is an important determinant of goal-directed behavior. People may even be willing to sacrifice a positive outcome or endure a negative outcome to experience this greater velocity, which would explain some forms of aversive behavior. Two studies supported this hypothesis. In the first, participants rated scenarios that differed in the amount and velocity of change. In the second, participants observed a computerized display of a vertical bar which represented the possible outcome. The speed at which this bar changed was varied, and participants were asked to rate their satisfaction. The authors conclude that people are more satisfied with faster rewards. The authors also suggest that people seek not just a particular outcome but also a faster process. This line of work has the potential to explain many of the rewarding properties of the pursuit of goals, as well as their attainment. For further reading, see Hsee, Christopher K.; Abelson, Robert P.; & Salovey, Peter. (1991). The relative weighting of position and velocity in satisfaction. Psychological Science, 2, 263-266.
Martin, L. L. & Tesser, A. Eds. (1996). Striving and feeling: Interactions among goals, affect, and self-regulation. Mahwah, NJ, USA: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
This book attempts to integrate 2 recent lines of research--one that explores the effects of goals on people's feelings and one that explores the role of goals in moderating the influence of people's feelings on their thoughts and behaviors. The general aim of the book is to bring together investigators who are operating from new, integrative perspectives, and who are giving us new ways to think about goals and affect. CONTENTS: McIntosh, W. D. When does goal nonattainment lead to negative emotional reactions, and when doesn't it?: The role of linking and rumination; Emmons, R. A., & Kaiser, H. A. Goal orientation and emotional well-being: Linking goals and affect through the self; Cochran, M., & Tesser, A. The "what the hell" effect: Some effects of goal proximity and goal framing on performance; Halberstadt, J. B., Niendenthal, P. M., & Setterlund, M. B. Cognitive organization of different tenses of the self mediates affect and decision making; Showers, C., & Kling, C. The organization of self-knowledge: Implications for mood regulation; Strauman, T. J. Self-beliefs, self-evaluation, and depression: A perspective on emotional vulnerability. Sansone, C., & Harackiewicz, J. M. "I don't feel like it": The function of interest in self-regulation; Singer, J. A., & Salovey, P. Motivated memory: Self-defining memories, goals, and affect regulation; Erber, R. The self-regulation of moods; Martin, L. Mood as input: What we think about how we feel determines how we think; Hirt, E. R., McDonald, H. E., & Melton, J. R. Processing goals and the affect-performance link: Mood as main effect or mood as input? Wegener, D. T., & Petty, R. E. Effects of mood on persuasion processes: Enhancing, reducing, and biasing scrutiny of attitude-relevant information; Oatley, K., & Johnson-Laird, P. N. The communicative theory of emotions: Empirical tests, mental models, and implications for social interaction.
c. Challenge Appraisals and Their Physiological Correlates: Mobilization
Blascovich, J., & Tomaka, J. (1996). The biopsychosocial model of arousal regulation. In M. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 28, pp. 1-51). New York: Academic Press.
The authors present a theoretical framework for understanding the physiological correlates of threat and challenge perceptions, based on their experimental studies of demanding mental tasks. This work has identified two distinct pattern of physiological responses to demanding tasks -- one corresponding to perceptions of threat (increased heart rate, decreased stroke volume and increased vascular resistance, placing greater demands on the heart), and one corresponding to perceptions of challenge (increased heart rate, but increased stroke volume and decreased vascular resistance, placing fewer demands on the heart to get the body “going”). The threat-linked response impairs performance, whereas the challenge-linked response is a positive state of energy mobilization to meet task demands and is associated with better performance. This work represents an important advance over previous studies of simple constructs, such as arousal and activation, because it distinguishes positive, constructive forms of such activation from debilitating ones. It also provides a framework that may be used to understand the superior coping and adaptation outcomes observed among people who are optimistic or who have strong beliefs in personal control. Related work by Allen and Blascovich has examined the role of music in cultivating this positive form of arousal in surgeons and the role of pets in reducing the negative form of arousal in their owners.
Dienstbier, R. A. (1989). Arousal and physiological toughness: Implications for mental and physical health. Psychological Review, 96, 84-100.
Richard Dienstbier has developed an approach to a kind of resilience based on early hardships. This research program resonates with folk notions that trying times lead to stronger people. Dienstbier traces the negative view of sympathetic nervous system (SNS) activity that has predominated in the psychological literature. He then presents a contrary positive view of peripheral arousal. Results from a series of studies (using animal and human models) demonstrates that intermittent exposure to stressors leads to low SNS arousal base rates, but to strong and responsive challenge- or stress-induced SNS-adrenal-medullary arousal. This response is also associated with resistance to brain catecholamine depletion and with suppression of pituitary adrenal-cortical responses. That pattern of arousal defines physiological toughness and, in interaction with psychological coping, corresponds with positive performance in even complex tasks, with emotional stability, and with immune system enhancement. Toughness is thus associated with having a “stronger” constitution (in the Pavlovian sense) and is associated with superior performance under pressure.
8. Serenity/Relaxation/Calm
Fredrickson, B. L. (in press). Cultivating positive emotions to optimize health and well-being. Prevention and Treatment.
This forthcoming article develops the argument that relaxation therapies, ranging from progressive muscle relaxation to meditation and yoga, work to reduce stress and negative emotional states because they cultivate the positive emotion of contentment/serenity, and thus capitalize on the broadening and undoing effects of positive emotions.
Kaplan, S. (1995). The restorative benefits of nature: Toward an integrative framework. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 15, 169-182.
This article, although not based on positive subjective states, reviews the empirical evidence that suggests that nature experiences can restore optimal cognitive functioning. The findings attributed to nature can conceivably be attributed to experiences of fascination and serenity.
Legostaev, G. N. (1996). Changes in mental performance after voluntary relaxation. Human Physiology, 22, 637-638.
Examined the effects of short-term autogenic training exercises of voluntary relaxation on mental activity. The training course included basic exercises to attain calm repose, muscle relaxation, dilatation of peripheral and abdominal blood vessels, and a decrease in breathing and heart activity. Three parameters of mental activity (i.e., attention, memory, and thinking) were assessed in Ss and controls before and after training. Data show a possibility of using short-term autotraining sessions of voluntary relaxation performed in lecture halls before class as a method of improving mental activity.
9. Shared Fate/Perceptions Of “We-Ness” And Ties To Others
Buehlman, K. T., Gottman, J. M., & Katz, L. F. (1992). How a couple views their past predicts their future: Predicting divorce from an oral history interview. Journal of Family Psychology, 5, 295-318.
Coded the behavior of 52 couples during an oral history interview and during an interaction task to determine what qualities predicted divorce or marital stability. Ss completed follow-up questionnaires 3 yrs later. Time 1 variables were able to significantly predict which couples would be separated, divorced, or intact at follow-up. At Time 1, couples who eventually divorced were low in fondness for their partners, high in negativity, low in “we-ness,” high in chaos, low in glorifying the struggle, and high in disappointment of the marriage. Gender differences in these variables were found. In the behavioral coding of the marital interaction, these dimensions also were consistently related to negativity and the absence of positivity in problem solving as well as to negative affect.
Lerner, Y., & Zilber, N. (1996). Psychological distress among recent immigrants from the former Soviet Union to Israel, II. The effects of the Gulf War. Psychological Medicine, 26, 503-510.
Investigated the psychological effects of the Gulf War with 328 immigrants to Israel from the former Soviet Union. Participants (who had already been screened for psychological distress just before the war) were reassessed with the Psychiatric Epidemiology Research Interview. Psychological symptoms during the war were associated with prewar level of distress and with actual physical harm from the missiles, but not with exposure to danger. Correlates of behavior in the face of life-threatening danger during the war were also identified. Overall the level of postwar psychological distress was not higher than prewar levels, which may be explained by the Ss’ feelings of shared fate, belonging and sense of cohesion, which characterize the general Israeli population during war time.
Markus, H. R., & Kitayama, S. (1991). Culture and the self: Implications for cognition, emotion, and motivation. Psychological Review. 98, 224-253.
This seminal paper noted that Western views of self have emphasized autonomy and separateness, whereas Eastern cultures have understood the self as fundamentally interconnected and interdependent with others. Markus and Kitayama illustrated the difference by quoting contrasting proverbs. In America, “the squeaky wheel gets the grease” is repeated to indicate the value of asserting oneself individually, whereas Japanese say “the nail that stands out gets pounded down” to emphasize the desirability of blending in with the group. Markus and Kitayama show how these different views of the self have important implications for such fundamental processes as social cognition, emotion, and motivation. For example, Japanese culture emphasizes harmony and social interdependence. In one study with Japanese participants, the authors found that ego-focused emotions (which are associated with good outcomes in Wester cultures) were significantly associated with ambivalent and negative emotions. These differences suggest that in Eastern cultures, ego-focused emotions are felt to undermine social relationships and trigger a need to restore harmony. This paper sparked worldwide interest in understanding the implications of such cultural differences for the experience of emotions, the construction of the self-concept, and social relations within and across cultures. Also of interest: Lu, L., & Shih, J. B. (1997). Sources of happiness: A qualitative approach. Journal of Social Psychology, 137, pp. 181-188.
Russell, J. A. (1991). Culture and the categorization of emotions. Psychological Bulletin. 110, 426-450.
Russell argues from an ethnographic perspective that culture influences the categorization of emotions. He raises several challenges to the idea the emotions (or words for emotion) are universal. However, Russell also identifies some dimensions of emotion that seem more universal, such as pleasure, arousal, and dominance. His overall conclusion is that, while emotional categories are more similar than different across cultures, emotional concepts are embedded in and defined by cultural beliefs. He also states that new methods based on these theories of emotion and language are necessary for drawing empirical conclusions about emotions across cultures.
Sommers, S., & Kosmitzki, Corinne (1988). Emotion and social context: An American-German comparison. British Journal of Social Psychology, 27, Special Issue: The social context of emotion. 35-49.
Sommers and Kosmitzki argue that psychologists often focus on the individual and physical level when studying emotion and ignore the social context. They discuss theories concerning the social function of specific emotions. They present data on the answers to six questions about emotions from a German and an American sample ranging from 18 to 50 years old. The questions concerned frequency, pleasantness, hiding, usefulness, and danger of different emotion particular emotion states. The authors report many significant differences depending on nationality, gender, and age. For example German men were much more likely to express gratitude and described it as more pleasant than American men did. German women reported more negative emotions and this pattern decreased with age, whereas age related differences did not appear for American women. The authors conclude that specific emotions may not have the same connotations for individuals in different cultural groups, and that it is important to investigate the way emotions are perceived, experienced, understood, and evaluated within these cultures.
Suh, E., Diener, E., Oishi, S., & Triandis, H. C. (1998). The shifting basis of life satisfaction judgments across cultures: Emotions versus norms. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology 74(2), 482-493.
Two large-scale studies examined cultural differences in the determinants of life satisfactin, in particular the relative importance of subjective experience and one’s degree of fit to social norms as determinants of life-satisfaction. Social norms were defined as the behavioral expectations of others in the culture (i.e,. subordinating one’s wishes for the sake of the group). In the first study the authors used data from an international survey of 55,666 participants from 41 nations. They found that inner emotions played a more important role in judgments of overall life satisfaction in individualistic nations (North America) than in collectivist nations (Indonesia). In the second study, based on the responses of 6,780 college students from 40 countries, the authors replicated the first study and also found that emotional feelings were associated more closely with life satisfaction then were norms in the individualistic nations. In collectivist nations, the contribution of emotions and following social norms to life satisfaction were approximately equal. The authors conclude that individualists and collectivists use different sorts of information to form life satisfaction judgments, and that culture plays an important role in the construction of life satisfaction.
II. The Positive Person and the Positive Life
prepared by
Laura A. King & Christie K. Napa
Southern Methodist University
&
Jon Haidt
University of Virginia
This bibliography was assembled to help in the creation of a positive psychology research node on “The Positive Persona/The Positive Life.” The defining concerns are with strengths of character and with the "good life:" It includes the study of purpose, growth, community involvement, productivity, self‑determination, genius, legacy building, sacrifice, creativity, future‑mindedness, parenting, courage, empathy, wisdom, and philanthropy.
A. DEFINING THE GOOD LIFE
Allport, G. (1961). Pattern and growth in personality. New York: HoHoHolt, Rinehart, & Winston.
Allport expressed enormous dissatisfaction with the negative portrayal of humanity presented by psychoanalytic and behaviorist traditions. In addition, he distrusted the tendency of depth psychology to explain human life via unconscious processes. In his emphasis on uniqueness and the importance of the individual, Allport painted a very different portrait—perhaps less grand (and grandly tragic) than the psychoanalytic hero—the everyday person living and enjoying a good life. Allport identified the characteristics of a “healthy mature person” in terms that the healthy mature person might use to identify him or herself. These characteristics include the capacity for self extension (i.e., involvement in the community, enjoyment and investment in a variety of activities that implicate more than his or her own immediate needs and duties; this self-extension also includes extending the self into the future—planning, goal setting, etc.); the capacity to relate warmly to others; self acceptance and emotional security; realistic views of self and world (including humor and insight); common sense; and, finally, a unifying philosophy of life (often but not always provided by religion).
Aristotle (1962). Nichomachean ethics. (Martin Oswald, Trans.) Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill. (Original work published 4th Cent. B.C.).
A meditation on “the good”, defined as “that at which all things aim.” Vulgar people identify the good with “pleasure,” but Aristotle says our aim is eudaimonia (well-being, broader than modern “happiness”). The development and cultivation of the virtues is essential for eudaimonia. Presents the argument that virtue is the median between too much and too little of a quality, e.g., courage is the median on fearlessness, where too much is the vice of recklessness, and too little is the vice of cowardice. Applies this analysis to many virtues and vices. Aristotle then goes on to search for the good in a great many topics of interest to modern discussions of the good person: justice and fairness, intellectual excellence, truth, art, science, practical wisdom, friendship, pleasure and pain.
Becker, L. (1992). Good lives: Prolegomena. Social Philosophy and Policy, 9, 15-
37.
Becker has compiled a comprehensive review of the characteristics philosophers have associated with the good life. This review brings to the fore some issues that have plagued psychological approaches to the good life—i.e., the tendency to equate a good life with happiness. Becker highlights the fact that good lives are led in the context of other good lives in progress. Given that philosophers have acknowledged multiple approaches to the good life, we might concern ourselves with the more contextualized and idiosyncratically defined question, “what is the best life, given particular circumstances?” There are a multitude of best lives. This comprehensive list also set the groundwork for Ryff & Singer’s Psychological Inquiry paper on the contours of positive mental functioning.
Coan, R. W. (1977). Hero, artist, sage or saint? New York: Columbia University Press.
Sociologist Richard W. Coan outlines the development of concepts of the “optimal personality” or “ideal person.” Coan describes how history and culture have shaped ideas of the good life. He notes that Western approaches to the ideal condition emphasize the capacity and power of the individual, whereas Eastern approaches recognize the impact of the collective on the ideal life. The author highlights relevant religious, philosophical, and psychological perspectives. Excellent summaries of several influential religious (ranging from Christianity to Hinduism), philosophical (e.g., Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Kant, Sartre), and psychological treatments (e.g., psychoanalysis, humanism, behaviorism) are provided. Coan also raises the question of whether it is the experience of the individual or the individual’s action that is central to optimal living. He describes four types of ideal personalities: The Artist whose emphasis is on awareness, understanding, and creativity; The Hero whose emphasis is on deeds of strength, cunning, boldness, and power; The Saint whose personality is based on his or her relationship to the divine and to others; and The Natural Person who seeks to overcome social barriers to free experience and expression. Finally, the author suggests five basic modes of human fulfillment that underlie our notions of the ideal human condition. These are efficiency, creativity, inner harmony, relatedness, and transcendence.
Cottingham, J. (1998). Philosophy and the Good Life. Cambridge: Cambridge University Presss.
Cottingham argues that philosophy, by nature, is a discipline aimed at understanding the universe and in particular human beings’ place in it—consequently, the questions that philosophers seek to answer may also be fruitful in generating a recipe for the good life. In this book he outlines the history of Western philosophical approaches to conceptualizing the good life. His in-depth analysis spans the works of Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics, Descartes, and modern psychoanalytic theory.
Fromm, E. (1947). Man for himself: An inquiry into the psychology of ethics. New York: Rinehart & Co., Inc.
In this classic text on humanistic ethics, Fromm provides excellent support for an approach towards understanding human nature through examination of moral values. The author integrates ideas from both psychology and ethics—two principles of thought believed to serve the same end. He describes “contemporary human crisis” as resulting from failure to define norms and values to guide our lives. He claims that post-modernity has eliminated standards of goodness and morality, leaving the goods in life to be defined according to relativism. However, the author suggests that certain goods in life are to be valued by any rational being—these virtues include realizing one’s full potentials through productive and creative work. Fromm uses philosophical and psychological theories as a foundation for the assertion that the greatest pleasure of human life is achieved through productive activity.
Jahoda, M. (1958). Current Concepts of Positive Mental Health. New York: Basic Books, Inc.
This classic book pioneered the field of positive psychology by making one of the first attempts to define mental health. Jahoda describes the existing and wide-ranging criteria for mental health and refutes traditional claims that absence of mental illness defines a healthy person. She attempts to define mental health in a way that is useful to both research and application. Based on the author’s extensive review of the empirical and theoretical literature in the fields of psychology, sociology, and public heath, six major approaches to mental health are discussed: 1) attitudes towards oneself; 2) realization and growth of one’s potentialities through action; 3) a unifying theme in the individual’s life; 4) autonomy; 5) the ability to perceive reality; and 6) environmental mastery or the ability to “take life as it comes and master it” (p. xi). Prior to this landmark analysis, considerable priority was given to the study of mental illness as opposed to mental health. Jahoda presents a compelling case for understanding health and illness from a broader perspective—one that regards the examination of positive functioning as equally important as the prevention or treatment of mental illness.
King, L. A., & Napa, C. K. (1998). What makes a life good? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 75, 156-165.
Two studies examined folk concepts of the good life. Samples of college students (N = 104) and community adults (N = 264) were shown a career survey ostensibly completed by a person rating his or her occupation. After reading the survey, participants judged the desirability and moral goodness of the respondent’s life, as a function of the amount of happiness, meaning in life, and wealth experienced. Results revealed significant effects of happiness and meaning on ratings of desirability and moral goodness. In the college sample, individuals high on all three independent variables were judged as likely to go to heaven. In the adult sample wealth was also related to higher desirability. Results suggest a general perceptions that meaning in life and happiness are essential to the folk concept of the good life, while money is relatively unimportant.
Spinoza, B. (1910). Ethic. Translated by W. Hale White. London: Oxford University Press. [original work c. 1665].
This book is a classic among philosophers but also would be of interest to psychologists and those others who might take a scientific and rational approach to defining the human condition. Unlike other philosophers who utilize a contemplative approach, Spinoza applies logical and mathematical reasoning in order to explore the major questions concerning metaphysics—these include the nature of god, the human mind, free will, and thoughts and feelings in relation to the external world. Spinoza argues that an understanding of the good life must begin with a systematic understanding of the nature of the universe and its truths. Part II of this work advances three main axioms by which Spinoza believed to be associated with living a good life—these are 1) a reverence for God, 2) respect for fellow human beings, and 3) a disregard for what is beyond our control. These three tenets are largely based on Spinoza’s proofs of the existence of God, and furthermore his belief that the natural world is unconcerned with human beings’ desires and feelings.
Telfer, E. (1980). Happiness. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
Contemporary moral philosopher Elizabeth Telfer explores the various philosophical concepts of happiness. In particular, she distinguishes between hedonistic and eudaimonistic happiness. Hedonistic happiness is defined as the state of being pleased with one’s life, whereas eudaimonistic happiness is defined as having a life that is “worth living and worth having” (p. 37). Telfer examines the beliefs of Aristotle, Kant, Mill and others with regards to our moral obligations to pursue the different types of happiness.
Waterman, A. S. (1993). Two conceptions of happiness: Contrasts of personal expressiveness (eudaimonia) and hedonic enjoyment. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 64, 678-691; Waterman, A. S. (1990). The relevance of Aristotle’s conception of eudaimonia for the psychological study of happiness. Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology, 10, 39-44; Waterman, A. S. (1990). Personal expressiveness: Philosophical and psychological foundations. Journal of Mind and Behavior, 11, 47-74.
Waterman incorporates ideas from Aristotle’s concept of eudaimonia with contemporary psychological theories of well-being. The basic tenet of eudaimonism is that true happiness is derived from activity which expresses the best within us, or excellence. According to Aristotle, eudaimonia is the greatest good in human life. Waterman distinguishes eudaimonia from hedonism or happiness which is only associated with affective pleasures. In his own theory of “personal expressiveness,” Waterman makes a few departures from Aristotle’s defintion in order to better align the concept of eudaimonia with psychological theories—however, personal expressiveness remains conceptually similar to eudaimonia. Waterman highlights the relationship of eudaimonia (personal expressiveness) to other theories of positive psychological functioning such as flow, intrinsic motivation, and self-actualization. The author empirically examines the relationship between eudaimonia, hedonism and measures of subjective well-being. Eudaimonia and hedonism were found to be related but distinguishable constructs with eudaimonia being more strongly related to feeling challenged, investing high levels of effort and concentration, having clear goals, and feeling competent.
B. SATISFACTION WITH LIFE/HAPPINESS
Kraut, R. (1979). Two conceptions of happiness. The Philosophical Review, 2, 167-197.
Kraut presents a thorough review of Aristotle’s definition of eudaimonia in relation to contemporary conceptions of happiness. Specifically, the author provides support for the argument that eudaimonia has erroneously been equated with happiness—and as far as concepts of the good life have included happiness and/or eudaimonia, this mistranslation has distorted some of Aristotle’s original claims and have place confusion on our ability to evaluate what is happiness. The author presents several conditions under which the traditional translation fails, for instance the claim that everything is sought for the sake of happiness. Kraut clarifies several points of divergence between happiness and eudaimonia. For instance, happiness is considered a subjective state, whereas the experience of eudaimonia presupposes that the individual meet certain objective standards in addition to the subjective standards required for happiness. Furthermore, Kraut examines the necessary conditions for happiness. By applying the principles of extreme subjectivism and objectivism, he aims to answer the following questions: Does happiness require knowledge that one is getting the important things that one values in life? Is the deceived, disillusioned, or ignorant individual genuinely happy? And if a person is getting the things he or she values in life, is there some objective standard by which we can judge these goods to be truly valuable? And if some objective standard does exist, can we appropriately judge people’s happiness by it? Accessible to any reader, this article proves to be an excellent account of the philosophical theories regarding how to define happiness.
Myers, D. G., & Diener, E. (1995). Who is happy? Psychological Science, 6, 10-19.
Myers and Diener dispel the myths of happiness by presenting research which demonstrates that sex, race, age, and income are all unrelated to reports of happiness. The authors discuss some of the traits of happy people—self-esteem, a sense of personal control, optimism, and extraversion. Furthermore, close relationships, religious faith, and having a sense of purpose seem to play an important role in life satisfaction. Authors conclude by suggesting that the advancement of well-being begins with an examination of who is happy and why.
Myers, D. G. (1992). The pursuit of happiness. New York: William Morrow & Co., Inc.
This book presents the empirical research on well-being in a way that is accessible to the general reader. Myers addresses the various definitions of well-being, problems with measurement, and correlates of well-being. Demographic variables such as income, age, sex, and race have been shown to be unrelated to happiness while traits such as optimism, extraversion, and meaning in life are related to happiness. The book is rich with literary, historical, and everyday examples of the good life—including ways to improve well-being.
Parducci, A. (1995). Happiness, Pleasure, and Judgment: The contextual theory and its applications. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Parducci examines happiness from the viewpoint of a contextual theorist. According to contextual theory, the degree of happiness experienced as a result of any outcome is a function of past successes and social comparison. Parducci’s ideas have been incorporated into a computer simulation game in which players construct their own happiness by selecting goals for the outcomes they will experience. The game simulates the consequences of everyday-life choices by placing players in charge of the life of a fictional salesperson. The object of the game is to maximize cumulative happiness, and players set goals for how much the salesperson wants to sell. Players are warned that higher goals often lead to extremely positive mood when the goals are met, but also lead to greater negative mood when the goals are not met. Parducci shows that the game is very difficult to master. In trying to maximize daily happiness, players inadvertently decrease overall happiness. Furthermore, intensely positive experiences often devalue moderately positive experiences and intensify negative experiences. Implications for daily living are discussed.
Russell, B. (1930/1960). The Conquest of Happiness. London: George Allen & Unwin, Ltd.
This classic book can be considered a precursor to contemporary psychological theories of human motivation. Modern research programs concerning intrinsic motivation, flow, and self-actualization among others can be traced to Russell’s ideas regarding boredom, engagement, and meaningfulness. The author takes a commonsensical approach to understanding what it means to be happy. At the time this book was first published, it was a popular assumption that intelligence and rationality were incompatible with happiness. Especially among scholars, it was widely believed that realistic perceptions of the world (i.e., wisdom) naturally led to discontent and cynicism—in other words, happiness was regarded as symptom of ignorance or lack of sophistication. However, through the use of powerfully logical examples from literature and philosophy, Russell argues that “reason lays no embargo on happiness” (p. 27) and that the state of unhappiness or pessimism should not be considered superior to happiness. Russell claims that the root of unhappiness lies in mistaken views of the world, misleading value systems, and pursuit of goals that are not personally fulfilling. In identifying the causes of happiness, he recognizes the importance of retaining a zest for life or appreciation of the world and one’s surroundings, the capacity to love and enjoy others, the importance of family, and the value of challenging work. Written in jargon-free language, this frequently cited book is highly recommended for anyone who is interested in the nature of human enjoyment.
Waterman, A. S. (1984). The Psychology of Individualism. New York: Praeger Publishers.
Waterman presents the positive side of philosophical individualism mainly by advocating concepts from Aristotle (eudaimonism), Emerson (self-reliance), Mill (liberty), and Kant (the categorical imperative). He begins by responding to the criticisms of individualism as being self-centered and at odds with the advancement of collective interests. The main themes of philosophical individualism (self-realization, self-respect and respect for others, responsibility, creativity, and rationality), Waterman argues, are essential to optimal functioning. Furthermore, the optimal condition is achieved through the individual’s realization of his or her fullest potentials—and this, in turn, leads not only to personal fulfillment but also to societal benefits as well. In fact, the author demonstrates that the principles of ethical individualism are not in conflict with collective goals. For example, Kant’s Respect Principle demands that individuals respect the autonomy of others by acting in non-manipulative, non-exploitative ways. In Part I, the author reviews the history of ethical individualism which can be traced to the ancient Greek philosophers, and he notes how these traditional philosophical views have evolved into contemporary psychological theories (e.g., Maslow, Rogers, Erikson). The question of whether or not the principles of ethical individualism are related to positive psychological functioning is clearly an empirical one; thus, in Part II, Waterman discusses the psychological research surrounding this issue. Well-written and accessible, this book represents that place where philosophy and psychology intersect.
C. MEANING AND PURPOSE
Antonovsky, A. (1988). Unraveling the mystery of health. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
In this book, the late Aaron Antonovksy presented his “salutogenic model” of coping--which focuses on why people remain healthy despite stress. Antonovsky has examined a number of individuals who have experienced a vibrant sense of well-being despite early experiences of trauma or hardship. It is proposed that what is common to all resistance resources is that they help make sense out of the stressors with which individuals are constantly bombarded. The core concept in the model is the “sense of coherence.” The sense of coherence refers to the extent to which one possesses a durable, pervasive though dynamic sense that life is comprehensible, manageable, and meaningful. For instance, among survivors of the Holocaust, he saw those who had been forever negatively changed, but he also saw some who apparently not only survived but thrived—individuals who showed enormous resilience after having experienced the worst cruelty that humans can perpetrate on each other. The Sense of Coherence Scale measures three components: manageabilty (“There is always a solution to the painful things in life”), comprehensibility (“When things have happened you generally found that you estimated their importance correctly‑‑you saw things in the right proportion”), and meaning (“Your life has very clear goals and purpose”). Sense of coherence has been shown to relate to adaptation after a variety of negative life experiences.
Baumeister, R. (1991). Meanings of life. New York: Guilford Press.
Drawing on the fields of history, psychology, anthropology, and sociology, Baumeister examines the evidence pertinent to the age-old question, “What is the meaning of life?” Baumeister argues that our notions about fulfillment and meaning are based on the erroneous proposition that these concepts are static—that there really will be a “happily ever after” when life stops being a process and becomes a state of permanent satisfaction, fulfillment, love, the pursuit of happiness. In considering the historical evolution of a variety of sources of meaning in life—work, love, family—Baumeister argues that the value of each of these rests on the recent invention of the self and that without their attachments to enhancing the self these sources of meaning would no longer be justifiable. Baumeister concludes with the notion that transient fulfillment and momentary experiences of meaning of the sort that might be most salient prior to death, may be the purest form of meaning humans can experience. Also notable is Baumeister’s consideration of the paradox of parenting. Though parenting is certainly considered to be an important component of The Good Life, having children is often found to be a negative predictor of subjective well-being—in other words, having children reduces happiness. These results might be taken as highlighting the difference between a happy life and a meaningful life.
Descartes, R. (1649/1972). The Passions of the Soul. In E. S. Hladane, & G. Ross (Trans.), The philosophical works of DesCartes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
In this classic work, DesCartes proposed that passions were strong emotions that took the person—that demanded activity. Descartes saw passions as the push underlying several behaviors. A passion captures us—we are impelled to act in its grip. Note that “passion” derives from the Latin passio—“suffering”. The role of this sort of dedication and enthusiasm for a behavior or a mission is clear in many of humanities greatest accomplishments. Yet, the role of passion in human life has been much neglected by psychologists. Recently, Robert Vallerand and his colleagues have begun a series of empirical investigations into two kinds of passion. These passions are termed Harmonious (passions that derive from intrinsically rewarding activity) and Obsessive (passions that derive from inter