Category: Positive Psychology

Positive psychology is the determination of the processes and situations that contribute to the flourishing or maximum operation of individuals, groups, and people. People become optimistic by having a positive attitude towards situations, people, events and outcomes. in the history of optimism, it has been shown that it has enhanced a celebration to live in the best of all worlds to celebrate one’s self (Peterson,2000).

Seligman (2011) explains about resilience of two MBA graduates from the University of Pennsylvania. He tries to differentiate the categories of people who can grow after failure from those who may give up and hoe to build the skills of such category of people. He also tries to focus on how resilience can be employed to reduce the number of pessimistic people and increase the number of people with positivity. He farther explains that optimistic people don’t give up and have a habit of interpreting setbacks as temporary and changeable. Through these observations, he suggested that he could find a way in which he could train people think like the optimists and be against depression, anxiety and attempts to give up after failure. He went further ahead of creating the Penn Resiliency Program that was to be run by Karen Reivich and Jane Gillam of the University of Pennsylvania. A ten-day program was also created to train teachers so that they could teach their students the techniques of becoming optimistic in whatever the challenges they may face.

Positive psychology entails the intuitive experiences such as satisfaction, well-being and fulfillment, optimism and hope, and happiness. At individual level positivity is about personal traits, internal individual skills, perseverance, courage, future awareness, perseverance, and wisdom.

Subjective well-being refers to the condition in which a person thinks and feels about their lives, (Edward Diener, 2000). In real sense it is a term in which people mean happiness. The detailed and extensive cross-cultural research on well-being suggests some links between happiness and macro social conditions. The main issue is taken to be on how an individual’s values and goals correlate with the external events and the quality of experience.

Optimism is one of the dispositional traits that are seen to correlate with external events and their interpretation. (Christopher Peterson, 2000), considers optimism to involve logical, motivational and emotional components. The groups of people who are known to be optimistic tend to have more perseverance, their moods are better, more successful and are healthier physically.

In the research on happiness has a perspective that traditional values contain essential elements of truth if they are to thrive across all generations. However, survey studies show that happiness of an individual originates from time and difference in culture. Optimism is believed to be a personality trait that is taken to be dispositional. This is taken as a worldwide expectation that the good things are more as compared to the negative occurrences in the future. People are optimistic if they have the belief that they can achieve their goals despite the difficulties they may be facing and considered to be pessimistic if they believe that they cannot face the problems and achieve their goals.

Particularly, some have concluded that optimism brings forth positive effect which in return creates an approach that make such people to feel more empowered and focused towards their work and career goals. Therefore, the people have that belief that optimism is more likely to have positive results. To be more specific, they have a belief that having an optimistic attitude will increase performance especially when one works towards a predefined goal that may have high chances of success. People believe that optimism can do magic and do benefit others regardless of being in direct control of their outcomes through their own actions.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2004 Household Economic Studies, only 61 percent of children are raised from birth to age eighteen in a home with both of their birth parents. What this statistic told us was that if we as society don’t open our eyes to new ways of defining family, we’ll miss a real opportunity to make our families and our communities stronger. What this statistic tells us is that if we as a society don’t open our eyes to new ways of defining family, we’ll miss a real opportunity to make our families and our communities stronger.

In the novel of The Secrets of Happy Families, Author Scott Haltzman encourages unique and idealistic ways to create a heathier and loving family. In Haltzmans research proves that blissful families help build good for heath, permanency, peace of mind, productivity, and success with one another’s relationship. In the novel of The Secrets of Happy Families, Haltzman offers an innovative approach to help build family gratification that works for families of all backgrounds and various family parenting approaches. Haltzman provides his technique called “Positive Psychology “. Positive Psychology is expressed in a way of problem solving through strategy and leadership. In this technique Haltzman strategizes through understanding and accepting who you are as a person while taking in consideration the leadership role in loving and united relationships. Overall in the book, Haltzman describes Positive Psychology as a way to help build a support system in extended families and communities that make the quality of time for family members to feel fun and adaptable or any occasion or for any person.

The book begins by introducing the honest meaning of family and happiness. Author, Scott Haltzman discusses his triumphs with his own family and how he can relate to the saying that “You may have a perfect family, but that doesn’t mean that each of you are happy”. He then gives the reader an example of him and his family from the text. He then starts by describing the Haltzman family living in a small suburban town with a respectable income and their home is solidly constructed with two well-educated children and a pet rabbit. Haltzman then asks the question “So if they Haltzman’s fit such a perfect profile of happy family, why are we all feeling so unhappy now?” I enjoyed reading this part of the novel because he discovers that this wasn’t an easy question to answer even as a clinician. This book explores many ways in which humans come together to form a family. But keep in mind that this book is about happy—not perfect—families.

Following the rich description of family, happiness and imperfection. Haltzman then discovered he could create an online study from survey data collecting from families all over the world. This data would help him gain a clearer understanding of the behind-the-scenes working of families. The numbers would then compare with how his information would match information against a published data, and in almost every case, the statistics yielded in his surveys matching national averages. This data collecting experience help share unidentified information to resources and gave results to an honest look inside the heart of today’s families.

Psychology is the art and science of behavior. It is a subject which is not just enclosed in books, but one that lies in the realm of reality, and becomes a part of our everyday life. Human tendency, more often than not is to not look at the flipside of things, but to look at the conventional path endorsed by quintessential beings of the 21st Century which is where the need for positive psychology comes in.

Only when people change the way they look at things, things they would look at will change and to look at the bright side of things, to think more optimistically and looking for ways to make one’s life worthwhile is the true essence and the hallmark of positive psychology.

Positive psychology further emphasizes “building a fulfilling life by identifying individual strengths of character and fostering them”.

Positive Psychology believes in the idea of Eudemonia which translates to happiness or welfare. Martin Seligman and Christopher Peterson, the proponents and fore fathers of positive psychology believe in the idea that one’s everyday problems can be resolved by just looking at the other side of the coin.

Humans have a tendency of seeing others as being happier than themselves and not sadder than themselves and once this outlook changes, individuals can start thriving in their lives and this field stands as a huge antithesis to clinical psychology suggesting that human beings are capable of much more than just coping with mental disorders.

‘A Character’ is a human quality that defines a person, a quality that makes a person stand out for who they are these characters are bring out the predominant feature of a person as they speak for themselves.

In 2004, Martin Seligman and Christopher Peterson published a book on Character strengths and virtues: A handbook and classification. This book comprises of 24 character strengths that every individual possesses. The students who participated in the study described each of the character strengths based on how they have understood it.

· Humor – Having a sense of humor comes with the ability to be creative, witty and ‘punny’ (to be funny and make puns) and turn any situation or conversation interesting by introducing wordplay or finding hidden meanings that can turn a boring mundane statement into something funny which would make someone laugh their heart out and brighten up their day.

· Spirituality – Feeling or Sensation of being aware of someone above or higher who is in control. Cultivating the relationship between humans and divine.

These character strengths can act as buffers against serious mental illnesses. Depression can be easily coped and managed by being optimistic and looking at the brighter side of life.

In the area of Positive Psychology, one has always focused on the aspect of helping an individual flourish in his/her life. But this has always been criticized – as now researchers believe in not solely focusing on individuals reaching their maximum potential but enabling all to make their highest contribution to something.

It helps one addressing issues inside out and outside in.

A second wave in the field of Positive Psychology has emerged where the focus has shifted from concentrating on positive emotions and experiences an individual has to how an individual leads a fulfilling life by overcoming his/her negative experiences.

Another emerging trend in the field focuses on a model known as Job Demands-Resources (JDR), which is considered as a mechanism that helps us focus on how to influence energy and engagement. It highlights the importance of building and drawing from one’s personal experience such as one’s mind set, behaviors and beliefs with linkages to successful job crafting.

The study of character strengths at work has rapidly increased in the last several years. Consultants, executives, human resource professionals, and managers are now regularly weaving character strengths exercises to help their employees become more engaged, productive, and happy. The use of character strengths to improve the skills of leaders, teams, and entire organizations is emerging as a popular and successful avenue as well.

Littman-Ovadia, Lavy, & Boiman-Meshita (2016) in a study of 1,031 working adults, signature strengths had the highest unique contribution to performance, organizational citizenship behavior, and lower counterproductive work behavior, while “happiness strengths” (zest, hope, etc.) had the highest unique contribution to work meaningfulness, engagement, and job satisfaction

In addition to the work domain, the vast field of education has found enormous benefit to teaching students, teachers, trainers, and entire schools on becoming more character strengths-based. Strengths-based parenting was found to relate significantly to strengths-based coping in children and negatively to stress levels. It is suggested that strengths-based parenting encourages children to use more strengths-based coping when they face stress and adversity, which partially explains these beneficial outcomes (Waters, 2015).

Character Strengths and Mental Illness, Problems, and Trauma Recovery

The use of character strengths to impact human suffering is an area of study that is grossly lacking. Shoshani & Slone (2016) conducted a study on 1078 adolescents living in southern Israel and being exposed to long periods of war, terrorism, and political conflict. Character strengths of temperance, transcendence, and interpersonal categories were found to negatively relate to psychiatric symptoms. These results support a resilience function of character strengths.

In a Korean study, addiction to smart-phones was associated with less temperance character strengths, while Internet addiction was associated with higher wisdom character strengths and lower courage character strengths.

A class (27 students) of post graduate students of positive psychology accepted the challenge of self-enhancement as a class assignment. They took the VIA survey and received the rankings accorded to their character strengths. They then chose a character strength they wanted to strengthen (indicated by improvement in ranking) and designed three tasks to be carried out in a duration of three weeks. During the three weeks they were required to keep a journal to maintain an experiential report of the tasks. The task alignment to the targeted character strength was assessed by teacher in-charge of the positive psychology paper.

Of the 24 character strengths, Perseverance emerged as the most popular choice of target character strength, thereby making courage most chose virtue of the six virtues. Justice was the least chosen virtue, while creativity, judgment, honesty, social intelligence, team work, fairness and leadership were the least popular choices for target character strengths. This demonstrates that most students were considering achievement oriented goals in different contexts. For example, they had set individual goals -one of the tasks chosen by a student was waking up early in the morning, without snoozing the alarm. Another example of a task done by one of the students was getting 7.5 hours of sleep every night. These tasks were aimed at self enhancement as over-coming previously debilitating habits or constructing newer healthier habits.

Perseverance was followed by kindness and self-regulation as the second most popular choice. Zest, forgiveness, spirituality, perspective, hope and curiosity were the third most popular choice for the group.

The choice of target character strength(s) can be better understood when the nature of tasks are re- categorized into intrapersonal, interpersonal and social. Intrapersonal nature of tasks is again the largest category highlighting the underlying need for achievement, but not necessarily in education or career pursuits. In fact, in overcoming barriers in self-expression, exploration and assertion. The main objective behind the choice and the tasks seems to be improving ego strength or will power or simply aim at high self-efficacy. One of the tasks chosen by a student to improve self -efficacy and bring about emotional stability was to read five quotes each day that would motivate and inspire her. Another task taken up by one of the students was to stick to a healthy diet and regular exercise. With regard to self -expression and self-exploration, one of the students had chosen the task of “speaking her mind” and taking a solo trip. Another student chose a task that highlighted assertion in the form of saying no to someone who thrusts his or her demands on her.

Again an intrapersonal task was also designed to accomplish the target strength in a social or interpersonal context. For example, some students sought to seek and giving forgiveness, by writing letters of apology or reconnecting in relationships gone sour, here the target character strength of forgiveness falls in the intrapersonal category but it is exercised in an interpersonal context. One of the tasks taken up by a student was to look back and revisit the situation and analyze so that she can learn from her mistakes and consider different aspects of the situation and can improve her relationship with others.

The intrapersonal tasks were further categorized into cognitive skill enhancement tasks, emotional regulatory skills enhancement tasks and behavioral skills enhancement tasks. Students demonstrate a clear inclination to design and execute cognitive skills enhancement tasks. For instance, students have done tasks such as meditation and mindfulness in order to improve their cognitive functioning. For example, a student did a task of writing down obstacles and distractions that hindered the completion of their target goals and prioritizing them.

The cognitive skill enhancement tasks are followed by emotional regulatory enhancement tasks like managing the anxiety of travelling alone, asserting in a conflict situation etc.

Behavioral skills enhancement tasks were least chosen and contained tasks like starting an exercise regime, regulating sleep and wake up time, regulating screen time etc.

Besides the intrapersonal nature of tasks, the second most sought task type was social. Wherein students chose to reach out to individuals whom they only knew as acquaintances or charitable institutions, by contributing through sharing of chores or rendering a helping hand to donating items required by a children’s shelter. For example, one of the students did a task of helping college staff pick up used plates. Another student did a task of helping the paying guest warden segregate washed clothes and fold them after laundry. With regard to the social domain, another task that was performed by a student was to reach out to someone in need where she could find an opportunity to offer some peace and hope in their life. One interesting task done by one of the students was to visit a prison home and the plan was to gift each child a goodie bag, engage them in interactive games and making it a fun filled day for them.

Interpersonal seemed like the least chosen nature of task and more often involved family than friends. The nature of tasks seemed either assertive (standing up in conflicting situation like an abusive parent) or rebuilding relationship by planning and spending more quality time with a lately distant member of the family.

On the whole 75% of the group saw a significant jump in their ranking, while 9% failed to see any change and 15% actually saw a dip in the ranking of their strength. But the qualitative report unanimously saw each student feeling encouraged of the experience and none regretting or feeling discouraged by a lowered ranking. In fact, most mentioned that the exhilaration accompanying the task was reward enough and the improvement in ranking was immaterial for them.

The most popular choice of character strength is Perseverance. The least popular choice of character strength is Creativity, Judgment, Honesty, Social Intelligence, Teamwork, Fairness and Leadership. Most popular virtue is Courage and the least popular virtue is Justice.

Number of positive growth are 24 and number of negative growth are 5. The number of unchanged choices is 3. The average number of ranks jumped up was 10.5. The highest jump in rank was 20 and lowest was 1.

Out of 25 participants,21 participants did 3 tasks to bring about a positive growth in their character strength which they have selected to work on. 2 of the participants have selected 2 character strengths to work upon. One of them has selected 3 character strengths and one of them have selected 4 character strengths to work upon. Most of the participants decided to do tasks that were mostly Intrapersonal in nature. Intrapersonal tasks have been divided into 3 types: Emotional, Behavioral and Cognitive tasks. According to the data, participants made tasks that were mostly Cognitive, followed by Emotional and behavioral tasks. There are 75 tasks in total.

Out of 75 tasks 55 tasks are Intrapersonal in nature, 8 are Interpersonal in nature and 12 are Social in nature.

Under Intrapersonal tasks, 28 tasks are cognitive tasks which shows majority of them made tasks for themselves which are mostly bringing out improvement which is based on cognition. 14 tasks are related to emotional growth and 13 tasks are related to positive behavioral growth.

Out of 75 tasks 12 tasks are social in nature. Under social, 10 tasks are related to acquaintances and 2 tasks are related to charity. Under social tasks acquaintances involve people like college staff and Paying Guest warden. Under charity we have orphanages and other NGO’s.

This shows that social tasks are the second highest which the participants have worked upon. The last one is interpersonal tasks where 8 tasks were done. Under interpersonal, 6 tasks are related to improving relationship with peers and 2 tasks are related to improving relationship with family.

The VIA Survey of Character Strengths provided a range of core character strengths to all the students who undertook the survey. After which, they decided to choose a character strength(s) they wished to improve within a span of 3 weeks by choosing personalized tasks for the same. By the end of the 3 weeks, all the students took a post-VIA Survey to access the rate of self-enhancement.

For carrying out the analysis, the tasks taken up by each student were better understood when the nature tasks were divided into three aspects: intrapersonal, interpersonal and social.

The set of intrapersonal tasks was the largest category as it not only targeted the educational pursuits but also different contexts such as social, interpersonal, cognitive skill enhancement and behavioral enhancement. The focus was on improving ego strength or will power or aim at high self-efficacy by overcoming barriers in self-expression, exploration, and assertion. Out of all the 27 student reports, the most common chosen character strength was that of Perseverance and the least chosen character strength to work on was Justice. This indicated that currently, the students have achievement-oriented goals in various aspects of their lives.

The next set of tasks were focused more on the social aspect where students chose tasks in order to reach out to individuals whom they only knew as acquaintances or charitable institutions by contributing through sharing of chores or rendering a helping hand to donating items required by a children’s shelter.

The last set of tasks that were less popular among students were that of the Interpersonal aspect. involved family than friends. The nature of tasks seemed either assertive (standing up in a conflicting situation like an abusive parent) or rebuilding relationship by planning and spending more quality time with a lately distant member of the family.

The nature of the various tasks that most of the students chose under this character strength enabled them to work towards self-enrichment by overcoming previously debilitating habits or adopting new healthier habits.

Thus, according to the second wave in Positive Psychology, the focus was on how an individual leads a fulfilling life by overcoming his/her past negative habits or experiences.

While on the other side of the coin, to understand the study objectively, we looked at the figures. In totality, there were 75 tasks undertaken by all the students in the study. On the whole, we saw a 75.0% of positive growth.

As we studied the nature of the tasks within three components: intrapersonal, interpersonal and social, we found that the majority of the tasks were concerned with intrapersonal with the majority of 73% followed by social comprising of 12% and then last in line interpersonal which had 11% of the tasks.

Intrapersonal tasks had majority of cognitive aspects that was to bringing about a change or rather improvement in the way they perceived and judged. It included cognitive skill enhancement tasks, emotional regulatory skills enhancement tasks and behavioral skills enhancement tasks. A few students had used mindfulness and meditation methods as a way to improve themselves. Second to the intrapersonal component was the social component that as mentioned earlier had 12% of tasks that the students had taken up. 83% of the tasks under the social component involved acquaintances – known surroundings or people that the students reached to. The least chosen nature of task – interpersonal that had more to do with working with family than peers. Students sought to activities that helped them rebuild relationships or take up a stand in the family.

The desire to find meaning is recognized as a fundamental human quest. Adler introduced us to the realization that humans live in the world of meaning, Frankl convinced us to believe that our life is directed at and guided by meaning, while Freud suggested that all our actions mean something. Meaning in life is seen as an important construct which is implicated in various research topics, including beliefs and having a consistent understanding of self, others and life in general. Yet another “fuzzy” concept is that of free will and people’s beliefs about it. Scholars have debated for centuries about the existence and possible nature of free will. And while the scholars argue, ordinary people also continue to alter their views about this concept. It has already been demonstrated that disbelief in free will causes dishonest, aggressive and conforming behaviours, whereas belief in it induces self-efficacy, self-control and punitive attitude towards wrongdoers. Research like this point to the need to investigate such major concepts as beliefs about free will and meaning in life and their relation to personality which the present study seeks to attempt.

The variety of individual differences is immense and different personality traits can provide humans with competitive advantages in different environments. Although there is a lack of informative explanations addressing questions such as, where traits come from, how they operate as well as how they produce differences in behaviour, traits are great describers of individual differences. There has been a growing consensus that individual personality differences can be described by a hierarchical system consisting of several major traits, in particular, the five-factor models have gained distinct prominence. Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness, Agreeableness and conscientiousness – The Big 5 traits have been celebrated for their ability to simplify a plethora of traits, their cross-cultural application as well as their ability to account for a substantial amount of the human behaviour variation. These personality traits serve as categorical distinguishment markers when looking at relationship between them and an array of other measures, including meaning in life and beliefs about free will.

Philosophers and other authorities have questioned the existence of free will for centuries. Even though some may view such differences in opinion as little, recent work has indicated that these beliefs have practical consequences. For example, Harmon-Jones and Mills (1999) established that invoking a sense of personal accountability causes people to modify their behaviour to better align with their attitudes, while the findings of Vohs and Schooler (2008) suggested that students who had been induced not to believe in free will became more likely to cheat on a test and steal money. Mueller and Dweck (1998) extended these findings by looking at the performance on tasks of 10-year-old children after they have been told their success was a result of either their intelligence or their hard work. The authors concluded that those children who thought their success was due to their intelligence, put less effort and reported lower enjoyment than children who thought their success was a result of their own effort. In light of the evidence that agent’s beliefs about free will foresee various important social behaviour patterns, including diminished individual causation and possible promotion of undesirable behaviours, it would be beneficial to understand more about those beliefs.

Belief in free will has been shown to positively correlate with life satisfaction and finding life meaning. In fact, the ability of humans to create, share and transmit meaning is what allowed humankind to achieve an exceptional level of intelligence and progress, setting it apart from other animals (Chao & Kesebir, 2013). However, due to the abstract nature of meaning in life construct, it has been problematic and challenging for researchers to conceptualize it (George & Park, 2016). An array of various definitions have highlighted different aspects, such as having a life aim, feeling fulfilment, experiencing a sense of significance etc. which prevent the integration of meaning in life research with the broader literature. Although problematic in research, it seems that people have a general notion of what meaning is, although they would probably struggle to provide an explicit definition. Recently, a tripartite view of meaning in life construct, which is composed of three distinct sub-constructs of comprehension, purpose and significance, has been gaining momentum. It could be then argued that in order to live their lives as reflective beings, humans need three things: first, they need to understand their surrounding world, second, people need to identify direction for their actions and third, they need to find value in their lives. Currently, however, there is a lack of empirical investigation focused on each subconstruct individually, thus this untapped potential calls psychology to investigate what makes life worth living as well as contribute to and make advancements in meaning in life literature.

With all of the above in mind, the current study will seek to investigate the potential relationship between personality traits, meaning in life and beliefs about free will. A total of three self-report questionnaires measuring the three constructs will be used. These three inventories will be converted into an online survey to be completed by anonymous volunteers recruited through university, friends and family. Volunteers will be provided with instructions and introductory information after which they can proceed to complete the online survey. Upon finishing the online questionnaire, they will be presented with debrief and contact information for any further queries. The present study seeks to expand on possible relation between the three constructs of personality traits, beliefs about free will and meaning in life. Despite a great deal of research conducted on personality traits, beliefs in free will and meaning in life, research concerning the connections between these constructs has been somewhat limited. Focusing on the link between personality, meaning in life and beliefs in free will is important because personality traits are closely related to how individuals process information about their social environments, which, in return, impacts the beliefs, values, motives, and goals that individuals adopt.

This paper will examine the use of positive psychological exercises on well-being through viewing variations of heart rate when completing the exercises. Research from Cohen and Pressman (2006) state that disorders, such as, depression and anxiety have been examined as a larger risk for mortality rates. A great extent of research has proved that greater wellbeing has a strong correlation to a better physical health, findings by Cohen and Pressman (2005) whom examined the improvement of cardiovascular health and lowering morbidity when having a consistent exposure to positive affect. Positive affect are emotions that exhibit a degree of happiness, pleasantness and joy (Clark, Watson and Leeka, 1989). I will be assessing the uses of positive psychological exercises and viewing my own cardiovascular health to see if there is a direct cause and effect. My hypothesis is that there will be a direct relationship between positive affect and a better cardiovascular health.

I was able to investigate the use of positive psychological exercises on my own cardiovascular health through a self-intervention. I measured my pulse before the positive psychology activities, to use as a baseline (rest). After the baseline was measured, there were two conditions that I went through, one was a positive calm condition (PCC) and the other a positive active condition (PAC). During the positive calm condition, I watched a mindfulness exercise for 4 minutes long. For the positive active condition, I watched a laughing yoga exercise that also consisted of 4 minutes. Afterwards, there was a 10 minute resting stage between both conditions to make sure that the cardiovascular effects of the positive calm exercise did not coincide with the positive active exercise result. To ensure that any extraneous variables were controlled, I completed the tasks and measured my heart rate regularly throughout the 7 days.

Over the duration of a week, in positive calm condition, my heart rate dropped by an average of 3.17 BPM. This displays that the mindfulness activity caused a drop in heart rate due to the state of deep relaxation. Supporting research from Delizonna, Williams and Langer (2009) whom stated that mindfulness training has an effect on cardiovascular health after finding participants had a decrease in average heart rate compared to the control group. Therefore, this indicates that there is, in fact, a direct correlation between positive affect exercises and cardiovascular health. However, Krygier et al. (2013) rejects my findings on how mindfulness meditation can hold a change in one’s wellbeing. After investigating a way of mindfulness meditation – Vipassana, researchers found that the participants heart rate increased.

During the positive active condition, my heart rate averaged to 1.52 BPM. This indicates that there is an increase in heart rate after the laughing yoga intervention. Laughter may have a positive psychological benefit as it is able to express happiness, improving overall mood, this is clearly shown in my findings. It is possible that this is due to my sympathetic nervous system, as it increases my heart rate and the activation base (Dolgoff-Kaspar et al., 2012). Fredrickson et al. (2000) whom allegedly stated that positive emotions have the aptitude to unravel the effects of negative emotions and can bring back the heart rate to its baseline state instantly. 170 participants took part in a stressful activity followed by videos eliciting subjects such as amusement, neutral and contentment. Fredrickson et al. (2000) found that due to cardiovascular reactivity there was a shorter elevation of heart rate in the positive emotion conditions. Therefore, this supports my findings as it showed that a positive active intervention is able to express happiness and overall, generates a positive mood which improves mental health.

Limitations towards my self-intervention findings, is that the results I have obtained during the 7 day exercise, might not represent the rest of the population. This is due to my own approach towards the positive psychology exercises which have had a unique result on my own cardiovascular health. If the two exercises were conducted on other participants within the same demographics as myself, the findings may hold a high level of reliability. During my self-intervention whilst doing the positive calm condition, I found a change in my mental state as I became much more relaxed gradually during the exercise. This shows that through a state of relaxation, I was able to maintain a calm state, a positive emotion which changed my well-being. This shows that there is a correlation between positive psychology exercises and having a better well-being. During the positive active condition, I also had a positive mindset during the exercises. As the observation consisted of 7 days, my overall mental state improved due to more positive emotions seeking out daily. This shows how overall positive exercises can have a positive impact on ones’ mental health.

I believe that these exercises may have more of an impact for certain people that may be undergoing certain mental illnesses such as depression, which means that the positive affect activities may boost their wellbeing and change their perspective on life itself. Wheeler et al. (2014) stated that depression has a connection with an increase of cardiac morbidity, this is due to the high heart rate and lowered heart rate variation which may elaborate that people with depression are at a risk of a cardiac problem.

Focus on positive ideas to deal with a situation than wallowing in sadness or anxiety. Kindness when shared, multiplies, and changes one’s perspective A gratitude journal or notes of things that one is thankful for, reminds one of good times.

Difficult times like economic crisis, political unrest, and pandemic bring out anxiety and sadness in a majority of Americans. But through time, it has been proven that having a positive perspective or cultivating satisfaction can help one to sail through these trying times.

It is not a denial of the situation or circumstance but a changing of perspective and constructively finding ways to deal with a situation.

Ron Siegel, PsyD, assistant professor of psychology at Harvard Medical School says “Positive psychology is not about denying difficult emotions. It’s about opening to what is happening here and now, and cultivating and savoring the good in your life.”

What are the ways of positive psychology? One is by counting one’s blessings when faced with a loss of a job or death as it changes one’s perspective and makes one look at the possibilities. It is important when encountering grief, stress, and other difficulties. Helping others is another way as it shifts your attention and makes your struggles seem easier.

Positive psychology can also help develop resilience to difficulties like unpleasant or traumatic events and may help in bouncing back faster.

When one focuses attention and mindset to the present situation and accepts it without judgment, one is practicing mindfulness. Because the future is uncertain, getting a hold of what is happening at the moment and living it, stabilizes your mind. For those who have been facing challenges like an illness like chronic pain or cancer, there have been formal mindfulness-based stress reduction programs that help in reducing physical and psychological symptoms. Dr. Siegel narrates free guided recordings of mindfulness meditation for one to practice at home.

zations, shelters, sanctuaries, and rescue organizations have shown to create happier feelings than those who do not volunteer, according to research studies. Giving donations also boosts the mood. A simple practice of flipping a coin to self-indulge or volunteer can help one decide on what to do. Going to a salon and having your hair groomed is a self-indulgent act while doing something for a shelter like walking a dog or sending flowers to an elderly is a community service. Compare the feelings of satisfaction that you get from the two activities. But you can do the two activities and be happier.

When you give thanks for the things and blessings that you receive, whether tangible or intangible, you accept the goodness that is given or shown to you. Being grateful for past blessings brings back happy memories. Showing importance for what you have now centers you on the present and not taking it for granted. Looking forward to what may arrive and what one can do with it will make you hopeful for the future. Optimism makes the future look bright. Keeping tabs in a gratitude journal reinforces positivity.

A revolution in the science of emotion has emerged in the last few decades, dealing with how positive and negative emotions mold individuals in an unexpected manner, with the prospective to create a theory shift in assessment of decision theories. The review reveals that emotions constitute dominant, persistent, and conventional drivers of decision making thus affecting an indivdual. Across different domains, important regularities appear in the mechanisms through which emotions influence judgments and choices. The present paper organizes and analyzes what has been learned from the past years of work on positive and negative emotions and correlation of how these emotions affect individuals . It also proposes an integrated mode of how various factors become responsible in making the emotions linking with mind and eventually with the well being of an individual.

Positive emotions are not simply “happy feelings” that we chase to feel momentary pleasure; like the more negative emotions play a significant role in everyday life. There are many ways to define “emotion,” but they generally fall into one of two camps:

· Emotions are a state or feeling that cannot be conjured up at will, or;

· Emotions are attitudes or responses to a situation or an object, like judgment

The prosperity of benefits of positive emotions is well acknowledged. They develop physical health. They promote trust and compassion. They buffer against depressive symptoms and help people recuperate from stress. They can even undo the detrimental effects of negative emotions. With frequent experience and expression of positive emotions comes resilience and resourcefulness. Moreover, positive emotions foster better social connectedness.

Broaden and build theory of positive emotions is a model for us to understand the process behind positive emotions in our minds and bodies. It enhances one’s capability to know the varied thoughts and actions and in overtime it helps us to enhance our skills and resources. For example, an interest about particular scenery becomes a part of precious navigational knowledge; pleasing connection with a stranger becomes a caring friendship. Positive emotions rarely occur in life-threatening situations. However, it has a supportive effect: positive emotions broaden the line-up of thoughts and actions that come to mind. Happiness, for example, builds the desire to have fun, and helps us find new information and experience new things by exploring ourselves in meantime. Love- looked at as a combination of different positive emotions (e.g. happiness, attentiveness and satisfaction) experienced within a condition of safe, close relationship- makes a desire in us to play with, explore and be with our loved ones. Such various thought-action inclination- to play, explore and to be- each of them depicts the method of positive emotions that widen persistent mode of analyzing or acting.

Negative emotion or affect is the experience of feeling negative emotions such as anger, frustration, guilt, nervousness and fear. Inducing negative emotions in your users as they experience your user interface is one of many ways your product could fail. Therefore, it is important to learn how to prevent negative affect in your user experience and induce positive emotions instead. Negative emotions can be described as any feeling which causes you to be miserable and sad.

Emotions that can become negative are hate, anger, jealousy and sadness. Yet, in the right context, these feelings are completely natural. Negative emotions can dampen our enthusiasm for life, depending on how long we let them affect us and the way we choose to express them.

In this paper we will look at the negative or positive aspects which deal with emotions. We believe that positive psychology is only about positive emotions but it isn’t the only focus under the emotional aspect. Negative emotions are necessary in life as it is a part of a person’s experience to make his/her life a complete one. The study about emotions is being taken place from several of years and we have known fairly about it but the shocking part is that we do not get the idea of the necessity of both emotions (negative and positive) for well-being of ourselves. Positive psychology keeps a track of negative emotions along with positive. As it is more important for us to know how to enhance our positive emotions and take lead of the chance they bring, it’s just important as to learn how to adjust from negative emotions and survive with them successfully. The moment we start to acquire, adapt and manage both our positive and negative emotions and grasp the importance of turning negative emotions into positive experience, we tend to bring a balanced and purposeful life.

A regular stereotype which is followed by the major section of the society says that women are considered to be emotionally unstable (specifically to negative emotions) when compared with men. Studies based on gender differences consider both the emotional experiences and expressivity associated with an individual. The eight basic emotions were taken as essential factors for the study which includes sadness, anger, horror, disgust, neutrality, amusement, surprise and pleasure. The measurement referred to study the link incorporated both subjective and the objective aspects of the experiment. Heart rate was used as the prime physiological stimuli as it is presently the most applicable autonomic nervous system marker of emotional processing.

The experiment was conducted with the help of several participants from Beijing Normal university through ads as volunteers which included a total of 110 volunteers but only 79 were selected out of the total due to the insertion criterion set up by the Beck depression inventory and Toronto Alexithymia Scale which suggested that people with depression and alexthymia cannot precisely convey their emotions. The final selection had a total of 79 (31 males and 48 females). It was conducted by asking the volunteers to watch video clips which were capable of inducing the above mentioned emotions, for each of the type two video clips were used between 60 and 245 seconds length which could provide enough time for recording physiological stimuli of an individual.

The volunteers viewed the clips in a space with suitable illumination. All of them were seated in isolation and the videos were shown on a 14 inch computer screen. The participants had all the liberty to discontinue if they establish any kind of discomfort created by the videos. Prior to watch each of the clip the participants were shown a blank screen for allowing them to get over their pre occupied minds due to previous clips. All of them were asked to complete their self report inventory which used the self assessment manikin for the participants to rate their emotions regarding the video they watched wherein a 9 point likert scale ranging from 1(not at all) to 9(very much), the scale was based on how happy to how unhappy the person was and so on. The heart rate was obtained using the BIOPACMP150 system and was assessed by a three lead ECG with a lead II Configuration with4.0 software.

To eliminate the gender differences in the stimuli patterns the results of neutral videos were used as control or standard. The dependent variable be the difference-value (D-value), which depicts to keep a tally for former The tally were premeditated before types of emotion minus that for neutrality. Performing an analysis of variance (ANOVA)..Four detached varied ANOVA tests of gender (men and women) and emotion type (sadness, anger, amusement, surprise, horror, disgust, and pleasure) were performed for the valence, arousal, motivation, and HR). Emotion kind was within-subjects factor. The link between the subjective scale scores and physiological responses were demonstrated this way. All the numerous pair wise comparisons were performed using Bonferroni’s correction. The uncorrected level of statistical significance was set at p < .05.

[bookmark: article1.body1.sec5.p1]Emotional experience refers primarily to an individual’s physiological arousal evoked by external response and emotional expressivity is the peripheral expression of individual experiences. It was explained that females are more sensitive to negative response, and this increased sensitivity disrupts with their dealing out of negative emotions. Electrophysiological studies have proved that women show evidence of superior galvanic skin response and an high heart rate when watching movies that induce feelings of sadness, and their heart rate is also high in response to movies that induce feelings of disgust. On the other hand, rising number of studies have revealed that men display further severe emotional reactions, chiefly to stimuli that are supposed to be aggressive or erotic. The arousing responses elicited by emotional videos were contradictory among emotional awareness and emotional expressivity. Men had stronger emotional experiences, whereas women had stronger emotional expressivity. Gender differences in emotional experience and emotional expressivity depended on specific types of emotion, not only the valence.

Human psychobiology is a new branch of science which deals with the study of well-being and happiness genetically. According to many studies it has been proven that an earlier known gene sequence can help people out to recognize emotional aspects out of which negatives aspects stands out chiefly.

A recent twin study has proposed that genetic approach is responsible for about 35-50% of well-being. In a recent inquiry, well-being of a person was measured in a birth record based sample of about thousand middle-aged twins using different aspects of well-being of a person like, financial status, education, marital status and family income. They found out that nearly not more than 3% attain their well-being regarding these aspects. However, around 44-52% of the people’s well-being was connected genetically. When twins were retested after few years, they found that the heritability of well-being approaches 80%.

According to a study done by Rebecca Todd, a professor in UBC’s Department of Psychology, the ADRA2b deletion variant gene which has an effect on the hormone and neurotransmitter norepinephrine. Earlier it was found that this gene was responsible for the formation of emotional memories. The recent study regarding this deletion variant shows that it plays a part in real-time notion. Todd says that, “people really do see the world differently”, “For people with this gene variation, the emotionally relevant things in the world stand out much more.”

When a study was made and the brains of 39 participants were scanned, it was found that 21 participants were carriers of the deletion variant gene. Carriers of this variant gene shows significant action in a part of the brain which is in charge of emotions. Todd believes that this explains why some people are more prone to Post- traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) following disturbing experiences.

Todd even looks at some of the useful aspect of the gene variant and says that, “People who have the deletion variant are drawing on an additional network in their brains important for calculating the emotional relevance of things in the world. In any situation where noticing what’s relevant in the environment is important, this gene variation would be a positive.’

It is observed that the genetic aspect in humans play an important role in a person’s well-being. It has been proven that 35-50% of the well-being is because of genetic aspects. There are many genes which are responsible for well-being. According to Todd’s analysis we found that maximum segment of the people were part of the carriers of the deletion variant gene which was responsible for the action in a part of the brain which is in charge of emotions. It is further stated and explained that this gene is not only responsible for the negative feedback but also for the positive feedback among certain individual.

Today I’m going to be sharing with you all about the effects of Positive Thinking. Positive thinking on the surface sounds useful and I’m sure most of us would prefer to be positive rather than negative. There was this one quote saying, “If you learn to harness the power of positive thoughts, you’ll attract more positive circumstances”. However, you will attract more negativity and pain if you think negatively. I’m sure you all wouldn’t want that, wouldn’t you?

At first glance, you may think this describes Karma, but they’re very different. For karma, it is believed that good will come back to you if you do ‘good;’ but if you do ‘bad,’ you’re going to be punished. But for the Law of Attraction, blessings are up to you entirely. As long as you’re thinking positively, you will call positive things to you. Research is starting to reveal that positive thinking is more than just being happy or showing an upbeat attitude. While the concept of choosing to be happy is a simple decision in itself, it will require some focus and dedication to execute it. In fact, positive thoughts can create real value in your life and help you build skills that last much longer than a smile. Doing so it’s not gonna be easy, but as long as you can commit to it, you can learn to influence this power of positive thinking, so you can heal yourself and train your mind for happiness.

Firstly, the biggest benefit that positive thoughts provide is an enhanced ability to build skills and develop resources for use later in life.

Let’s consider a real-world example,

A child who runs around outside, swinging on branches and playing with friends, develops the ability to move athletically allowing them to have physical skills, the ability to play with others and communicate with a team enabling their social skills, and the ability to explore and examine the world around them enhancing their creative skills. In this way, the positive emotions of play and joy prompt the child to build useful and valuable skills in everyday life.

Secondly, it will Improve your overall mood. Positive thinking leads to a state of calm, peace, joy, happiness, vibrant energy, and optimism. Positive thinking causes people to smile.

Thirdly, is to go in the right direction to achieve what you want. Thinking positively brings clarity of mind and a courageous attitude, so starting new projects or going on with existing ones becomes an exciting activity.

As a matter of fact, it will also allow abundance and serendipity in your lifetime. A positive attitude maintained by positive thinking leads to the events and the people that will help us achieve our goals.

Furthermore, Connect with others. A connection with other people happens more easily when you practice positive thinking, as you are open to them and not so concerned with your own stuff.

Moreover, the outcome of positive thinking is a positive impact. By constantly looking for ways to bring the GOOD on the surface through everything you do, you will also have a positive impact on the world we all live in, for you can’t help one person without helping yourself and without allowing the whole world.

So, in order to archive positive thinking persistence! It is the key to achieving a lasting positive attitude. Difficulties will still come your way, but it is always easier to deal with any circumstances with a positive attitude. You can develop positive thinking consistently until you acquire it as a habit. There is no secret to creating positive habits: it is a matter of taking action toward what you want consistently and during an extended period of time. In conclusion, Think like a proton, because they’re always positive.

We all know this phrase that was said a long time ago: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself’. However, few people have understood the meaning. It is very welcome to love our neighbors, even if our needs are not met. But as you often say in the sentence above, putting yourself in the first place is synonymous with egoism. However, a person who has self-esteem does not have to be selfish.

All people are born with a survival instinct that tells us what our needs are. Throughout our lives, it is only natural that we lose the inner direction we need so much to sustain ourselves. The norms of the society in which we are born will shape our behavior until we become useful people to the system. These norms and beliefs will have been inherited or transmitted by the adults with whom we are associated.

All these formations that lead us to become good citizens have the particularity of ensuring that individual qualities are not taken into account or, in the worst case, that they are degraded. Each person is born with unique and special characteristics that must be strengthened to create a rich society in different shades. However, most people now require more and more uniformity.

Someone who loves himself is very difficult because he does not like others. Likewise, a person who never gets hurt at one time is almost impossible to hurt another living being. Unfortunately, this is not the most common at the moment we live.

Because we are very young, we learn to compete and fight to be ‘something’ in life. We have forgotten that being alive just means that we are something very important. To the same extent, and especially for the female gender, we are convinced that it is very important to meet the needs of others before their own. With these two visions, children grow up in an increasingly violent and denatured society.

If we knew from birth our importance and the need to shine as individual beings, we would not have achieved the destruction we are doing. If each person were able to recognize and satisfy their needs and not trained for competition but for cooperation, we would have a very different reality.

A selfish person is a person who thinks only of himself and his own advantages. The egoist thinks excessively about everything that concerns him. However, the person who has self-esteem knows its value and meets its needs. A person who loves himself will be able to easily love others, while the selfish will have no trouble harming others to achieve their goals.

When a person knows the value he or she has and makes sure it is a treasure, she is one way or another to look after her most valuable asset, to make it common to the rest of the world. Human being.

As we have said, many people have lost their love for themselves all their lives and can not put themselves forward. However, this way of perceiving us can be changed with a little perseverance and patience.

Let’s see what we can do to increase our self-esteem:

The best way to start loving yourself and enjoying yourself is to know what you think of yourself. For this, it is necessary that you begin to focus your attention on your interior. We have become accustomed to living abroad, but we must urgently change this habit. I suggest you record moments of silence every day in which you can observe your thoughts. Meditation is a technique that will help you a lot in this process.

Fortunately, each person is different and we should never compare. Observe what you think of others and try to stop them each time you compare to others. So much to feel upstairs as if you feel inferior. This type of behavior is an acquired habit which, thanks to observation, can disappear.

You should treat yourself the same way you treat a helpless child. Try to accept everything that concerns you. Your physical appearance, your fears, your weaknesses, your emotions. This is all about you and you must be kissed and recognized. The judgments you have rendered must disappear completely. If you accept, the whole world will accept you.

The best gifts you can offer are acceptable information and forgiveness. However, it is also very important that. We give you time and love. Forget the rush and give yourself permission to do the things you love in a certain way, ranquila. No need to spend money, it can be simple things like a nap, a bath or a quiet walk. You may also want a material gift and not wait for someone else to think about doing it. These little details with yourself fill your life with the joy that others will also enjoy.

The reality in which you live depends a lot on you, your feelings and your reaction to the various events. You are the center of your universe and from this center you emit outward and radiate what is. If you want your life to be filled with peace and joy, allowing those emotions to settle inside.

And do not forget that meditation can help to ‘stop’ and experience the benefits of a healthy, conscious life. It is the same method of health preparation that will help you establish new habits in your daily life, not only to start meditating, but also to learn how to nurture and lead an active life. Go ahead and try the feeling of the app – you can download it here – and it will be your best companion to guide you on the path of meditation. This is a very simple method that will open the doors of consciousness and positive psychology to improve your well-being and ultimately be happier.