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Essays on the history of psychology
Essays on the history of psychology
Importance of psychology in society
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By definition, psychology is simply the study of the brain, so naturally this broad concept opens the door to several different types of beliefs and theories. Over time, immense amounts of changes have occurred involving psychology as well as the varying techniques psychologists tend to use. What many consider to be one of the most significant changes in the history of psychology is the somewhat recent adoption of positive psychology. In “A Balanced Psychology and a Full Life” written by one of the founders of positive psychology, Martin E. P. Seligman, he tells of the time before World War II, when psychologists’ main goals were to “cure mental illness, … make relatively untroubled people happier, and… to study genius and high talent” (539). …show more content…
The people who agree with this strategy tend to believe that the traditional psychology style often fails to acknowledge this, and therefore can neglect certain crucial needs that people may have. In another of Martin Seligman’s works called: “Positive Psychology, Positive Prevention, and Positive Therapy,” he states that “the aim of positive psychology is to catalyze a change in psychology from a preoccupation only with repairing the worst things in life to also building the best qualities in life” (3). This form of psychology points out people’s strong points and gives them a sense of purpose, rather than just altering what may be wrong with them. One point that Seligman brings up in “A Balanced Psychology and a Full Life” is that the seventy percent of Americans who do not experience any type of mental disorders in their lifetimes also need some form of psychological attention at some point, giving reason for this particular form of study. Seligman argues in this work that “the absence of maladies does not constitute happiness” (540), meaning that not only the people suffering from pain and hardships need assistance in finding joy. According to its supporters, positive psychology provides these types of necessary services to those who do not believe …show more content…
The people on this side of the spectrum tend to see positive psychology as something that just takes away from the negative, but necessary feelings that all humans must go through at one time or another. Newsweek writer, Sharon Begley, expresses her disagreement with positive psychology in her essay: “Happiness: Enough Already.” Throughout her work, she argues that too much happiness cannot be a good thing, therefore it should not be something that psychologists force upon their patients. She believes that positive psychology tends to push excessive happiness on people, which, in the end, results in seemingly negative results. According to Begley, people with extremely high happiness levels are ultimately less successful because they have little to strive for (556). With this point, Begley is pointing out that some amounts of discontent can be helpful for a person because it acts as a reason to push for more. Another pair of university psychologists, John H. Harvey and Brian G. Pauwels, discuss their disagreement involving positive psychology in their work: “The Ironies of Positive Psychology.” Throughout the article the two emphasize the fact that positive psychology completely ignores the effects of certain pain and struggles that all humans go through as a part of life. According to Harvey and Pauwels, positive psychology does
Many members of our society have sculpted their listeners into fooling their selves into believing that there are only two types of “happy”, happy or depressed. This leads to individuals suppressing their problems or believing they are suffering from a chronic illness when sadness is just a natural emotion that a person faces throughout their lifetime. Begley mimics “get over it: take a pill” (558). When living in a world where not being “happy” can provoke your friends and family to encourage drug use or choose to decline spending time with you until you are “happy again may cause many people to not even tell someone they are having problems which can result in the sadness to increase. It is soothing to know not all experts would say you are sick and need help just for an ordinary feeling. A lay reader that has no idea of what most psychologist feels about the evading happiness situation, may have thought all professionals insist on everyone being happy even when they have no desire
Begley introduces sources such as Ed Diener, a University of Illinois psychology professor, who has studied happiness for twenty-five years, to further the point of her claim. In the article, she accounts an interaction Diener had with Scotland's Parliament and business leaders on the value of using traditional measures to compare what policies makes the country happiest. The Scottish were all in favor of increasing policies that increased wellbeing, but not because they make people happier. "They said too much happiness might not be a good thing, they like being dour, and didn't appreciate being told they should be happier" (555). Diener later concludes that levels of happiness coincide with longer, healthier, relationships. He contrasts this conclusion with an article he cowrote with, stating “once a moderate level of happiness is achieved, further increases can sometimes be detrimental to income, career success, education, and political participation” (556). Diener believes that negative emotions make you “more analytical, more critical, and more innovative” to help direct your thinking. Diener gives much evidence and experience towards Begley’s claim of happiness not being the best for you. Another source Begley uses to back up her claim that
Newman and Randy J. Larsen’s article “How Much of Our Happiness is Within Our Control?” claims that we have much less control over our happiness than positive psychologists uphold. This shows that you let things that happen in your life control if you are happy or not. These psychologists argue that you cannot make yourself happier. This is saying you can never attain everlasting bliss and that you get used to all the negatives factors in your life. I do not believe this statement is true because I think you can always put a positive spin on every negative factor in your life and that your positive factors in your life can last as long as you want them to. Therefore, I disagree with Newman and Larsen because I believe you are the only one that has complete control over your own happiness. They state that the influential environmental variables in our lives are just as uncontrollable than our genes. However, the reactions to the uncontrollable environmental variables is what controls your mood and happiness. Although there beliefs are different they still have some common ground. The authors of both articles agree that the people who are happier tend to always have particular behavioral characteristics such as gratitude, kindness, positive relationships,
1. Understanding pyschology has many explanations and ideas to figure out why humanity is the way it is. What are the six main perspectives all about? The biological perspective in pyschology examines the humans behavior in the brain, nervous system, endocrine system, and of course our genes. The way scientist study the biological perspective is that they look at the person 's family background, and past genes. So if someone has bipolar disorder the scientist will go back to see if anyone in their family once had bipolar disorder. So they can go back and see if they had some how inherited the behavior from their grandmother or father for example. Also biopyschologist will study to see
...ject. To be a psychologist you have to be a good listener and know how to relate to people’s problems as well as other things. Just like every job there are drawbacks, but don’t all jobs have some sort of drawbacks? Being a surgeon you make great money but there’s so much schooling involved and bad hours but in the end you do what you enjoy and all your hard work pays off.
“Seligman (1998) noted positive psychology’s focus is to make the lives of all people rewarding and to build positive experiences”(Costello & Stone, 2012). His concern and main focus was to train and support staff, faculty, and administrators of positive psychology approaches and overall, helping their students grow as learn...
Positive Psychology is a new millennium version of the power of positive thinking movement. In other words it’s a new millennium health scam. Positive psychology is a branch of psychology that supports the theory that an individual’s happiness is under their personal control, independent of any external influences or validation. However, part of the problem is that this is just one of the many definitions of positive psychology. So if that definition doesn’t suit you, Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi (2014) define positive psychology as the scientific study of positive human functioning and flourishing on multiple levels that include the biological, personal, relational, institutional, cultural, and global dimensions
Wong, P. T. (2011). Positive psychology 2.0: Towards a balanced interactive model of the good life. What to do about the negative?, 52(2), 69-70.
In “The Delusion of Positive Thinking,” by Barbara Ehrenreich states that positive thinking does not help us succeed in life. Ehrenreich begins by mentioning that majority of the american people believe that we “are a ‘positive’ people”. Ehrenreich then states some positive aspects of being positive which are that being in a positive mood will helps us live longer, and smiling will help “generate positive feelings within us”. However, happiness can not measure positive thinking becauses different cultures have different definitions of happiness. Americans tend to associate positive thinking with happiness, yet, our nation is 23rd in being happy since, antidepressants is a common drug in America. In fact, positive thinking is just an “ideology”
Health psychology is a relatively new concept rapidly growing and could be defined as the biological and psychological influences affect ones behaviour also bringing in social influences of health and illness (MacDonald, 2013). Biological determinants consider genetic and biological factors of an illness whereas psychological determinants focus on the psychological factors such as why people behave the way they do when dealing with issues such as anxiety and stress. Models such as the Health Belief Model and Locus of Control were developed in attempt to try and explain psychological issues around a chronic illness such as breast cancer (Ogden, 2012). Sociological factors can cause an enormous amount of pressure for one to behave in a certain way for example gender roles in society and religious considerations when dealing with health beliefs. Health Beliefs can be defined as one’s own perception to their own personal health and illness and health behaviours (Ogden, 2012). There are also theories and models used to explain pain and coping with diagnosis such as Moos and Schaefer (1984) Crisis theory and Shontz (1975) cycle of grief people go through when being diagnosed with a serious illness.
In the United States 20% of the adult population report that they are living a flourishing life (Keyes, 2002). However, a high percentage reports feeling as if they are ‘‘stuck’’ or ‘‘want more’’ and are yet not diagnosable with a mental disorder (Fredrickson, 2008). Because happiness has been found to be the source of many desirable life outcomes e.g. career success, marriage, and health, it is of importance to understand, how languishing individuals can reach this ideal state: How can well-being be enhanced and misery reduced (Lyubomirsky, King, & Diener, 2005). Over the past decade, research in the field of positive psychology has emerged to provide evidence-based methods to increase an individual’s psychological well-being, through so called positive psychology interventions (PPI’s). PPI’s are treatment methods or intentional activities used to promote positive feelings or behaviour. PPI’s vary from writing gratitude letters, practicing optimistic thinking and replaying positive experiences. A meta-analysis of 51 independent PPI studies demonstrated significant results in the effectiveness of PPI’s increasing well-being (49 studies; r = .29) (Sin & Lyubomirsky, 2009).
By assessing the personal meaning of events, emotion comes up. What’s more, positive emotions have not only a role of marking happiness, but also a function to continue
The spark of Psychology came in the 1900’s with many discoverers and inventions that are used today to help treat many disorders and conditions. From Chimpanzee studies to the first neurotransmitter, the 1900’s brought tons to the field of psychology. A work by Rollo May: The Meaning of Anxiety explained a well known problem among millions of people worldwide known as Anxiety. In 1974 D. T. Wong discovered a popular drug used to treat Depression, OCD, and...
Mental health refers to the state of individuals psychologically, emotionally and socially. Mental health affects a person’s emotions, feelings, thoughts, and sections when exposed to different situations. Furthermore, mental health is responsible for a person’s reaction to stress and other social conditions. Generally, mental health affects how a person relates to others and their ability to understand and interact with them. Therefore, problems that affect a person’s mental health affect the abilities to socialize, their feelings, moods, reaction to situations. The person experiencing mental health problem may portray different behaviors when confronted with different issues. Mental health issues have several
I believe that happiness is the key to living a good and prosperous life. Through all of the sadness and hate in the world, happiness gives me hope. It gives not only me, but others hope and joy. Happiness gives us something to hold onto, therefore we cherish it as much as we can.