We’re either under an illusion or depressed. We are living in the same world, but we are interpreting it differently. Are depressed people more opt to be mentally healthy than those who are optimistic? That’s what the research of Taylor and Brown (1988) would have us believe, suggesting that depressed people have a more accurate construct of reality. On the other hand, Taylor and Brown (1988) argue that while depressed people seem to have more accurate self-perception, positive illusions tend to lead to healthy behavior. Colvin (1994) questioned the researchers in saying their evidence was weak. The concept of mental health has been speculated upon throughout the history of psychology. Jahoda (1958) connected a common point in the mental health theories at the time; that is, being in contact with reality was crucial to being mentally healthy. Well-respected psychologists of the past agree with this point, including Erikson, Menninger, and Maslow. Jahoda reached the conclusion, “The perception of reality is called mentally healthy when what the individual sees corresponds to what is actually there.” According to the conventional definition of mental illness, contact with reality is a requirement.
Taylor and Brown (1988) argue that positive illusions are adaptive and are often times related to higher levels of happiness. The definition the researchers used for illusion is “a belief that departs from reality presupposes an objective grasp of reality.” People who have unrealistic self-perceptions have generally been thought of mentally ill while those that have realistic self-perceptions have been thought of to be mentally healthy. However, this may not always be the case. If a person holds unrealistic perceptions of oneself that ar...
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...m that positive illusions lead to mental health. The basis of their argument is that Taylor and Brown’s evidence is weak. Colvin argues that a normative finding does not do a good job at separating the accurate individuals from the inaccurate, self-enhancing individuals. Ranking oneself relative to “most others” is largely problematic because people vary. One person may rate themselves as being exceptional due to their ability to play the piano, and another person may do the same thing due to their ability to hit a baseball. Also, if the comparison group contains few pathologically depressed individuals, then nearly everyone else in the group could be above the average in happiness. Due to this, self-report measures that have self-evalution components may be positively biased and therefore questionable due to individuals having self-enhancing tendencies (Nier 2007).
Higgins, Tory. “Self-Discrepancy Theory: What Patterns of Self-Beliefs Cause People to Suffer?”(1989). Advances in Experimental Social psychology, Vol.22 (1989):93-136. Academic Press Inc.
If someone thinks negatively towards something the outcome will not be good, and vice versa. Thinking you can achieve the American dream is a major key in doing so, and some Americans are already on the right track. In the U.S., a survey showed that 36 percent of Americans say they have achieved the dream, and another 46 percent believe they are on the path of achieving it. It is not so easy, though, to always look on the bright side. Sometimes it seems as if nothing is going right; that is when negativity occurs. People can argue that mindset has little impact on the outcome, or that it does not matter how positive a person is because some things are just not meant to be. An article, however, proves this wrong. The paper argues how negative emotions prevent humans from flourishing; it also states, “if your ratio of positive to negative emotions is greater than 2.9013 to one, you will flourish both physically and psychologically.” If a person believes in themselves, they are more likely to accomplish their
In this article, Sally Buchanan-Hagen chooses to tell about a time in her life when she wishes she was more aware about mental health. She explains how she had her first depressive episode when she was 14 years of age, and how four years later she had her first hypomanic along with manic episodes. She tells the sad truth of not even knowing what depression was when she was in high school and that she always used to feel unhappy all the time, wanting to die. Hagen thought something must’ve been abnormally wrong with her, so she decided to hide her feelings. At her school, there was no mental health awareness and not so much at her university either. No one seemed to notice her odd elevated moods. Having awareness of mental health is extremely
Prince, M.; Patel. V.; Saxena, S.; Maj, M.; Maselko, J.; Phillips, M.R.; and Rehman, Atif. (2007). No Health without Mental Health. Global Mental Health Series 1, 370: 859–77
‘I can’t handle this.’ And guess what? We don’t handle it well. If I tell myself I won’t have a good time at the party I’m going to, I am likely to behave in ways that generate exactly that reality, eliciting from other people indifferent responses, proving my premise. (“A Course in Self-Esteem” 5)
Tamir, M., & Robinson, M. D. (2004). Knowing Good From Bad: The Paradox of Neuroticism, Negative Affect, and Evaluative Processing. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 87(6), 913-925. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.87.6.913
In chapter 8 we discussed self-esteem, and how it contributed to our perception of our self-worth, how we empower ourselves and the ones around us, which in all actuality this goes back to our mental health. Being mentally stable plays a part in how we respond to different situations, and who we decide to have around us in order to help us. Being in a positive mindset influences our outlook on life, and how we handle different
However, as stated before, too much illusory tendencies are not going to affect everyone. The chances, or probability, appears to be very low for a normal person. I am a normal person. I like to be in control of my life and what happens, even if it is just an illusion. That combine with the added benefits of having that emotional buffer to look more positively at life is better than worrying if it is too much. For instance, if my sense of illusion wasn’t high enough, the special dinner I planned for Tae and Trevor would have felt devastating. I wouldn’t have been able to move past the flaws, and think of the positives to continue having a nice night. Possessing more self-efficacy and motivation towards life events, both positive and negatives, outweighs any bad consequence, which might or might not occur.
Psychology’s history is a relatively rough one and has only recently been considered a science. According to Martin Seligman (2000), negative psychology is psychology that deals with recovery and healing, using the disease model. This type of psychology has been popular in America since the end of World War II because of grants given to the industry during that time (Seligman, 2000). That time period left positive psychology, the psychology of developing ones skill and wellbeing and perfecting what is already there, overlooked and forgotten. But what psychologist have recently recognized is that positive psychology can be just as useful as negative psychology but it is a vastly under developed area. Thus many scientists have embraced the new frontier of positive psychology. I did a study on the subject of positive psychology. I took two life experiences, one that I found personal pleasure in, and another that wasn’t as fun at the time but benefited others and compared and contrasted the resulting feelings of happiness.
The problem with this form of reality is that it affects your internal dialogue and “tends to be totally monopolistic” (McGraw, 379). McGraw notes that people fall victim to believing this distorted dialogue because we believe that we don’t lie to or mislead ourselves. The unfortunate truth, or factual reality, of this is that we in fact filter in and out what we want or don’t want to see, think or feel. Negative internal dialogue affects people with high anxiety and severe doubts the most when it’s least expected or wanted. Here is where self-concept and self-esteem play an important role. Someone with a low self-esteem likely has devastating self-talk, which puts internal dialogue on autopilot to continuously play “self defeating messages” (McGraw, 380). All of this affects the way a person views their self-concept, and this can lead to a person living in a distorted reality where nothing they say or do is good enough or going to
Through everyday social interactions, a myriad of information is presented to an individual and how he sifts through the necessary input lies on the importance, relevance and structure of the information. Although in certain cases schema-irrelevant information may still be stored into existing self-schemas or are contradictory enough to form a new and separate self-schema while in some cases these information are suited to fit the existing self-schema in order to retain schema. A reinforced self-schema is easier to maintain even in the face of contradicting schema-relevant evidence (Markus, 1977). Literature and observations on patients of schema therapy and how they develop coping mechanisms to maintain their self-schemas will be used as examples. An individual who has developed a negative self-schema may not notice positive experiences and instead focus on failures and downfalls. This occurs when information perceived to be conflicting with a present self-schema is distorted, ignored or seen as irrelevant as a mean to discard the evidence and to view it as an exception to the schematic rule (Hastie, 1981; Bodenhausen, 1988; Beck et al., 1990 as cited by Padesky, 1994). Another example would be an individual seeking a job where there is lower risk of criticism of his abilities and groups of friends that are less prone to judgement
While the pervasiveness of depression in modern American Culture is apparent, the relationships between the factors that cause it are often debated. Depression, according to David Myers, is the most common disorder that causes patients to seek treatment and 17 percent of adults in the United States face depression at some point during their lifetime (Myers 621, 2013). According to the DSM-IV-Tr, as cited by Myers, a depressive episode occurs when someone shows five characteristics of depression for a period of two or more weeks. Characteristics of depression are a depressed mood for a majority of the day, diminished interest, weight loss or gain, insomnia or oversleeping, persistent lethargy, feeling of worthlessness, inappropriate guilt, difficulty
According to the C.D.C ( Centers for Disease Control) the term mental health is commonly used in reference to mental illness. However, knowledge in the field has advanced to a level that completely separates the two terminologies. But even so mental health and mental illness are indeed in fact related, they represent different psychological state of mind with in a person. Mental health refers to our physical and emotional well being. Mental health is mainly all about how we behave, interact, and think. It c...
will act to maintain his or her self-image regardless of whether it is high or low.” (Greene & Frandsen, 1979, p. 124) Self-esteem is important in social situations; it can help a person have
Depression is a murky pool of feelings and actions scientists have been trying to understand since the days of Hippocrates, who called it a "black bile." It has been called "the common cold of mental illness and, like the cold, it's difficult to quantify. If feelings of great sadness or agitation last for much more than two weeks, it may be depression. For a long time, people who were feeling depressed were told to "snap out of it." According to a study done by National Institute of Mental Health, half of all Americans still view depression as a personal weakness or character flaw. Depression, however, is considered a medical disorder and can affect thoughts, feelings, physical health, and behaviors. It interferes with daily life such as school, friends, and family. Clinical depression is the most incapacitating of all chronic c...