Positive Approach

State
Evidence
Explain

• Good life 
• Authenticity of goodness 
• Acknowledgment of free will 

• 3 parts 
  • The pleasant life - happiness comes from past presesnt and future emotion
  • The good life - Happiness from persuing activities that absorb and engage us
  • The meaningful life - living for a purpose bigger than yourself
• Positive connections to others 
• Establish life regualtion policies e.g. wisdom and knowledge (things you can use)

• Feelings of positivity is jsut as natural as feelings of anxiety and stress 
• Supported by Seligman 2007
  • Said we have signature strengths which we should nuture e.g. kindness and generosity 
• Useful in therapy 
  • Therapists can help a person focus on the postive aspects of a persons life instead of negative ones which in turn could help reduce depression

• We are able to make our own descions and choices about our happiness 
• Seligman says we acheive happiness by recognising our own strengths and minimizing negative feelings 
• Hapiness is not due to genes 
• But biological psychologists would say happiness is 100% genetic 
• Behavourist would say due to tabula rasa we learn our happiness from experiences 

Asked about 

• Methodolgy or/and procedures 
• Findings 
• Conclusions 
• Evaluation 
  • Can be asked for 3 specific evaluations points: 
    • Ethical and social implications 
    • Alternative evidence 
    • Methodology and procedures 

• Lit review on pple around the world of all ages and both genders 
• Lit review is looking at lots of research that is already published and comparing similarites and differences 

Procedure

• Self-report 
  • Questionares (e.g. closed questions "how happy are you from 1-10"subjctive wellbeing)
  • Interveiws 
• Observations
  • Beeper/pager used (when it went off they had to report hat they were doing and how they were feeling) 
• Correlations 
  • Established a relationship between co-variables (e.g. Happiness and age/gender/religion etc.) 
• Reviews 
  • Looked at other lit reviews (lit review within a lit review) 

• Traits e.g. personality (introvert or extrovert): 
  • Optimism, extraversion and self-esteem leads to happiness 
• Relationships: 
  • In a relationship are happier but can also cause more stress 
  • More friends means healthier 
• Work: 
  • The employed are happier- Czisentimihalyi said you experienced flow by being enganged in your job
• Faith: 
  • More faith means more happiness (Subjective Wellbeing)
  • pple who are religious siad they are happier because they feel closer to God 
  • Measured faith in frequency of praying and how long for they worshiped for 
  • Those who were more religious were also healthier

• Adaption- 3 months to adapt to life events (e.g. if you win the lottery you will only be happier for 3 months)
• Cultural world veiw- Your culture affects how you see life affecting your subjetive wellbeing e.g. some culture see the world as controllable vs uncontrollabe
• Values and Goals- money is only important if it helps you acheive your goals 
• Make pple happier- Know how to increase happiness in society e.g. by targeting certain groups 

• Could lead to stereotypes 
• pple may feel they have to say they are happy so need to debreif 

• Happy gene found (5-HTT gene) -report being more happy/more satisfied with life (Schinkd 2004) 
• Self report so could pple coud lie 

• Self report = bias 
• Corelations- no cause and effect seen e.g. marriage cause happiness or vice versa 
• Mainly Western sample- ethnocentric 
  • different pple see happiness in different ways e.g. individualist culture vs collectivist cultures 
• Subective wellbeing different pple see happiness in different ways