Psychology 2035A/B Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Fairfax New Zealand, Positive Psychology, Clinical Pathology
16 May 2019
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Document Summary
Positive psychology: a social and intellectual movement within psychology that focuses on human strengths and how people can flourish and be successful. Historical context of positive psychology: to eliminate them. Seligman said that from this well intentioned goal we have focused too much on negativity. Figure 3. 1: reported causes of stress: work, money, economy, etc, concern about negative things causes a negative consequence = stress. Let people life more happy and fulfilling lives. Is to prevent mental illness, reduce distress by cultivating human strengths and helping people flourish. What positive psychology is trying to do there is more to life than just avoiding the positive stuff. You might for example, have low mental illness but do not feel happy with your life: low low = languishing, they do not meet criteria for any case of clinical pathology of psychological disorder. But not happy: working at job that pays bills, have important social relations yet still feel unhappy (something is missing)
