Mental Health – As Positive Psychology
Psychology is not entirely about studying what can go wrong for people, their pathologies, weaknesses and damage but is also about strengths and virtues at subjective, individual and group levels. Treatments are viewed as fixing the broken but can be about encouraging and nurturing what is best.
Mental health as a Utopian ideal goes back to Aristotle, so is not a new concept. In the last 60 years the view is that Mental Health requires the dual goal of using medication and clinical psychology to remove pathology and educational interventions to enhance above average functioning.
Mental Health and Positive Personality revolves around the perspective we are self organizing, self directed, and adaptive beings. Thus there is a focus on:
- Human Virtues and Character Strengths. These can act as buffers against mental illness. The virtues include Wisdom, Courage, Humanity, Justice, Temperance and Transcendence.
- Subjective Well-being. This refers to what we think and feel about our lives and has cognitive and affective components. It is a scientific term for what most of us call happiness.
- Optimism. Optimism mediates our experience of external events and our interpretation of them. It involves cognitive, emotional, and motivational components.The positive attributional style serves as a treatment for depression and can lead to positive mental states.
- Happiness. Factors such as faith, economic growth and income, and close personal relationships need to be considered.
- Self determination. We all have 3 basic psychological needs – competence, belonging, and autonomy. The satisfaction of these needs gives rise to optimal well being and development.
- Mature defences. Mature functioning requires creative and proactive problem solving and solution application which gives rise to successful and joyful lives.
- Exceptional Performance and Excellence. We all need examples and advice on how to reach richer and more fulfilling lives. Play, creativity and and peak experiences are important in this area. It was Abraham Maslows concept of Self Actualisation that drew attention to talents, capacities, and potentialities.
- Wisdom. Wisdom involves the cognitive and motivational rules we use to organise knowledge in the pursuit of both individual and collective excellence. It is the best subjective beliefs and laws of life that we have accumulated over the generations. Wisdom is defined as an expert knowledge system that dealing with the practical issues of existence.
- Positive Health
- Insight
- Flow
- Hope
- Interpersonal Skills
It is the goal of positive psychology to help people to enhance their functioning to above average.
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Normatology
Normatology is the study of normal development and behaviour. It provides the answer to the age old question – what is normal?
There are 5 main Models
The Absence of Pathology Model
The absence of symptoms, signs and lab abnormalities connate normality.
A healthy person is reasonably free of undue pain, discomfort, disability, distress, disadvantage, and other features of disorder.
The Utopian Model
Health is defined as an ideal functioning that is rarely obtained and then only by a few.
Normal or average is therefore pathological in that it is far short of the ideal.
In this respect the analytic model of therapy emphasizes pathology while the humanistic model emphasizes health. Psychoanalysis lacks the language and method to describe healthy functioning.
The Statistical Model
Normal equals the average Level of functioning. Concerns in this model are that the average may be relative to a population that may be dysfunctional.
The Systems Model
Normality is the interplay of systems that interact, operate and fluctuate over time in an adaptive fashion. There are multiple processes nvolved and multiple levels of adaptation that are studied longitudinally.
The Pragmatic Model
Mental disorders are conditions that clinicians treat. Conditions for which people do not seek treatment are not considered pathological and therefore are normal. This is a circular argument and is relative to the degree of complaints and the economic situation of local people and interests of clinicians.
Normality and Mental Health
Often when people are talking about being normal they are referring to their Mental Health.
There are a number of different models of mental health:
- As Above Normal
- As Positive Psychology
- As Maturity
- As Social-Emotional Intelligence
- As Subjective Well-Being
- As Resilience
Friends and Partners
Having Friends and Partners
Having breadth and depth in personal relationships is vital to our mental health and overall happiness.
Supportive co workers, friendly neighbours, confidants and very close friends protect us from sadness, loneliness low self esteem.
Social Capital is all the support, trust and good will we accumulate by way of our relationships and community involvement. It is important to have a strong and varied social network.
Our ability to internalise others is a key skill common to a healthy accomplished and satisfying life. The skill involves decorating your space with pictures of loved and loving people, having active sociable activities in your diary, especially ones that don’t involve alcohol.
Whether we are outgoing or not we need to join groups where we are welcome and valued.
“No Amount of wildlife can makeup for human company” David Attborough.
Loneliness
Loneliness is natures emotional reminder that we must progress in our relationships in and with our world.
Loneliness represents the absence of intimacy that involves knowing understanding and caring for not only other people but for our homes, work and life skills.
Loneliness could be regarded as signal that we are too detached.
It is better to regard emotions as energy levels that we can chose to channel into activities that help our well being rather than being destructive.
Add sedonna Fuel gage
Managing Loneliness
Engage in a fully involving task.
Walking in the country side for example deepens our relationship with the world.
Walking in the countryside with friends deepens our relationship with them and the world.
Remember that a pleasure such as food or a glass of wine is a fleeting effect, active interest in mental or physical capabilities such as working at something or a good book is satisfying and can leave a happiness trace that can last for days. The most happiness invoking actions is the love we have for another person or place or vocation and fills our life with meaning. Loneliness can be used to inspire such loves.
The Love of our Friends
Friendship is important for our physical and psychological health, but we often take this for granted and do not pay sufficient attention to it.
Human relationships change, they grow or shrink, as do our emotional, intellectual and personal persuits. Our friends persuits also change and therefore so does our relationships with them.
Close friends view our victories and our failures as their own and will encourage us or pull us into line if we are not doing our best.
“In the company of a true friend we dare to think out loud without the need to edit ourselves” author unknown.
A good friend will risk our irritability and will make up afterwards.
A good friend will not let you moan on about things, they want to know what you a re going to do about it. They will help us see different perspectives. (perspective Exercise)
Make you closest friends a priority. Gratitude exercise
Does Happiness Lead to Success? Part 7
There is Experimental Evidence for Positive Affect Leading to Behaviours Paralleling Success
Positive perceptions of self and others
Self Perceptions
Induced positive emotions have a causal effect on positive self feelings. If you can induce a positive mood then you are more likely to describe yourself in positive terms, assess yourself as having superior task performance, have more favourable global self evaluations, recall more positive experiences and success in your past.
Happy moods improve feelings of self efficacy and while you are in a happy mood you will more likely set higher goals for yourself. Induced positive moods lead you to expect more success at tasks.
Positive moods lead you to attribute successes to stable factors within yourself and this is an essential part of being optimistic.
Perceptions, memories, and judgements of others
Positive affect promotes a liking and fondness for others and is associated with recollections of positive information about particular people.
Sociability and Activity
Sociability and extraversion
When you induced positive moods you will be more sociable and more likely to initiate a conversation with others and be more attentive to them.
Positive affect may increase feelings of energy for engaging in social interaction and raise expectations for rewards from communication. Therefore when people feel happy they seek out social interaction because the interactions are perceived as rich and rewarding.
Social Interaction, activity and energy
When you induced feelings of happiness you are likely to show greater interest in leisure activities, eating good meals, planning trips, going to a party, sporting events, rock climbing, shopping. Pleasant moods boost activity, energy and involvement in active leisure.
Enjoyment of activities and social interactions
You are more likely to enjoy activities and social interactions, and get satisfaction from them if you are in a pleasant mood. Induced pleasant mood causes people to get greater enjoyment from whatever tasks they do. Groups in a positive mood take more pleasure in group negotiation.
Summary
Transient happy moods lead you to seek out others and engage with the environment at large, to be more venturesome, open, and sensitive to others. There is increased perception of closeness with others, increased activity and physical arousal, and are more likely to have excited, affectionate, and affiliative feelings.
Additionally there are higher levels of energy to be had. Both positive affect and a feeling of liveliness and energy are aspects of extraversion.
Negotiation and Conflict resolution
Pleasant moods boost ones abilities to resolve conflict. Positive affect decreases the preference for resolving conflict by avoidance and increases reduction in conflict by using a collaborative approach. Induced positive mood makes it more likely that concessions will be made in face to face negotiations and that there will be weaker preference for avoidance and competition.
Prosocial Behaviour
Pleasant moods stimulate people to be more charitable, altruistic and generous and happy moods increase the likelihood and amount of helping.
Happy moods promote behaviours such as contributing money to charity, or to needy children, donating blood, volunteering for extra tasks.
Interestingly negative moods also promote helping especially if the helping promises to improve ones mood, and when the negative mood does not lead to a self preoccupation. Positive moods lead to helping in the majority of circumstances and negative moods lead to helping under specific conditions – when the rewards for helping are high and the costs are low.
Happy moods increase the liking for others and enhance ones sense of sharing ones good fortune. People in good moods anticipate positive outcomes and rewards for helping. They are more likely to recall positive aspects of helping in the past, view themselves as generous people, feel more confident, efficacious, resource laden, in control and optimistic about their ability to help.
Physical Wellbeing and Coping
Health Perceptions
Induced happy moods causes an increase in pain thresholds, lower blood pressure reactivity to stress and may boost health by improving self efficacy, optimism and efforts to battle illness.
Healthy Behaviour
Positive moods help exert willpower and self control over unhealthy or harmful urges and addictions.
Immunity
Watching a humorous movie can increase immunity. It is well known that negative moods can decrease immunity.
Creativity and Problem Solving
Flexibility and Originality
Induced positive moods lead to increased scores of originality and flexibility which is often labelled as creativity.
Also note that people in sad moods are more original than those in neutral moods but the positive group shows the most original responses.
Is Positive Affect a Magic Potion?
At times happiness will be the most adaptive response but there may be times when we need some level of discontent or misery. An exclusively happy life is unrealistic and may not be the most desirable.
Specific dissatisfactions can motivate happy people to work for change and pursue new directions. People who are happy with their lives may be dissatisfied with societal conditions. The two are distinct and the characteristics of the happy person are those that can help them improve others lives.
Do Happy People Have Negative Emotions?
Happy people experience negative emotions and this helps them be more successful as they are more approach focussed. They remain in a positive mood when things are good or in neutral but experience negative mood when things are very bad. Thus motivating them to withdraw, conserve resources and avoid harm.
The negative affect around bad events causes change in thoughts feelings and behaviours. We quit our rule of thumb mental processing and use vigilant and analytical processing instead. We then safeguard resources and focus on solving the immediate problem.
Happiness could be considered a density function. People vary in how much they are in a state of positive experience. Frequent positive experience is functionally beneficial but so is an ability to to react to negative experience.
Even the happiest individuals experience unhappiness sometimes. There is always ups and downs but happy people seem to be in the positive zone most of the time.
They can feel sad, anxious, or discouraged in response to negative feedback on performance. In everyday life, happy people react to negative events when appropriate but later return to a positive state.
Does Happiness Lead to Success? Part 6
Does Happiness and Positive Affect Precede Behaviours Paralleling Success?
Positive Self Perceptions
Feeling above average precedes life satisfaction, and high life satisfaction is followed by greater feelings of superiority and feelings of self confidence.
Having positive affect at age 21 is associated with rating yourself high in competence when you are 41 – 51 years old especially if you are female.
Sociability and activity
Sociability and extraversion
Longitudinal studies show that positive affect is associated with extraversion and sociability and higher ratings of affiliation in the middle years.
Social Interaction and Activity
There is a significant association between global happiness and participation in a number of activities both in the shorter and long term studies.
Prosocial Behaviour
Altruism may follow from happiness as well as the reverse. Those with high happiness and life satisfaction increased the hours they spent in volunteer activities.
Physical Wellbeing and Coping
Health perceptions and Healthy behaviour
Happy people were less likely to drink and smoke and to describe themselves as happy.
Immunity
Healthy volunteers with a positive emotional style were less likely to develop a cold on exposure to the rhinovirus.
Cancer survivors who were happier had enhanced Killer cell activity 18 months later.
Coping
Optimism is associated with psychological adjustment after diagnosis of breast cancer. Those with the optimistic style had a tendency to cope by active engagement, problem focussed coping, and had less denial.
Happiness, pleasant moods and related constructs such as optimism precede physical well being and adaptive coping.
Does Happiness Lead to Success? Part 5
Does Happiness Precede success?
Work Life
Employment and Quality of Work
If you have high subjective wellbeing and are seeking work you are more likely to get a second interview.
The amount of positive affectivity you have at the end of adolescence predicts financial independence, occupational attainment, work autonomy, meaning and variety in young adulthood. It is worth noting however that positive job characteristics increase positive affect suggesting a bidirectional influence.
Happy people are less likely to lose their jobs, and more likely to be reemployed if they do. They are more likely to be rated positively by their superiors.
Income
Higher levels of income are positively correlated with happiness levels over longer periods of time and high subjective well being leads to later prosperity.
Social Relationships
Friendship, Social support and Marriage
Those with high levels of happiness are able to draw on others to help, or befriend them.
Happiness leads to marriage as is supported in a number of longitudinal studies. Happier people are more likely to get married. Individual happiness bolsters marital well being and happier people are more likely to remarry after divorce.
Self esteem predicts increases in closeness and importance of social relationships and decreases in insecurity and conflict within those relationships.
Why do Happier people get larger Social Rewards?
The social rewards of happiness cannot be over stated – strong social bonds and social support further increase positive emotions and enhance social acceptance, health and emotional adjustment.
People are more likely to want to become friends with and want to provide emotional and tangible assistance to individuals with a positive outlook.
Longevity of marriages is predicted by the ratio of positive verses negative interactions.
Genuine smiles and laughter signal that one is friendly and open to social interaction. It is an invitation to engage with the happy person and fosters ongoing attachments.
Mental Health
Those with high subjective well being are less likely to report being depressed, have lower work disability and there is a negative association with suicide. Positive affect buffers the relationship between negative affect and substance use. Positive optimistic attribution styles are associated with less mental health problems, poor adjustment and alcoholism 10 years later.
Physical Health
Happiness is related to better health outcomes over a 5 year period. As a happy person you will likely have less health problems, less days lost due to illness and hospitalisations and there is a lower incidence of strokes, especially in men.
Optimism is associated with less cardiovascular disease, less heart attacks and angina 10 years later.
The happier you are the more likely you are to have a quicker recovery from surgery if you require it. You also have a decreased risk of upper respiratory tract infection.
Longevity and survival
Well being is associated with less likelihood of dying by certain causes. It is negatively related to dying in automobile accidents.
Life dissatisfaction is related to fatal unintentional injuries as well as intentional ones.
Overall negative emotions reduces survival times.
However happier people are more likely to survive longer after severe illnesses eg renal failure and breast cancer. Happier people with spinal cord injuries are likely to have greater satisfaction with their lives and survive longer.
Happiness therefore seems to be related to a variety of life outcomes that relate to survival (stable relationships, lower accident and suicide rates, superior coping and less stress. People with positive self perceptions live on average 7.5 years longer than those who don’t.
The evidence also supports an increased likelihood of longevity if you are a happy person.
Does Happiness lead to Success? – Part 4
The Association of Short Term And Long Term Happiness with Successful Behaviours?
There are robust findings between happiness and desirable life outcomes.
Happiness promotes successes in part because happy people have many adaptive characteristics. They are more likely to exhibit behaviours and thoughts that are similar to culturally valued success and thriving.
There are 6 categories of characteristics that co-occur with short term positive affect and happiness in the long term.
Positive Perception of Self and Others
Self Perception
Happy people are characterised by high personal competence, self esteem, optimism and a sense of personal mastery and control.
Life satisfaction is related to self esteem and optimism. Not surprising as optimism is a part of the self esteem construct. Happiness is related to satisfaction in all life domains. – family life, romantic relationships, friends, health, education, jobs, leisure activities, housing and transportation.
Higher levels of positive affect are associated with being less self critical, setting higher goals, and more self efficacy in tasks.
Perceptions, memories and judgement of others
Happy people have a more positive attitude toward others both those that they know and those they don’t know. Happy people judge friends, families and spouses more favourably and are less jealous of other people competing for their partners affections.
Sociability and Activity
Sociability and Extroversion
Happy individuals have outgoing extroverted personalities. They are warm, gregarious, interested in new things, affiliative, lively, active and energetic. Of the personality traits affiliation (the inclination to relate to other people – warm, cheerful pleasant, sociable, understanding, contented and affectionate. In the hierarchy of needs outlined by Abraham Maslow, the need for affiliation (or “belongingness”) appears midway between the most basic physical needs and the highest-level need for self-actualisation.) had the highest correlation to happiness. In fact positive affect seems to be the glue that holds the various aspects of extroversion (ascendance, sociability, affiliation) together. Positive affect seems to be related to feeling sociable.
Extroversion and introversion are generally understood as a single continuum. So if you are high on one then you are low on the other. While extreme introverts and extroverts are a reality, most people fluctuate between the two poles throughout their lives.
Extroversion is the act, state, or habit of being predominantly concerned with and obtaining gratification from what is outside the self. Extroverts tend to enjoy human interactions and to be sociable, enthusiastic, talkative, assertive and interested in seeking out excitement. They take pleasure in activities that involve large social gatherings, such as parties, community activities, public demonstrations, and business or political groups. Politics, teaching, sales, managing, and brokering are fields that favour extroversion. An extroverted person is likely to enjoy time spent with people and find less reward in time spent alone. They tend to be energised when around other people, and they are more prone to boredom when they are by themselves.
Introversion is the state of or tendency toward being wholly or predominantly concerned with and interested in one’s own mental life. Introverts tend to be more reserved, less outgoing and less assertive in social situations but are also marked by a richer inner world. They are not necessarily loners but they tend to have smaller circles of friends and are less likely to thrive on making new social contacts. They are less likely to seek stimulation from others because their own thoughts and imagination are stimulating enough. They often take pleasure in solitary activities such as reading, writing, drawing, playing musical instruments or using computers. An introvert is likely to enjoy time spent alone and find less reward in time spent with large groups of people, though they tend to enjoy interactions with close friends. They prefer to concentrate on a single activity at a time and like to observe situations before they participate. Introverts can be overwhelmed by too much stimulation from social gatherings and engagement. The introvert tends to think thoroughly before verbalising their thoughts.
Introversion is not the same as shyness. Introverts choose solitary activities over social ones by preference, whereas shy people avoid social encounters out of fear.
Ambiversion: Most contemporary trait theories (e.g. The Big Five) measure levels of extroversion-introversion as part of a single, continuous dimension of personality, with some scores near one end, and others near the half-way mark. Ambiversion is a term used to describe people who fall in the middle of the continuum and exhibit tendencies of both groups. An ambivert is normally comfortable with groups and enjoys social interaction, but also relishes time alone and away from the crowd.
Mental health and extroversion – introversion
Acknowledging that introversion and extroversion are normal variants of behaviour can help in your own self-acceptance and to understand others. For example, an extrovert can accept her introverted partner’s need for space, while an introvert can acknowledge his extroverted partner’s need for social interaction.
Extroverted people reported higher levels of personal happiness. The causality is not clear, however. Extroversion may lead to greater happiness, happier people may become more extroverted, or there may be some other factor such as genetics that affects both. Another factor is that introversion is generally regarded as less healthy in the Western culture. Other cultures, e.g. the Japanese culture prize introversion.
Introverts acknowledge their psychological needs and problems, more readily compared to extroverts who tend to be oblivious to them because they focus more on the external environment. On average, extroverts have a somewhat higher self-esteem than introverts.
Extroversion is perceived as socially desirable in modern-day societies, but it is not always an advantage. For example, extroverted youths are more likely to engage in delinquent behaviour, and while introversion is perceived as less socially desirable, it is strongly associated with positive traits such as intelligence and “giftedness.” Introverts tend to be more successful in academic environments, which extroverts may find boring.
Some careers such as computer programming may be more satisfying for an introverted temperament, while other areas such as sales may be more agreeable to the extroverted type.
Social Interaction, Activity, and Energy
Happy people report engaging in a greater frequency of activities, social interactions and group leisure activities. They have stronger social supports, attend club meetings and hold more organisational affiliations. Happy people are noted to be more energetic and active by family and friends. They are also more interested and informed than unhappy people.
Positive affect is related to feeling alert and active, being with friends and engaging in a variety of leisure activities. So get a good nights sleep, keep fit, eat healthy and do stuff with friends.
Enjoyment of Activities and Social Interactions
Happy people enjoy their leisure activities, social interactions, experience more flow, and are more satisfied with their activities in general than unhappy people.
If you are happy, you are more likely to have more pleasurable and successful social interactions. You will like the people you interact with more, enjoy conversations more finding they are pleasant, smooth and relaxed.
Global happiness is associated with intrinsically rewarding experiences i.e. activities you do for your own sake. Happy people perceive any activity even the routine daily activities as intrinsically motivating and therefore find reward in ordinary events.
Transient positive moods are associated with satisfying social interactions, and with Flow. In flow you experiencing feeling enraptured, in a different reality, lack self consciousness and lose the feeling of time passing.
Likeability and Cooperation
Likability
Most people like happy people more than unhappy people.
Happy people are judged as more physically attractive, more intelligent and competent, more friendly, warm and assertive, less selfish and more moral.
You are more likely to be rated as more socially skilled (articulate and well mannered), as a better at public speaker, self confident, assertive , as having more close friends, strong romantic relationships, and more family support.
Happy people are judged as those most likely to help others, and as more likeable.
Social interactions are rated as more enjoyable and as higher quality with happy people regardless of the mood of the raters.
Happy moods lead people to appear more appealing and inviting of possible interactions. People with high levels of Positive affect as revealed in photos, are judged as affiliative, generous, considerate, protective of those close to them, and having capacity for close relationships. They are also rated lower on negative affects such as fearfulness, irritability and hostility.
Negotiation and conflict resolution
Work groups with a high average positive affect were less likely to have conflict and more likely to cooperate. The experience of positive emotions in the work place is related to less conflict with colleagues.
Prosocial Behaviour
People with high happiness levels or high positive affect have a greater interest in helping people, a tendency to act in prosocial or cooperative ways ( enjoying sharing or helping others) and perform more specific altruistic, courteous or conscientious behaviours. They also report doing more altruistic acts in the recent past. Eg stopping to help a stranger.
Similar findings occur with transient moods. The day to day experience of positive affect is related to generosity. Time spent in a positive mood is associated with self reported altruism. Those with more intense positive feelings were more likely to be involved in community service activities.
Positive affect at work is associated with behaviours beyond the call of duty e.g. more helping of customers, more customer service, and more prosocial behaviour on the job.
Happy people are more inclined to be kind and charitable. If happy people are more altruistic, the more they will be liked, and will profit from future social interactions and have stronger and more supportive social networks.
Physical Well Being and Coping
Health Perceptions
Happy people report themselves as being healthier on global health, report higher levels of social and physical functioning and lower levels of pain. There are higher rates of compliance with treatments which is a predictor of good health.
Interestingly, there are increased rates of visits to health centres for activity related injuries presumably as a consequence of active lifestyles pursued by happy people.
Extraverts also have more health visits for illness but this is probably due to a willingness to use services.
Healthy Behaviours
Happy people are more energetic, more involved in social, recreational, occupational and physical activities.
They are less likely to participate in harmful behaviours – smoking, unhealthy eating, abuse of drugs and alcohol. Psychoticism and neuroticism are relevant to the addictions but it is interesting to note that addicts have lower scores on extraversion. It is disinhibition that is more related to drug use, smoking, drinking alcohol, and promiscuous sex.
Short term positive emotions are associated with illness preventitiveness and health promotion behaviours. Recent happy moods are associated with less cigarette and alcohol use, and better sleep quality and quantity, higher levels of physical exercise which is associated with many positive health outcomes.
Immunity
Does happiness have a direct effect on health?
Psychological states impinge on physical health through the immune system.
We know that depression is associated with decreased lymphocyte production.
Humour has been associated with increased immunocompetence. A sense of self coherence is associated with enhanced natural killer (NK) cell activity and optimism is associated with lower levels of upper respiratory tract infection.
Coping
Positive affectivity is associated with more effective and more mature coping especially by active coping.
Optimism, sense of coherence, hope and hardiness are general traits that correlate with happiness and promote positive feelings in difficult circumstances.
Optimists attend to and remember potentially life threatening information and use humour and positive reframing rather than denial.
Both happy and unhappy peers experience similar types of positive and negative life events. Happy people tended to think about both types of events more favourably by seeing humour and didactic value in adverse events, and by emphasising improvements in their lives. Maintaining sensitivity to pleasurable opportunities in difficult times is adaptive.
Positive affect is a resource in coping and self regulation. Positive emotions undo the effects of negative emotion on cardiovascular function.
Those who use positive emotion words in disclosive writing during distressing times were more likely to benefit.
Does Happiness Lead to Success? part 3 – Are Happy People Successful?
Are Happy People Successful People?
What is Successful?
It means accomplishing those things that are valued by your culture, achieving goals as set out by your society.
Freud thought that to love and to work are what a normal person should be able to perform well. Health can be added to this list. (see positive health)
Work life
Work uses a large part of our time. It is important for us as it produces income, influences self esteem, is an opportunity for meaningful activity and produces goods and services for our society. Work is therefore a highly valued activity.
Employment and Quality of work
Happy people are:
- more likely to graduate from college
- more likely to get job interviews
- more likely to get better jobs with more autonomy, meaning and variety
- more likely to be evaluated more positively by superiors for work quality, productivity, dependability and creativity.
- more likely to have superior performance and productivity
- more likely to handle managerial jobs better
- less likely to have counterproductive behaviour and burnout.
- more satisfied with their jobs.
Work performance may be more related to wellbeing than job satisfaction.
People high in positive affect are more likely to be in the supervisory “in” group.
Happier cricket players had higher batting averages.
Service departments get higher ratings from customers if they have happier leaders and there are better customer satisfaction reports if the sales force has a more positive affective tone.
CEOs with high positive affect are more likely to have employees who rate them selves as happy, healthy and report a warm climate for performance, which in turn correlates to productivity and profitability.
Optimistic insurance agents sell more insurance and CEOs receive higher performance ratings by the Board.
Overall these patterns are bi-directional and are not found for negative affect.
Happy workers are likely to be high performers and are less likely to show job withdrawal – absenteeism, turnover, burnout, and retaliatory behaviour.
Income
One of the indicators of success in our society is income.
Happier people tend to earn higher incomes.
Organisational Citizenship
Positive affect on the job and chronic happiness predicts job satisfaction, which predicts organisational citizenship behaviour. Such behaviour includes acts that go beyond the requirements of the job. This is also known as organisational spontaneity eg spreading goodwill, aiding coworkers, protecting the organisation, making constructive suggestions, and developing ones ability within the organisation.
Community Involvement
Happy people volunteer at higher levels than unhappy people. This is for both charity and service groups including religious, political, educational, and health related groups. They also put in more hours volunteering. Happy people are more inclined to help others.
Social Relationships
Happy people have better social relationships and this is one of the most robust findings in the literature.
Friendship and Social support
There is an association between happiness and the actual number of friends or companions that happy people can rely on.
In the workplace happy people receive more emotional and other assistance from co-workers and supervisors.
Friendship has one of the highest correlations to happiness. The quantity and the quality of contacts is a strong predictor of wellbeing even more than contact with family. Happy people are satisfied with their friends and social activities, and are less jealous of others. Loneliness is negatively correlated with happiness, and positively correlated with depression.
Marriage and Romance
Married people are happier than those who are single, divorced or widowed. Happy people have more fulfilling marriages, and are more satisfied with their marriage. Marital satisfaction and satisfaction with family life have the strongest correlations for happiness. In addition your own individual happiness is correlated with the marital satisfaction of your spouse.
Other romantic relationships have similar findings. Happy people are more likely to describe their partner as their great love than unhappy people.
Health
Mental Health
The happiest people have few symptoms of psychopathology such as depression, hypochondriasis, schizophrenia, social phobia and anxiety.
Similar findings occur for optimistic people. They have higher levels of vitality and mental health and lower levels of depression.
The use of substances may achieve an increase in positive affect but detrimental behaviours such as abuse and dependence are indicators of poor mental health.
Evidence suggests that a positive mood is associated with a decreased probability of drug use.
Physical Health
Happy people have fewer physical symptoms and better health.
Positive affect relates to quality of life in cancer patients, smaller allergic reactions in healthy people, fewer emergency room and hospital visits, fewer calls to the doctor, less use of medication, and less work absences.
Conclusion
Happy people are more successful in the Work, Relationships and Health domains.
So plenty of reasons to be happy. Next time we will look at whether short term happiness is related to successful behaviours.
Enjoy and have a day filled with subjective well-being.
Does Happiness Lead to Success? – Part 2
Defining terms
Happiness is: The experience of frequent positive emotions – joy, interest, pride
Happiness is: The experience of infrequent negative emotions – sadness anxiety anger
It is the relative proportion of time spent in the positive emotions that predicts happiness while the intensity of the emotions is a weaker predictor.
Happy people therefore experience mild or moderate positive affect the majority of the time (about 80%), not frequent intense positive states. To restate it, happiness is a state where people feel positive emotions most of the time.
Happy people are more sensitive to environmental rewards and are more likely to approach rewarding situations.
High average levels of of positive affect is also known as chronic happiness.
Trait positive affect and subjective wellbeing has its roots in genetic personality dispositions – a genetic set point. Happiness is also dependent on your current life circumstances and the intentional activities you participate in.
Positive emotions can produce desirable outcomes even in the absence of a very happy disposition, although a happy disposition is likely a cause of positive emotions.
Does Happiness Lead to Success?
Does Happiness lead to Success?
Society values certain characteristics and resources and these things are thought to correlate to happiness. It is usually assumed that the characteristic or resource is the cause of the happiness. An alternative pathway may be that happy people are likely to obtain favourable life circumstances.
It would seem to be a bidirectional process. Success leads to happiness and positive affect engenders success. Positive moods lead you to think, feel and behave in ways the promote successful resource building and involvement with approach goals.
Positive emotions usually imply that life is going well, goals are being met and resources are adequate. If you are in this situation you can Broaden and Build. i.e. expand your resources and friendships, improve your repertoire of skills, rest and relax to rebuild energy after a period of effort.
During such a period, free from immediate danger and unmarked by recent loss, people experiencing positive emotions seek new goals.
The characteristics of the positive affect include
Confidence
Optimism
Self efficacy
Likability
Positive construal of others
Sociability
Activity and energy
Prosocial behaviour
Immunity and physical wellbeing
Effective coping
Originality and flexibility
All these attributes encourage active involvement in goal pursuit. Positive emotions produce the tendency to approach rather than avoid. Thus the success of happy people has its foundations in two main factors
- Because there are frequent happy moods there is a greater likelihood of moving towards new goals while they experience those moods.
- There is a possession of past skills and resources built over time during previous pleasant moods.
Are happy people more likely to succeed at culturally valued goals such as work, love and health as well as behaviours and cognitions (characteristics, resources and skills) that parallel successful life outcomes? The following posts will examine areas such as the attributes of self efficacy, creativity, sociability, altruism, immunity and coping.
