Positive Psychology Analysis Essay (Term Paper Sample)

Positive Psychology
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Positive Psychology
Positive psychology refers to the scientific research that is being conducted to establish the reasons why life is worth living. The major focus of this type of study is on the strengths of human thoughts, feelings, and behavior. This study, therefore, revolves around making average life great and creating the good in life, rather than repairing the bad in the lives of people, as well as improving the lives of people to a normal standard. Some of the topics that positive psychology revolves around include positive experiences such as joy, happiness, and love. It also focuses on positive states and behaviours, such as resilience and compassion. Positive institutions are another area of focus where organizations put to use positive principles. In this research paper, our major focus will be on happiness, as an example of a positive experience
Deconstructing Happiness
Happiness refers to an emotional state of feeling joy, contentment, and satisfaction. The involved emotions are positive and mean that someone is satisfied with their lives. It focuses on how an individual feels in the present moment, about their lives. Hence, it is considered subjective well-being because it is only dependent on the feelings of an individual in the present moment, without considering their past and future. It has two major categories, the balance of emotions and life satisfaction (Weiss et al., 2020). Based on the balance of emotions, happiness is experienced when an individual is in more positive states than negative ones. On the other hand, life satisfaction is about feeling satisfied with different areas of life, such as achievements, health, and social life. One can therefore determine whether they are happy by assessing their lives, to see whether they are living the lives they wanted and are feeling that the living conditions they are experiencing are good
Overall Impact within The Context Of Positive Psychology
Since happiness is being pursued by human beings in a very serious manner, positive psychology, therefore, uses this research to better understand the well-being of human beings. While doing happiness research, there a lot of emphasis on several areas, such as the type of personality of an individual, positive and negative emotions, the attitude of an individual towards their physical health, social class of an individual, their attachments, their goals, and well as their context in terms of time and place (Wong, 2020). All of these are factors that are pertinent in positive psychology. In the past, psychology only focused on life's worst-case scenarios, neglecting the good in life. Positive psychology is a recent area of study that now focuses on the positive aspects of life, and happiness is one of the positive experiences that add up to positive psychology.
Theoretical Framework
The scientific study of happiness is majorly focused on explaining the factors that make people happy. It is important to have some guiding theories since it is difficult to measure happiness since it is so subjective. In the past, one of the theories used was hedonism, which defines happiness as the pursuit of pleasure rather than pain. In this theory, a person is happy when they have several hedonic moments. Therefore, life was contextualized into two aspects: hedonic, where one experiences pleasure, and eudaimonia, where life is considered well-lived. In the present research, however, the dominating theories include Sigmund Freud’s theory, that people pursue long-lasting happiness to eliminate pain and displeasure and have strong feelings of pleasure. It is also noted that hedonic moments come from the brain, as well as the cortex.
Current Research Trends
Research on happiness has been revolving around different aspects that contribute to the well-being of human beings. For instance, research has now been done, and measures to determine whether a person is happy or not have been identified. The measures include positive emotions and the absence of negative ones, mature behaviours, quality of life, and character virtues. These four metrics come together to define what happiness is for an individual. Happiness, therefore, comes from doing good to feel good. Other current trends in the research on happiness include the study of personality disorders and how they affect an individual’s well-being. Another present trend in research is the causes of reduced happiness and a look into some of the post-traumatic disorders. Another area that has been researched quite a bit is the conditions that have to be present for one to be considered happy.
Explanation of the Research Conducted
One of the various features that make up an individual's well-being is that happiness is not only based on coming up with superficial behaviours that will produce temporary happiness that only lasts in a moment. Happiness needs one to cultivate more than behaviour. There is a need to integrate behavioural therapy with self-awareness to not relapse into feelings of displeasure after they have cultivated happy emotions. Positive psychology on happiness needs to stop focusing only on the behaviour and the thoughts of a person, and include aspects of spirituality and neurobiology, to get better results.
How the Researchers Have Investigating This Topic
Researchers are using different techniques to come up with different conclusions that they are making about the topic of happiness. For instance, they come to certain conclusions based on statistics that are recorded in therapy sessions. Other deductions are made from making observations on the overall livelihood of people at a societal and work-related level. Researchers also base their research on the results that psychotherapists have carried out on their patients. For instance, some psychotherapists can give their clients tasks to carry out, which, when measured, can determine whether an individual gains self-awareness, which is part of the journey, to becoming happy.
Populations and Study Methodology
Part of the target population, when researching happiness, includes people from different social classes. For instance, researching people that are poor from a third-world country, for instance, can help determine whether money contributes to the happiness that individual experiences. The other target population would be wealthy in developed nations such as the U.S. Some of the study methodology used includes first coming up with a description of happiness, followed by normative questions, that help determine whether the pursuit of happiness is a good or bad thing. Some of the methods used to provide details during this research include self-reports, which are either made up of multiple-item scales or single questions. These, therefore, help provide a detailed analysis of the happiness levels of the target population.
Pertinent Findings
It has been discovered this far that people with a high level of self-esteem are more likely to have more feelings of well-being. On the other hand, an individual whose happiness is subjective means that their well-being levels are low (Lomas et al., 2020). Another important finding is that several factors contribute to happiness that is without an individual’s control. They include an individual’s marital status, residence, gender, age, and even their field of work or study. Happiness is also affected by cognitive patterns in an individual, such as the ability to see opportunities in different circumstances, rather than threats, as well as the attention and interpretation of situations in life as positive rather than negative
Key Strengths and Weaknesses Of The Research
Some of the strengths associated with this research include the reliability of the research by future researchers on the same topic. The research has also been versatile since different methods of study have been used in the research process. The target population was also not limited to one group of people, but all sides of the coin to develop more comprehensive research findings. Some of the weaknesses found in the research include the fact the findings from the research are not deep enough. The other weakness is that the results are fixed on the identified target population and cannot be applied to other populations (Frey, 2020).
Application of Positive Psychology
Positive psychology can be appl