Happiness is a complex and multifaceted emotion that encompasses a range of positive feelings, from contentment to intense joy. It is often associated with positive life experiences, such as achieving goals, spending time with loved ones, or engaging in enjoyable activities. However, happiness can also arise spontaneously, without any apparent external cause.
Positive psychology is the scientific study of conditions and processes that contribute to positive psychological states, well-being, positive relationships, and positive institutions.
Flow in positive psychology, also known colloquially as being inthe zone or locked in, is the mental state in which a person performing some activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and enjoyment in the process of the activity. In essence, flow is characterized by the complete absorption in what one does, and a resulting transformation in one's sense of time. Flow is the melting together of action and consciousness; the state of finding a balance between a skill and how challenging that task is. It requires a high level of concentration. Flow is used as a coping skill for stress and anxiety when productively pursuing a form of leisure that matches one's skill set.
Martin Elias Peter Seligman is an American psychologist, educator, and author of self-help books. Seligman is a strong promoter within the scientific community of his theories of well-being and positive psychology. His theory of learned helplessness is popular among scientific and clinical psychologists. A Review of General Psychology survey, published in 2002, ranked Seligman as the 31st most cited psychologist of the 20th century.
Mihaly Robert Csikszentmihalyi was a Hungarian-American psychologist. He recognized and named the psychological concept of "flow", a highly focused mental state conducive to productivity. He was the Distinguished Professor of Psychology and Management at Claremont Graduate University. Earlier, he served as the head of the department of psychology at the University of Chicago and of the department of sociology and anthropology at Lake Forest College.
Affective science is the scientific study of emotion or affect. This includes the study of emotion elicitation, emotional experience and the recognition of emotions in others. Of particular relevance are the nature of feeling, mood, emotionally-driven behaviour, decision-making, attention and self-regulation, as well as the underlying physiology and neuroscience of the emotions.
The term eustress means "beneficial stress"—either psychological, physical, or biochemical/radiological (hormesis).
Christopher Peterson was the Arthur F. Thurnau professor of psychology and organizational studies at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan and the former chair of the clinical psychology area. He was science director of the VIA Institute on Character, and co-author of Character Strengths and Virtues for the classification of character strengths. He was a member of the Positive Psychology Steering Committee and the International Positive Psychology Association board of directors, a senior fellow at the Positive Psychology Center and a lecturer for the Master of Applied Positive Psychology program at the University of Pennsylvania. He was a co-editor of Applied Psychology: Health and Well-being and the Positive Psychology Book Series Editor for Oxford University Press.
Flourishing, or human flourishing, is the complete goodness of humans in a developmental life-span, that somehow includes positive psychological functioning and positive social functioning, along with other basic goods.
Positive organizational behavior (POB) is defined as "the study and application of positively oriented human resource strengths and psychological capacities that can be measured, developed, and effectively managed for performance improvement in today's workplace".
Edward Francis Diener was an American psychologist and author. Diener was a professor of psychology at the University of Utah and the University of Virginia, and Joseph R. Smiley Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of Illinois, as well as a senior scientist for the Gallup Organization. He is noted for his three decades of research on happiness, including work on temperament and personality influences on well-being, theories of well-being, income and well-being, cultural influences on well-being, and the measurement of well-being. As shown on Google Scholar as of April 2021, Diener's publications have been cited over 257,000 times.
Well-being or welfare is what is ultimately good for a person, including everything considered valuable for them. It is a measure of how well a person's life is going for them, both in a positive and a negative sense. In its positive sense, well-being is sometimes contrasted with ill-being as its opposite. The term "subjective well-being" denotes how people experience and evaluate their lives, usually measured in relation to self-reported well-being obtained through questionnaires.
The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom is a 2006 book written by American social psychologist Jonathan Haidt. In it, Haidt poses several "Great Ideas" on happiness espoused by thinkers of the past—such as Plato, Buddha and Jesus—and examines them in the light of contemporary psychological research, extracting from them any lessons that still apply to our modern lives. Central to the book are the concepts of virtue, happiness, fulfillment, and meaning.
Positive psychology is defined as a method of building on what is good and what is already working instead of attempting to stimulate improvement by focusing on the weak links in an individual, a group, or in this case, a company. Implementing positive psychology in the workplace means creating an environment that is more enjoyable, productive, and values individual employees. This also means creating a work schedule that does not lead to emotional and physical distress.
Subjective well-being (SWB) is a self-reported measure of well-being, typically obtained by questionnaire.
The six-factor model of psychological well-being is a theory developed by Carol Ryff that determines six factors that contribute to an individual's psychological well-being, contentment, and happiness. Psychological well-being consists of self-acceptance, positive relationships with others, autonomy, environmental mastery, a feeling of purpose and meaning in life, and personal growth and development. Psychological well-being is attained by achieving a state of balance affected by both challenging and rewarding life events.
Savoring is the use of thoughts and actions to increase the intensity, duration, and appreciation of positive experiences and emotions. It is a topic commonly studied in the domain of positive psychology. It can also be referred to simply as the up-regulation of positive emotions. Traditional psychology attempts to develop methods of coping and dealing with negative emotions. Positive psychology uses the concept of savoring as a way to maximize the potential benefits that positive experiences and emotions can have on peoples' lives. The opposite of Savoring is known as dampening. Dampening is a method of dealing with positive affect by trying to feel worse, or down-regulate positive emotions.
Cultural differences can interact with positive psychology to create great variation, potentially impacting positive psychology interventions. Culture differences have an impact on the interventions of positive psychology. Culture influences how people seek psychological help, their definitions of social structure, and coping strategies. Cross cultural positive psychology is the application of the main themes of positive psychology from cross-cultural or multicultural perspectives.
Well-being is a multifaceted topic studied in psychology, especially positive psychology. Biologically, well-being is highly influenced by endogenous molecules that impact happiness and euphoria in organisms, often referred to as "well-being related markers". Related concepts are eudaimonia, happiness, flourishing, quality of life, contentment, and meaningful life.
Coaching psychology is a field of applied psychology that applies psychological theories and concepts to the practice of coaching. Its aim is to increase performance, self-actualization, achievement and well-being in individuals, teams and organisations by utilising evidence-based methods grounded in scientific research. Coaching psychology is influenced by theories in various psychological fields, such as humanistic psychology, positive psychology, learning theory and social psychology.
