Catch-up Post: What is Positive Psychology?

Note: This is a post catching this blog up to the current week in positive psychology since I did not actually start posting until yesterday.

Our readings for last week included:

Gable, S. L., & Haidt, J. (2005). What (and why) is positive psychology? Review of General Psychology, 9, 103-110.

Seligman, M. E. P., & Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2000). Positive psychology: An introduction. American Psychologist, 55, 5-14.


A bare-bones summary:

Psychology tends to focus on what takes a person from "negative eight to zero but not...how people rise from zero to positive eight" (Gable & Haidt, 2005). That zero to positive eight part is what positive psychology is all about.

The articles also shed some light on some historical things about psychology, such as how World War II shifted psychology's focus from three major realms (pathology, talent, and how to develop a productive and fulfilling life), to just one: curing mental illness.

And then the last article highlights several other articles that touch upon different facets of positive psychology as a sort of introduction to the rest of that particular American Psychologist issue.

My take on the first article and my notes/questions: 
(This part is more of what I was planning for this blog/journal...thing.)

The first article was really just a nice summary of exactly what the title says. Positive psychology seems like a really interesting topic to me, as I really do think that this could be really important for the majority of people out there (assuming that my statistics for prevalence of mental illness is correct). Not everyone is suffering from something, but everyone alive right now is, in fact, dealing with being alive. However, I am one of those who have had bouts of mental illness; so my first question I had while reading was:

"Can the same things that bring someone from -8 to 0, also bring someone from 0 to +8? (and/or vise versa?)"
CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy, for those who don't know) helps to challenge thinking distortions no matter how minor; does a "0" or above have thinking distortions, or does this disqualify them, making them like a -1 or something? And, if it does disqualify them:

"Just how stable is mental health?"
This is more a pathology sort of thing. I suppose that it all comes back down to how we diagnose psychological problems--such as depression needing to be prevalent for two weeks or longer--right? So if this is the case, then those "slips" of the mind (such as a day-long bad mood or a one-off hallucination of someone calling our name) could be compared to just "feeling off" or a 24-hour bug in physiological terms, whereas major depression disorder would be like being infected with the coronavirus, and schizophrenia would be like having a more chronic disease, such as crohn's.
After reading a little more about how current psychology is lacking, the first article mentions that we've studied a lot about how families resolve conflicts, but "very few studies [that examine] them having fun and laughing together" (2005). So then, my next question:

"How would you operationalize this scenario?"
I only just got out of the research methods class, so being more aware of the challenges involved with setting up studies has me generating questions such as this. How do you measure "laughing?" Other aspects of positive psychology mentioned in the first article are awe, curiosity, and love. There were many more, but these in particular leave me wondering how one could study these other than just describing what one observes.
This isn't really a question, but I like the mention of personality types. Norem and Chang (2001) pointed out that there are people with a "defensive pessimism personality style." These people are exactly how they sound: pessimistic with the intent of defending themselves against unrealistically positive expectations, and that they should not be encouraged to just abandon this line of thinking.

This article is obviously introductory, and the depth of my questions and observations are limited by that as well as my lack of knowledge on this topic as a whole. However, as will always be the case, I encourage anyone who might have more questions or any kind of insight to speak up! I am always up for discussion, correction, and feedback.

~Happy trails!

Next up: Article #2--thoughts and questions.

An "Academic Journal"

This semester I am supposed to be keeping an "academic journal" for my Positive Psychology class. I also wanted to start a blog right around the same time. One thing led to the other, and now I've decided to combine the two.

Don't worry, though: this is not your everyday, "today I learned this...." Psychology and Coffee is still a creative outlet for me, so I hope to be much more stimulating than that. I also very much encourage anyone and everyone to participate. Discussion is what drives constructive thought, and I'm just itching to get involved with a more professional community, even if it means having to learn by occasionally making a fool of myself.

As for a publishing schedule, I plan to submit something at least once a week, but I'll write more depending on what's happening.

For more info on this, check out the appropriate page.