A good piece of news from the 2023 World Happiness Report is that rates of kindness are increasing. This was judged by more people having helped a stranger, donated money or goods or taken part in volunteering compared to data from previous years. In this blog I take a look at the concept of kindness in Positive Psychology. I review how it is conceptualised, what the impacts and functions of it are seen to be and why it is important. Can we define kind? Although kindness is valued across cultures and religious traditions it is not that easy to define. It is considered a strength in the VIA taxonomy, part of the virtue of humanity and the term is often used interchangeably with that of altruism or prosociality. A kind act is considered to be one that has a perceived benefit for the receiver of the act usually coupled with a perceived cost for the actor. Both greater benefits and greater costs tend to mean acts are rated as “kinder”. Kindness as a trait or characteristic is seen as the tendency to frequently and reliably perform kind acts. As you can see there is a lot of potential interpretation going on in these definitions. How are costs and benefits evaluated and by whom? How can you really know the intention of the actor and does this matter? How often constitutes frequently/reliably? Does context and culture make a difference? At an individual level kindness could be considered as performing acts intended to benefit others, but we all know how our good intentions can sometimes backfire. Are these acts kind...
Following on from my colleague Lisa Jones’ blog (January 2023), I want to consider further the recent paper by Carol Ryff (2022) “Positive Psychology: Looking back and looking forward.” From its inception, PP was intended to redress the historical focus on the negative and dysfunctional in psychology research and practice and seek what makes life vibrant and full. Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi (2000) suggested that the movement, if successful, could become redundant and be subsumed into “psychology as usual”. Has that happened? Is PP still needed and if so what is its role, function and direction within the wider field? The waves of PP The history of PP is often described in a number of “waves”. The first wave of PP focussed heavily on boosting the positive and was criticised for promoting “toxic positivity”. This largely was due to a misunderstanding of the true nature of PP (in my opinion), but on the plus side a wider focus on “what makes a good life” did seem to gain traction in research. The potential “Pollyanna” nature of first-wave PP was addressed with the development of the second wave or PP 2.0. (Ivtzan et al. 2016, Wong 2011). This considered the dialectics of life and reconnected PP with its neglected humanistic and existential roots. The focus was on a balance of positive and negative experiences in context and the complex interplay of all the shades of grey in between black and white which reflect the reality of human experience. The role of meaning, wisdom, purpose, values and growth as part of the “good” life came to the fore alongside strengths, positive...
Introduction Most of us will have seen the coverage of the COP 27 summit on climate change in November 2022. Our news feeds are full of reports of extreme weather events and the impact they are having on the planet, nature and people. This crisis threatens the whole of humanity and at times is overwhelming. As awareness of the seriousness of the problem the planet is facing permeates our consciousness, climate anxiety or eco-anxiety is a rising problem affecting the mental health of many people (Frumkin 2022). I will outline the ways in which this is both similar and different to other types of anxiety and discuss PP interventions that might be helpful in ameliorating the impact. Climate anxiety Anxiety is a normal emotion experienced in the face of challenge and uncertain outcomes. Indeed we need a certain amount of anxiety to perform at our best. The word is also used to refer to aspects of the clinical state of mental illness which can result when our normal threat response processes go wrong. In evolutionary terms, when we faced a physical threat, such as being eaten by a predator, those whose bodies responded with an effective “flight or fight” (FF) response were more likely to survive and reproduce. So this process became embedded in human neurophysiological functioning through natural selection. The FF response sends blood to the arms and legs and away from the gut, increases heart and respiration rates and floods you with adrenaline to prepare you to run/ fight. In modern life, most of the threats we face are not physical but social, and our cognitive...
To promote flourishing is a key target of Positive Psychology (PP). In this blog I hope to look at what is meant by the term flourishing and how theory and research about the concept are developing. I highlight the debates and challenges and ask how you might look at flourishing within your own life. The challenge of definition Despite flourishing being a core tenet of PP, there is no one accepted definition of what it means to flourish. Consequently, neither is there an accepted way to measure it. There is also some confusion with related concepts such as happiness, subjective wellbeing and psychological wellbeing with some areas of overlap between them. These terms are (wrongly in my opinion) used interchangeably at times within the literature. In addition, flourishing is explored in other disciplines such as philosophy, bioethics, public health and anthropology and these don’t necessarily view it from the same perspective. Indeed qualitative research suggests that people’s everyday understanding of flourishing might differ from any of these standard definitions (Willen et al. 2022). What do we know? There are at least seven distinct ways of characterising flourishing within PP alone (Keyes 2002, Ryff & Singer 2008, Deiner et al. 2010, Seligman 2011, Huppert & So 2013 Vanderweele 2017, Wong 2020). The number of dimensions considered foundational to flourishing varies from three (Wong 2020) to fourteen (Keyes 2002). So what can we say? Firstly, it is likely that basic levels of human need for physiological integrity and safety are prerequisites to flourishing (Maslow 1943). Beyond this, two dimensions are core to all the models. These are the importance...
Introduction In this blog I aim to give you a brief overview of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy/Training (ACT), outline why I believe it is very compatible with Positive Psychology (PP) and look at how the two approaches might complement each other. What is ACT? ACT is a process-based model for understanding and developing psychological flexibility. Thus, it is relevant to people with or without mental health issues, even though it was originally developed from a therapeutic perspective. It can be used in coaching or organisational level interventions as well as applied across a range of psychological disorders. ACT was pioneered by Stephen Hayes in the 1980s and is one of the “third wave” of cognitive behavioural therapies (CBT) and has been described as an existential, humanistic cognitive behavioural therapy. The ACT model is very similar to Susan David’s (2016) conceptualisation of emotional agility within PP. Aims of ACT The goal of ACT is to help people create a rich and meaningful life rather than “treat” problems. (Does this sound like eudaimonic wellbeing to you?) This is seen as involving experiencing the full range of human emotions because life inevitably has periods of challenge and our emotions have important messages for us about what is going well and what isn’t (Second Wave PP). The avoidance of or struggle with difficult emotions or experiences is considered a key factor in becoming psychologically stuck. We all use a certain amount of experiential avoidance to help us cope at times, the odd glass of wine or chocolate to help us feel better is not an issue, however, when we rely on...
