Understanding Happiness: Positive Emotions And Life Satisfaction

Measuring Happiness via Scientific Methods

Question:

Write about the Counseling for Pleasant or Positive Emotions.

Happiness is emotional or mental wellbeing that can be termed by pleasant or positive emotions varying from satisfaction to passionate joy (Helliwell et al., 2013). When an individual is mentally happy, it can also reflect the judgments of a person on their general wellbeing. On the other hand, religious and philosophers see happiness regarding living better life rather than only being emotion. Psychologist finds happiness as experiences regular positive emotions, like as joy, curiosity and conceit, unconstructive emotions, like as sorrow anxiety and anger (Csikszentmihalyi, 2013). Happiness has also been indicated to link to life fulfillment, enjoyment of life, periods of delight, but in general, it has to do with the constructive encounters of emotions.

Psychologists have sought ways to measure happiness to look at happiness via scientific methods (Pavot, 2014). It is done to measure the satisfactions which can be utilized to bring a comparison of one group of individuals with another and also track those people within a given time to evaluate the impact of life interventions. However, these evaluations focus on the emotions and the way people assess their lives.

Subjective well-being forms on of the important idea in positive psychology. It is defined as the assessments of emotions or moods and individual’s life. Subjective well-being consists of three sections, negative effects, benefits and life satisfaction (Jacobsson, & Lexell, 2016). Positive and negative impacts have jutted the moods and emotions. Satisfaction is the assessment of the life of an individual such as the conditions in the life, how close is one with ideal life, if a person has gotten crucial things in the life and if one will make a difference in life. All these steps target to evaluate the life satisfaction. Also, it is very crucial to point out that the life satisfaction is more than the sum of emotional wellbeing within a given period; for example, habitually happy people can be satisfied with their education despite the fact that they might feel moderately pleased with some particular arts such as classes or books.

Many researchers utilize satisfaction with life scale (SWLS) to evaluate the life contentment. However, positive and negative affect schedule PANAS is employed to assess the negative and positive influence (Corrigan et al., 2013).  Another option is to track the positive and negative impact during the day, half an hour and also life fulfillment during the conclusion of each and every day. By doing this, one will get a vivid understanding of the specific activities one provides the mainly emotional wellbeing. Also, one of the best ways which one can do this is setting an alarm at an interval of 30 minutes. To evaluate the affect, one can use 0 to 3 scales to the queries such as do you feel negative or positive emotions now? The closed answerers could be 0; not all at all; 1 a little; 2 somewhat; 3: strongly. After all this, it is important to describe and elaborate specific positive or negative emotion one is feeling (Tomás et al., 2015.

Subjective Well-Being and Life Satisfaction

Also, for the tracking process to be excellent, it is very crucial to utilize categories such as the, socializing, working, doing housework and much more especially when describing things that an individual is doing. However, it is also critical to develop categories which suit the activities of the life of an individual and also the ones which outlined the needs of a person.  Eventually, it is very crucial to write down how a person is satisfied with the life. Furthermore, it is advisable to use a scale like, very pleased, dissatisfied, moderately satisfied, slightly dissatisfied, neither dissatisfied, somewhat satisfied and very satisfied. It is also important to maintain this particular regime for some weeks and checking the trends which emerged, the deeds that make an individual happy, the ones which bring happiness and also the days which a person is not satisfied.

The positive psychology concentrates on civilizing the universal quality of life in persons, contrary to improving upon possible human flaws, which has been the aim of conventional psychology (Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2014). The positive psychology try to refute the hedonic treadmill theory of human happiness, which states that every person has a place point of happiness, that is near to impartiality, which modifies for short durations, reflecting life situations, but ultimately returns to objectivity

A positive psychologist has come up with different ways that happiness of an individual can be facilitated, for instance, friends, family, social organization, social ties and work networks.  The hedonic wellbeing outlines that increased pleasure and reduction in pain contributes to happiness. The concept of hedonic is grounded on the notion of subjective wellbeing. It encompasses effective components which are high low negative and high positive affect and satisfaction with life. It is also based on the fact that a person goes through happiness when satisfaction with life and positive affect are high.

 In regards to eudaimonic well-being, happiness builds on the structure that persons are contented if they encounter life function growth and challenges (Røysamb & Nes, 2016). The very strategy accommodates the self-determination theory to conceptualize contentment. This theory pointed out that happiness is linked to accomplishment in the parts of independence and competence. Through engagement in eudaimonic pursuits, happiness will happen as a product.  It appears that happiness does not occur from pleasure pursuit but from the growth of strengths of an individual and also the qualities which link with an idea of positive psychology.

 The past emotions are adamant on the present and future of an individual. People have strong bitter feelings on things which happen in some time back have a feeling of regret on the deeds which have passed, and they carry them to the present life (Power, 2015). Many people believe that their past will determine their future and they led it to control them. Also, studies indicate that negative actions which happened during childhood have very little happiness on the adulthood happiness. Using positive psychology, individuals can be trained to modify these feelings on the past into joy and satisfaction. To perform this, the appreciation and clemency ought to be cultured in persons.

Hedonic and Eudaimonic Well-Being

Positive psychology has developed an understanding of the attributes and qualities of wellbeing. However, personality traits show that happy and unhappy individuals have different profiles (Donaldson et al., 2015). For instance, happy people seem to have extroverted, hopeful and high self-esteem. However, happiness is contributed by positive and negatives undertakings in our lives, and this has contributed to the fact that extraverts have a better fit to the social environments which can aggravate emotions of happiness. Also, they are likely to experience more happiness as compared to introverts.

 Individuals in flow are ecstatic and are not stressed even when performing a challenging job. They lose themselves in the job they like and feel out of time; it has been found that their brains work precisely, efficiently and interestingly (Csikszentmihalyi, 2014). Managers should ensure that workforce's key performance determinants get defined. This is because flows happened when jobs are aligned with individual’s objectives.

Happiness is facilitated particularly when a person gets a positive reward. By rewarding an individual who has performed certain work is a positive approach which promotes happiness and that individual will be in a position to do better work in future (Sheldon & Lucas, 2014). For instance increasing salary among healthcare workers makes them happy individuals since most of the needs will be fulfilled and they will get satisfied. In schools, students who get a positive complement from teachers for performing particular work will be happy and will assist the student to work hard to do it better.

Positive psychology believes that people who smile due to cultivating positive thoughts can improve their mood (Sheldon & Lucas, 2014). By developing and recalling the past experiences especially pleasant memories improves happiness and drives away the bad moods.

If individual lives with people who are always happy will likely be happy too. However, by doing so will have an impact on the future life where the person will be even happy irrespective of the problems faced (Sheldon & Lucas, 2014).

It is not easy to find happiness in life. Researchers have found ways which can be utilized to savor positive experiences through valuing their positive encounters (Sheldon & Lucas, 2014). It is done via valuing their ongoing positive experiences and also through anticipating the positive events in future.

Empathy encompasses the inner feedback on what we learn or see or what happen to another person. It develops understanding and kindness (Sheldon & Lucas, 2014). The empathy interventions assist comprehension on other people and later extend forgiveness, acts of kindness and compassion.

This encompasses development of new useful information. It enhances technology and culture, also, positive psychology is linked to creativity as it associated with the approach of human flourishing and also the factors which assist people to survive and have a better living(Sheldon & Lucas, 2014). Also, they boost individual's resilience and offer more flexibility and choice to their lives.

Conclusion

Happiness forms a significant aspect of an individual wellbeing. Through positive psychology, happiness can be achieved. It is facilitated particularly when a person gets a positive reward. Also, actions which happened during childhood have very little happiness on the adulthood happiness

References

Corrigan, J. D., Kolakowsky-Hayner, S., Wright, J., Bellon, K., & Carufel, P. (2013). The satisfaction with life scale. The Journal of head trauma rehabilitation, 28(6), 489-491.

Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2013). Flow: The psychology of happiness. Random House.

Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2014). Learning,“flow,” and happiness. In Applications of Flow in Human Development and Education (pp. 153-172). Springer Netherlands.

Donaldson, S. I., Dollwet, M., & Rao, M. A. (2015). Happiness, excellence, and optimal human functioning revisited: Examining the peer-reviewed literature linked to positive psychology. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 10(3), 185-195.

Helliwell, J. F., Layard, R., & Sachs, J. (2014). World happiness report 2013.

Jacobsson, L., & Lexell, J. (2016). Life satisfaction after traumatic brain injury: comparison of ratings with the Life Satisfaction Questionnaire (LiSat-11) and the Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS). Health and quality of life outcomes, 14(1), 10.

Pavot, W. (2014). Temporal Satisfaction with Life Scale (TSWLS). In Encyclopedia of Quality of Life and Well-Being Research (pp. 6609-6611). Springer Netherlands.

Power, M. (2015). Understanding Happiness: A Critical Review of Positive Psychology. Routledge.

Røysamb, E., & Nes, R. B. (2016). Genes, Environments and Core Features of Eudaimonic Wellbeing. In Handbook of Eudaimonic Well-Being (pp. 233-252). Springer International Publishing.

Seligman, M. E., & Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2014). Positive psychology: An introduction (pp. 279-298). Springer Netherlands.

Sheldon, K. M., & Lucas, R. E. (Eds.). (2014). Stability of happiness: Theories and evidence on whether happiness can change. Elsevier.

Tomás, J. M., Gutiérrez, M., Sancho, P., & Romero, I. (2015). Measurement invariance of the Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS) by gender and age in Angola. Personality and Individual Differences, 85, 182-186.