Positive Psychology For Philosophy Of Happiness

History and Philosophy of Happiness

Discuss about the Positive Psychology for Philosophy of Happiness.

History of happiness dated back to the 2500 years ago. Happiness can be tracked down from the insights and thoughts of Confucius, Buddha, Socrates, and Aristotle from China, India and Greece. Lot of correlation is evident between historical happiness and modern science of happiness (White et al., 2008). Philosophy of happiness is the beliefs related to the existence, nature and accomplishment of happiness. Philosophically, happiness can be believed as moral goal of life or part of luck. In few instances, happiness is used synonymously with luck. Philosophers generally explained happiness as state of mind or fruitful life of a person. According to Gautama Buddha, ‘there is no path to happiness: happiness is the path’. Buddha gave thought that journey itself is a destination. Happiness lies in the living rather than arriving at the goal. According to Bertrand Russell, feeling of love is the happiest moment of the person. Friedrich Nietzsche in 19^th century stated that happiness is a feeling which can increase power and overcome resistance. According to him, happiness can be used to control the surroundings (Bortolotti, 2009).

In 450 BC, Socrates mentioned that happiness is not in gaining more but it is in developing ability to enjoy less. For him, source of happiness is not the external aspects but it the private and internal success of the individual. If we reduce the level of our requirements, we can enjoy its happiness. According to Plato in 4^th century BC, happiness is completely dependent on the individual on their own and not on the other individual. Individual should always make everything to attain happiness and this is the best way of living happily. Happiness depends on the personal growth. This personal growth should be in the form of achievements and not the accomplishments. Aristole around 300 BC quoted that happiness depends on us. Happiness can’t be gifted by others and we have to create it, nurture it on our own and protect it. John Stuart Mill in 19^th century mentioned that happiness can be achieved by minimizing our desires instead of putting an effort to satisfy it. He had belief that, person should utilize things for a specific purpose and in case it is not useful, these things should be expelled from the life (Norton, 2012).

Confucius around 500 BC, believed that happiness lies in the good thoughts. By this world can become large and better. Correlation of happiness can established with thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Happiness is a guide and it reproduces more in search of reasons of existence. Seneca in 4BC cited that most of the blessings of human being are within us and within individual’s reach. Human being should be happy with existing things and should not wish for the non-existing things. If locus of our life is external, happiness would not be there. If locus of our life is internal, happiness would be there. Lao Tzu in 600 BC mentioned that person living in the past is depressed, person living in the future is anxious and person living in the present is happy. Research established that person’s happiness lies in the activities where full and present attention is required. These activities comprised of good conversation, creative tasks and sex. Soren Kierkegaard in 19^th century mentioned that life is not a problem which needs to be solved but it is a reality which needs to be experienced by every individual. Happiness can be achieved by living in the present moment and getting benefit of the existing ride. Satisfaction can be achieved by converting circumstances into the problems and accepting it as experiences. Henry David Thoreau in 19^th century mentioned that happiness should not be chased because there is possibility that it can avoid you. If you pay your attention to other things, happiness would approach you (Cahn and Vitrano, 2007).

Measurement of Happiness

Measurement of the happiness is very difficult task. Still, researchers developed scientific methods to measure happiness. Most of these methods are based on the questionnaires. Few of the representative questions of these questionnaires include how happy are you?, and how satisfied are you with your life? Scientifically proved questionnaires in clinical trial are available for the measurement of happiness. These questionnaires include Oxford Happiness Inventory, Subjective Happiness Scale, Satisfaction with Life Scale, Panas Scale, The assessment of subjective well-being and OECD Guidelines on Measuring Subjective Well-being (Weimann et al., 2015).      

There are different theories of positive psychology like well-being, meaning, hope, strength, broaden and build theory and positive empathy can be used in the promotion of happiness. Counseling should be done in a person by psychologist for these theories. Coaching of different aspects of these theories would be helpful in developing happiness in the person. Positive psychology can be applicable in measuring happiness by evaluating subjective well being. Subjective well being can be evaluated based on the evaluation of own life and evaluation of moods and emotions. Subjective well being evaluation can be categorized into parts like positive affect, negative affect and life satisfaction. Positive and negative affect are related to the mood and emotions. Life satisfaction is related to the evaluation of life as a whole. Positive psychology is based on the belief that human being wish to lead their life in meaningful and fulfilling way, to bring out their positive characters and augment their experience of love, work and play. Positive psychology is useful in the promotion of happiness. Positive psychology tells us that incidences in the life can hurt us, but happiness is the effective cure for this. Happy and unhappy people can have same types of worries in the life, however happy people can bounce back very quickly (Frisch, 2006).

Positive psychology teaches us to write about gratitude weekly twice. This writing would be helpful in becoming happy in the depressed condition. This gratitude writing would be useful in avoiding waste of time on wrong things and refocusing on the doing things in the right direction to attain happiness. Positive psychology can be helpful in establishing goals for tracking the progress, irrespective of the attainment of finishing line. Hence, positive psychology can be helpful in the practicing optimism to achieve happiness. Positive psychology guides a person to write future diary about oneself. This would be helpful to become happy because people write positive about themselves (Keyes and Shapiro, 2004). Positive psychology teaches us to enjoy every aspect of life. Positive psychology teaches us to remember funny things each day. These funny things can be created by person on themselves, created by other or it can be spontaneously happened. Positive psychology gives lesson that sharing is very important for happiness. This sharing can be in the form of time spent or sharing meal with hungry person. Positive psychology teaches us to say thanks to everybody. By saying thanks, there can be boost in the mood of the person (Keyes and Magyar-Moe, 2003).

Positive Psychology

Meaning in the life can be useful in identifying extent of identifying, making sense of, seeing significance of and perceiving life. Meaning is useful in finding benefit in the life. Benefit finding is directly related to the highest level of positive well being and minimal depression. Meaning is also helpful in identifying better relationship, raised personal resources, increased intellect of purpose and more clarity in the purpose of life (Helgeson et al., 2006; Steger, 2009). Hope theory is basically goal directed and these goals require cognition. Hope is the capability to think in diverse directions to achieve the goal and motivation to use these directions effectively. Hope theory is useful in increasing confidence and skills of the person in different pathways or directions to attain the goal. Hope can be applicable in variety of domains like academics, athletics, work, and physical and mental health. Increased hope is directly proportional to the happiness (Reichard et al., 2013). Strength theory states that there should be more focus on building strength rather than eliminating weakness only. Every individual has unique set of strengths that can be useful in becoming successful in certain areas. Working hard in the area which is not the strength of a person can lead to distress. Strengths can be useful as pathways to achieve greater value, well-being and finally happiness (Becker and Maracek, 2008; Peterson and Seligman, 2004).

Broaden and build theory states that positive emotions are the building blocks of our growth and our capability to prosper. Effective application of positive emotions like joy, interest, love, pride, and contentment can be useful in the broadening action and skills. Positive emotion is the long lasting personal resource and it is useful in the escalation of growth. Positive emotions can broaden the thought process and corresponding action by increasing possibilities and by acting upon them (Fredrickson, 2001). Passive empathy is useful in establishing relation between applications of therapy and predicting therapy outcomes. Positive empathy is useful in identifying person’s needs and sharing necessary experience with the person. Positive empathy is useful in facilitating identification of goal, identification of strength and augmentation of positive emotions (Magyar-Moe et al., 2015).

References:

Becker, D., and Maracek, J. (2008). Dreaming the American dream: Individualism and positive psychology. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 2, 1767-1780. 

Bortolotti, L. (2009). Philosophy and Happiness. Palgrave Macmillan. 

Cahn, S. M., and Vitrano, C. (2012). Happiness: Classic and Contemporary Readings in Philosophy. Oxford University Press. 

Fredrickson, B. L. (2001). The role of positive emotions in positive psychology: The broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions. American Psychologist, 56, 218-226. 

Frisch, M. B. (2006). Quality of life therapy: Applying a life satisfaction approach to positive psychology and cognitive therapy. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley. 

Helgeson, V. S., Reynolds, K. A., and Tomich, P. L. (2006). A meta-analytic review of benefit finding and growth. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 74, 797-816. 

Keyes, C. L. M., and Magyar-Moe, J. L. (2003). The measurement and utility of adult subjective well-being. In S. J. Lopez & C. R. Snyder (Eds.), Positive psychological assessment: A handbook of models and measures (pp. 411-425). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. 

Keyes, C. L. M., and Shapiro, A. (2004). Social well-being in the United States: A descriptive epidemiology. In O. G. Brim, C. D. Ryff, & R. C. Kessler (Eds.), How healthy are we? A national study of well-being in midlife (pp. 350-372). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. 

Magyar-Moe, J., Owens, R. L. and Conoley, C. W.  (2015). Positive Psychological Interventions in Counseling: What Every Counseling Psychologist Should Know. The Counseling Psychologist, 43(4), 508–557. 

Norton, B. M. (2012). Fiction and the Philosophy of Happiness. Rowman & Littlefield. 

Peterson, C., and Seligman, M. E. P. (2004). Character strengths and virtues: A handbook and classification. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. 

Reichard, R. J., Avey, J. B., Lopez, S., and Dollwet, M. (2013). Have the will and finding the way: A review and meta-analysis of hope at work. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 8, 292-304. 

Steger, M. F. (2009). Meaning in life. In S. J. Lopez (Ed.), The Oxford handbook of positive psychology (2nd ed., 679-687). New York, NY: Oxford University Press. 

Weimann, J., Knabe, A., and Schöb, R. (2015).  Measuring Happiness: The Economics of Well-Being. MIT Press. 

White, N. P. (2008). A Brief History of Happiness. John Wiley & Sons.