Motivation and emotion/Tutorials/Positive psychology

Tutorial 11: Positive psychology
This is the eleventh tutorial for the motivation and emotion unit of study.

Overview

This tutorial:

distinguishes between humanistic psychology and positively psychology
considers underlying assumptions of humanistic psychology
discusses domains and characteristics of self-actualisation
explores types of happiness and distinguishes between natural happiness and synthetic happiness

Take-home messages:

Growth psychology assumes that people are naturally motivated towards personal growth. Two historical phases: humanistic psychology (1960s) and positive psychology (1990s-).
Humanistic psychology emphasises inner, natural motivation towards fulfilling one's potential
Self-actualisation involves connecting to higher values, being autonomous, engaging deeply, and rich interpersonal relationships
Positive psychology is the science of happiness, life satisfaction, and optimisation of psychological well-being
Happiness pursuit can be counter-intuitive. Humans aren't good at predicting what makes them happy (e.g., due to "impact bias" (overestimatation of hedonic impact). However, our "psychological immune system" "synthesises happiness" (when we don't get what we want).

Growth psychology

Growth psychology encompasses two historical phases:

Humanistic psychology (1950s–1960s): Higher-order motivation towards reaching one's potential; focus on alignment with true self, actualising tendency, organismic valuing process, and self-actualisation
Positive psychology (1990s–present): Scientific study of how to develop psychological strengths and positive emotions which contribute to human flourishing and happiness

Humanistic psychology

This section explores the assumptions of humanistic psychology and extent to which you experience the characteristics of self-actualisation.

Assumptions

How aligned are you with the assumptions of humanistic psychology?

Consider these questions:

Which answers correspond to assumptions of humanistic psychology? (the 2nd answer in each case)

Self-actualisation

What is self-actualisation?

Self-actualisation = fulfillment of potential
16 characteristics of self-actualised people (Maslow, 1971) can be grouped into 4 domains:
- Values: Connection to higher values/purpose (e.g., truth, love, and happiness)
- Autonomy: Internal control
- Engagement: Deep involvement, productivity, and happiness
- Relationships: High quality interpersonal relationships
The last three domains map closely to self-determination theory's basic psychological needs (autonomy, competence, and relatedness). The first category (values) relates to meaning/purpose.

Profile

To what extent is your life aligned with the characteristics of self-actualised people identified by Abraham Maslow?
Complete this Self-actualisation profile (Google Form).
Before submitting, note down:
- What are you doing particularly well that is helping you towards self-actualisation?
- What could you improve to better promote your growth towards self-actualisation?
- What self-actualisation characteristic(s) would you like to share or learn more about? e.g.,
  - 1. Acceptance of self, others, and nature and 6. conflict-resolution
  - 2. Identification with humanity → biodiversity?
  - 3. Emphasis on higher values - Maslow's triangle/pyramid may be a different shape for everyone?
  - 7. Autonomy - appears throughout motivational and emotional psychology
  - 8. Solitude enjoyment → includes being able to thrive without technology?
  - 9. Spontaneity, 11. Creativity, and 12. Freshness - being open to experience and willing to jump in and explore
  - 10. Problem-absorption - meaningful, interesting problems with skills, mindset, and habit to engage
  - 13. Peak experiences - lowest rated characteristic; lived experiences of self-actualisation
  - 14. High quality interpersonal relationships - appears throughout motivational and emotional psychology
  - 16. Humour - mature sense of humour underappreciated and underesearched, yet widely recognised in everyday life as a powerful, prevalent aspect of human psycholosocial experience
Review class responses

Positive psychology

Positive psychology emerged as a distinct field in the 1990s. It focused on scientific study of the development of human psychological strengths that contribute to optimal well-being, happiness, and life satisfaction.

Happiness types

Martin Seligman suggests three components of happiness:

Pleasant life: Dealing with past, happiness in present (hedonic pleasure and the skills to amplify pleasure), optimism about future. Limitations:
- 50% heritable
- short-lived, subject to the hedonic treadmill (i.e., pleasure wears off quickly).
Good life: Engagement (flow, absorption) or Eudaimonia;
Meaningful life: Connection to a higher purpose

Dan Gilbert suggests two types of happiness:

Natural happiness: What we feel when we get what we want
Synthetic happiness: What we feel when we learn to like what we get (instead of what we wanted)

Science of happiness

How well can humans predict their emotional reactions to events? This is known as affective forecasting.

The science about what makes people happy shows that people are subject to many biases. For example, we tend to overestimate the hedonic impact of good and bad events (known as impact bias) (i.e., we think things will be much worse or better than they actually are). This undermines our decision-making about how to be happy because it distorts our capacity to decisions that optimise long-term happiness.

On the other hand, we have something like a "psychological immune system" which "synthesises happiness" even when we don't get what we want.

Thus, freedom of choice is a friend of natural happiness, but the enemy of synthetic happiness.

These ideas are discussed in: The surprising science of happiness (Dan Gilbert, 2004, 21:00 mins, YouTube, TED Talk)

Questions to consider:

What is natural happiness?
What is impact bias?
What is synthetic happiness?
What is the role of freedom of choice in happiness?

Gilbert's talk concludes with this quote about affective forecasting / impact bias:

“ The great source of both the misery and disorders of human life, seems to arise from over-rating the difference between one permanent situation and another ... Some of those situations may, no doubt, deserve to be preferred to others: but none of them can deserve to be pursued with that passionate ardour which drives us to violate the rules either of prudence or of justice; or to corrupt the future tranquillity of our minds, either by shame from the remembrance of our own folly, or by remorse from the horror of our own injustice. ”

— Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, 1759

Recording

Tutorial 11 (2025)

References

Brickman, P., Coates, D., & Janoff-Bulman, R. (1978). Lottery winners and accident victims: Is happiness relative?. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 36(8), 917–927.

Gilbert, D. (2009). Stumbling on happiness. Vintage.[1]

Wilson, T. D., & Gilbert, D. T. (2005). Affective forecasting: Knowing what to want. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 14(3), 131–134. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0963-7214.2005.00355.x

External links

Authentic happiness (authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu)
The developmental assets framework (search-institute.org)
Ten years later: Dan Gilbert (blog.ted.com)
The common approach (aracy.org.au)