Positive Psychology Explained: Key Concepts, Myths, and Evidence on Happiness and Resilience
Positive Psychology: True or False Statements
1. TRUE Freud argued that positive behavior can have negative or self-interested unconscious motivations.
2. FALSE The disease model has a problem: it focuses too much on illness and pathology and not enough on strengths and well-being.
3. FALSE Positive Psychology is not simply a better way to treat mental illness. It studies strengths, happiness, flourishing, and meaning.
4. FALSE Psychoanalysis and Freud did not offer a strong positive approach, as they focused on conflict and pathology.
5. FALSE The Nun Study showed that positive emotions are linked to a longer life and longevity, not just better quality of life.
6. TRUE Resilience is the capacity to achieve good outcomes and adapt despite serious threats or challenges.
7. FALSE The relationship between money and happiness is weaker and more complex than most people assume.
8. FALSE Economic growth does not automatically lead to greater societal happiness.
9. FALSE Positive Psychology restores balance by studying positive functioning, not by studying more negative behavior.
10. TRUE According to Seligman, a good life involves three elements:
Pleasant: pleasure
Engaged: involvement and flow
Meaningful: something larger than the self, such as serving others.
11. FALSE Hedonia and eudaimonia do not represent short-term versus long-term well-being.
Hedonic: pleasure and feeling good
Eudaimonic: meaning, growth, and living well
12. FALSE Daimon refers to one’s true nature and potential, not fate.
13. TRUE Laura King found that positive affect is associated with meaningfulness.
14. FALSE Subjective well-being (SWB) consists of Life Satisfaction + Positive Affect + Negative Affect. It is not the same as health.
15. TRUE Harker and Keltner found that the Duchenne smile is linked to better health, greater happiness, and a more stable and satisfying marriage.
16. FALSE Self-Determination Theory is built on Autonomy, Competence, and Relatedness.
17. FALSE In Fredrickson’s speech study, positive emotions led to faster recovery from physiological arousal and stress, known as the Undoing Effect.
18. FALSE Norman Cousins credited humor and laughter, not self-awareness, with helping his recovery.
19. FALSE Flow is complete absorption and concentration, not daydreaming or wandering attention.
20. FALSE Masten’s “ordinary magic” means resilience comes from ordinary adaptive systems and resources, not purely biological factors.
21. TRUE Bonanno found that resilience after trauma is more common than clinicians assumed, and not everyone needs therapy.
22. B In loss, sense-making and benefit finding are linked to less distress.
23. TRUE Janoff-Bulman showed that trauma can shatter personal invulnerability, meaningfulness, and a positive view of the self.
24. FALSE Income, gender, age, and education explain a relatively small amount of differences in happiness, not 50–60%.
25. FALSE Impact bias is the tendency to overestimate the intensity and duration of future emotions.
26. FALSE In the dorm study, predictions focused too much on obvious housing features, while actual satisfaction was shaped strongly by social experiences and dorm mates. This is called focalism.
27. FALSE Older adults do not exaggerate emotions. They prioritize emotionally meaningful relationships and present goals.
28. FALSE The gender happiness paradox does not mean men are simply happier. Overall happiness can be similar despite differences in emotional experience.
29. FALSE Women may experience both positive and negative emotions more intensely. This is not simply biased happiness.
30. FALSE According to the Chicago Tribune, people across income levels tend to believe that more money leads to more happiness.
31. FALSE Diener found that cheerfulness and positive affect are linked to higher income later in life.
32. FALSE The lottery study found that winners were not permanently and dramatically happier, due to adaptation, habituation, and contrast.
33. FALSE Socioemotional Selectivity Theory holds that older adults shift from future to present emotionally meaningful goals, not toward the past.
34. FALSE The relationship between wealth or income and happiness is limited and complex, not consistently substantial.
Bradbury: Happiness cannot be manufactured. Real happiness is found in ordinary and family life.
Hunt: Big problems are solved one manageable step at a time.
Tannen: Different conversational rules can lead to misunderstandings.
Cohen: Milestones and responsibilities mark the process of becoming an adult.
Keating: Ordinary life can be meaningful through kindness and relationships.