Positive Psychology And The Impact Of Mindfulness On Wellbeing

The field of positive psychology is a relatively new area of study and its research is in its infancy. According to Alex Linley, Joseph, Harrington, and Wood (2006), positive psychology in a nutshell, is the creation of a common language, which translates the study of positive traits and outcomes. It is also a domain of psychological strengths with a common metaphysical heritage, which relates and interacts with each other (Alex Linley, Joseph, Harrington, & Wood, 2006). One way to use positive psychology into practise is through mindfulness. The objectives of this essay are to describe in more detail what positive psychology is and its heritage and the impact of mindfulness on wellbeing. Furthermore, research methods used in the studies will
be discussed to find potential biases that might influence the results.
Positive psychology is defined as the analysis of the conditions and actions that give way to blooming or optimal functioning of individuals, communities, and institutions (Gable & Haidt, 2005). Positive psychology also defines subjective experiences like having a high level of well being in the past, happiness in the present and hope for the future (Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000).
Therefore, positive psychology places great emphasis on the strengths, characters, beneficial conditions and development of well-being and positive functioning (Rusk & Waters, 2013). According to Gable and Haidt (2005), the history of positive psychology has been around for quite some time now. Positive psychology came into prominence around the second half of the 20th century where psychology was more focused on the negative aspects of our lives. Character strengths, being virtuous and maintaining a high level of happiness and civics were mostly neglected while negative aspects like depression and violence took center stage (Gable & Haidt, 2005). According to Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi (2000), the events after World War II played a big role in positive psychology. Historically, before the war, psychologists were more interested in curing mental ailments. However, after the war, two events driven by economical reasons changed the face of psychology. Firstly, the Veterans Administration (now Veteran Affairs) was founded in 1946 that allowed psychologist to make a living treating mental ailments. Secondly, the National Institute of Mental Health founded in 1947 enabled academics to get an endowment if pathology was
their area of research. Since then, modern medicine prospered as various disorders have been identified and can be either treated or cured. However, positive psychology soon became more popular because of the forgotten area of psychology, which focuses more on the well-being of people as well as nurturing and fostering genius (Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi, 2000). This has caused an emphasis on treating an illness rather than preventing it. Hence, positive psychology came into prominence as it grew largely from the recognition of inequality in clinical psychology (Gable & Haidt, 2005). Other than that, the ideology of phenomenology and existentialism for a better understanding of human development and existence also had a huge contribution to the evolution and expansion of humanistic psychology (Misiak & Sexton, 1966). The rapid spread and expansion of human psychology was made possible by the positive psychology movement founded by Martin E. P. Seligman and it started a few months after being elected the president of the American Psychological Association in 1998 (Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000). In the 1998 American Psychological Association convention, which was held in San Francisco, the highlighted theme was “prevention” and this made psychologists shift the focus towards a more positive psychology (Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000). According to Alex Linley, Joseph, Harrington, & Wood (2006), Seligman’s presidential initiative marshalled in the establishment of the Positive Psychology Steering Committee followed by the Positive Psychology Network which became the Positive Psychology Center at University of Pennyslvania. Numerous books and journals about positive psychology have been published just seven years since then. Further, Seligman was able to unite notable scientist that were pivotal in the movement of positive psychology and this was how positive psychology came into prominence (Alex Linley, Joseph, Harrington, & Wood, 2006). One way of cultivating positive psychology is being mindfulness. Mindfulness is defined as paying attention on purpose, without judgement and being in the present moment through awareness and attentiveness (Kabat-Zinn, 2003). Being able to feel current experiences with such clarity and distinctness requires mindfulness that is conscious and being conscious needs both attention and awareness (Brown & Ryan, 2003). Awareness is defined as the monitoring of a stream of consciousness between the inner and outer environment (Brown & Ryan, 2003). Attention is defined as the development of concentrating conscious awareness, which results in a profound feeling of sensitivity in a given experience (Weston, 1999). More importantly, attention is free from any particular view and is independent from one’s point of view of self and the world rather than just freedom from the judgements of other people (Martin, 1997). Hence, the bases of being mindful are awareness and attention (Martin, 1997). Since positive psychology became popular, mindfulness techniques have been used to improve well-being (Gable & Haidt, 2005).
Mindfulness is an important facet of the third wave behaviour therapies and these therapies are a group of cognitive behaviour interventions that promote the change of function rather than behaviour, and cognition (Ost, 2008; Cash & Whittingham, 2010). One way of practising mindfulness is through mindfulness meditation, which will enhance the qualities of attention and awareness (Kabat-Zinn, 2003). A recent study (Kyuken et al., 2013) was conducted to investigate the effects of mindfulness of students during school programmes. The method used was the Mindfulness in Schools programme intervention (MiSP), which was being taught in a 9-week programme. Various study measures have been used such as the Warwick– Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale (WEMWBS) to measure well being of students, the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) to assess the stress of students in the past month and the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CED-D) to assess the severity of depressive symptoms. After the 9-week programme, the participants were tested and there was a strong decrease in depression scores. For the participants in MiSP group only, a follow up mindfulness practice for 3 months was conducted using five questions to sustain mindfulness. After the 3 months, there was evidence that shows increase well being, lower stress and depression levels compared to the
control group (Kuyken et al., 2013). In another study (Davidson et al., 2003), 41 participants took part to investigate the effects of mindfulness meditation at work on the brain and immune functions. The study was conducted for 8 weeks. Electrical brain activities of the participants were taken using electrocardiography (ECG) before and after the intervention as well as 4 months after the programme. After the 8-week intervention period, participants were given an influenza vaccine and the antibody titers were tested. The results showed an increase in the brain’s pattern associated with positive effects in the meditators compared to the control group. Moreover, there was a dramatic increase of antibody titers to influenza vaccine among the meditators as well. The results showed that mindfulness meditation could improve the well being by enhancing the immune system of the body (Davidson et al., 2003). However, the research methods used could be biased or influence the final results due to poor study designs. In the same study (Kyuken et al., 2013), there were a few factors that influenced the final results. Firstly, the selection of students and schools were not randomized and therefore imbalance baseline figures were seen. Next, the study used self-report measures, which is a subjective measure and might not be the most accurate measure (Kyuken et al., 2013). Self-report measure is criticized because it is used as barometers of the objective job environment, sensitive questions are affected by social desirability and it is affected by the person’s attitude, cognitive processes, mood and personality (Spector, 1994). Lastly, the test comprised of selected schools and students that were already interested in the programme could be biased towards a more positive result. In another study (Galantino, Baime, Maguire, Szapary, & Farrar, 2005), an 8-week mindfulness meditation program was conducted in a university hospital to determine the relationship between salivary cortisol levels and psychological stress and to find out if it can be reduced through mindfulness meditation. Yet, there were limitations in the study. Firstly, the sample size of the study was very small with only 84 employees from the same institute in a university hospital. This could lead to the inability to detect minute changes in the tests. Furthermore, there was a clear gender bias as 96% of the participants were female, heterogeneity in age, as well as only 2 main ethnicities in the study that could yield inconsistent results. Next, the lack of a control group prevented attribution causality to the intervention. Moreover, the lack of data interferes a more accurate result as only 82% of the 84 participants completed the questionnaires and only 61% completed the pre/post-salivary cortisol measurements. Finally, the marker used to detect stress levels was not sensitive enough. Other markers such as salivary IgA or amylase should be more sensitive than the relaxation response (Galantino, Baime, Maguire, Szapary, & Farrar, 2005). In closing, positive psychology can be used for effective interventions in positive human functioning which in turn give rise to a more flourishing individuals and communities (Seligman, Csikszentmihalyi, 2000). One effective way of intervention is through mindful meditation that can enhance awareness and attention, which brings about better well being in individuals. Even though there are currently many scientific studies on the topic of positive psychology, one must be wary in conducting scientific studies as to avoid any potential biases that might influence the results. A more careful and thorough research methods must be used in future studies as to better understand positive psychology more in the near future.