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In considering what makes a good exam answer likely to earn a high mark, you should of course first consult the general level 4 handbook. In addition, there is a section on generally what makes a first class answer in the Critical Review document that is relevant. Generally, the style of question is to pose a general issue which you should answer using the cases you personally have come across or revised. Any of the topics in the 2009-10 wikis are good to draw on, and equally the wikis you did this year; and indeed, any topic at all that you can reasonably argue is part of PosPsy.
For this particular course and topic, see also the document: A note on exams and this course
Qu.2
For humans (and animals) food is both a basic biological need, a
source of pleasure, and a factor in increasing amounts of disease. Relate
food (e.g. as an illustration) to as many positive psychology topics as you
can.
Qu.3
Modifying or selecting preferred types of awareness or consciousness
is involved in Positive Psychology. To what extent is this a central, if
often implicit, theme? Which topics are connected to it, and which are not?
Answer sketch:
xxx
Qu.2
How should each of "Positive psychology" and "Well-being" be defined, and
how are they related? After discussing the issues, conclude your answer with
your best attempt at a concise definition of each, and of their relationship.
Answer sketch:
xxx
Qu.3
Should Positive psychology be about rebalancing, or about pushing towards
the more "positive"? Is there never any merit in reminding ourselves of those
who don't have enough to eat, did not grow up in a loving family? Why is this
not recommended and practised? Should we push ourselves and others always
towards more positive emotions, more exercise, etc. without limit? Should
this be warned against?
Answer sketch:
xxx
Answer sketch:
This question is about Dweck's critique of some work around self-esteem, but
asks you to consider it from a perspective of "rebalancing" which some people
(only) see as an underlying theme of posPsy i.e. posPsy techniques to
counteract a tendency to pessimistic catastrophisation.
Dweck's view is that some see that success and self-esteem in children are correlated and think that raising self-esteem will therefore cause success, and therefore that any means of doing so are good; but (Dweck argues) self-esteem boosting that is not grounded on actual ability and performance damages learning.
If we accept rebalancing as a good overall (posPsy) theme, then we should argue that rebalancing IS an appropriate aim BUT that groundless praise fails in fact to achieve rebalancing of self-esteem and actual abilities. The appropriate rebalancing would be to support learners in achieving new skills and making sure they are aware of their demonstrated abilities. (It is certainly true that some academic systems are poor at the latter. Setting learners tasks they can see they have succeeded at would help e.g. not essays but checkable answers, or software that runs, or essays that other students learn from. And making sure students can see how they compare not only with unusually clever students, but say with students who didn't take the course at all, or their own work before the course, ....)
Qu.2
What is the most interesting issue underlying positive psychology? Construct
an argument for why psychologists, as opposed to happiness seekers, should
find the issue interesting.
Answer sketch:
An attention researcher might say flow; a health psychologist might be
intrigued by the link demonstrated between gratitude exercises and visits to
the doctor with physical illnesses; but possibly health professionals might
be most interested in meditation (mindfulness exercises) which has been
studied quite a lot, yet seems so unlike most medical model interventions.
The point of this question is to write out an argument NOT from the posPsy viewpoint BUT from the non-pospsy academic psychology viewpoint of what is interesting. So for this, it's no good saying self-helpers like it; or that it accounts for increased "well-being"; but why it is interesting or important for research agendas independently of posPsy.: for conventional health measures, or explaining attention phenomena, ....
Qu.3
Is positive psychology mere rebranding? Mention, if they exist, both areas
with a past history in psychology and genuinely new results about well-being.
Answer sketch:
A good general theme for an essay on this question would be that there are
very often links between PosPsy topics and non-posPsy topics, yet they are
treated differently AND probably are better for considering the connections
systematically whether or not the researcher chooses to emphasise or downplay
the posPsy connection.
Still, if you argue well, you could do a good essay arguing that it's mainly
rebranding, or on the contrary that there's a bunch of new stuff.
Gratitude exercises seem very similar to giving thanks in religious services. Still, the rationale is very different. PosPsy may recommend writing down things to be grateful for; but Pennebaker found that writing about very painful things also makes people feel better. Something is going on that neither "catharsis" nor "be positive" seems to capture.
Flow was originally defined by Csikszentmihalyi as optimal experience: the very best way of spending one's time. But actually, it seems very close to much more everyday modes of being such as working to work without thinking about it. So it also belongs in traditional psych. of attention. Yet the attention field didn't think of focussing on optimal experience: combining the emphases seems the productive way forward.
Three answer sketches:
a) David Cameron's 'Big society' seems partly inspired by PosPsy in that
more collectivised societies have greater happiness: a social approach to
PosPsy. Within that, more interaction with people seems to go with greater
happiness, more joint projects. Successful local projects would also probably
go with greater self-efficacy.
b) Find a new way to get more exercise into people's lives: exercise
has so many benefits that potentially it's a big winner. The difficulty would
be in finding innovative ways in. Until recently, people seldom thought about
exercise as a separate activity: it was part of walking the kids to school,
doing the gardening, carrying stuff home from the shops, doing your job.
Seeing it as a separate thing, requiring separate time separate places
separate clothes and equipment may be part of the problem.
c) Teach meditation in primary schools. Teach a variety of "dealing
with problems" methods, rather than let each person be ambushed by problems
with no prior training.
Qu.2
Discuss whether there are any validated self-help exercises in
positive psychology, and how strong the evidence of benefits is. Mention at
least one example where the evidence is relatively strong, and at least one
where it is absent or weak.
Answer sketch:
Give 1 or preferably more examples of definitely valuable ones e.g.
exercise, meditation. Preferably illustrate a counterexample: a case with no
published evidence e.g. Seligman's exercise thanking a significant other in
public. And/or an important topic in positive psychology with no self-help
exercises e.g. flow.
Qu.3
Pick two or more specific topics in positive psychology. In what
ways do they qualify as belonging to positive psychology, and in what ways
might they be seen as belonging to other areas in psychology?
Answer sketch:
Ans: It's probably best if you pick one that strongly qualifies elsewhere, and
one that doesn't much. See this year's wikis for examples: Obviously the siki
"Pospsy is only remarketing traditional topics"; the contrasting two "PosPsy
for non/clinical benefits" would give obvious examples; ...
Answer sketch:
The obvious answer is Frederickson's theory of positive emotion.
But a thorough answer should mention other connections e.g. Seligman's point
that the funny thing about flow is that the person doesn't feel much if any
emotion during it, even though (afterwards, say) they say it is one of the
best bits of their lives. Should probably also discuss at least a bit the
relationship between the notions of emotion, happiness, and well-being
(because many people tend to conflate and confound them). And probably you
can think of other connections too.
Qu.2
What has actually been shown about greater well-being in healthy
minds other than the absence of any recognised mental disorder?
Answer sketch:
A hostile critical question for PosPsy! It is tempting for us to regard the
overlap between clinical evidence and PosPsy as the most convincing: but this
question requires the opposite approach to an answer.
Might argue that resilience is a measure that shows the difference directly
i.e. resilient people may not feel any better in good times, but can better
resist pressures that might make others show symptoms of mental disorder. Flow
is an attempt to describe the nature of people's best mental functioning. The
work distinguishing pleasure from happiness (the need for meaning not only
pleasure) is a characteristic unrelated to mental illness but about basic
mental functioning. Strengths, burden of choice, bad drives out good are all
about features of healthy minds. Frederickson's stuff on the function of
positive emotions should probably come in.
Qu.3
Should the three topics of Flow, the burden of choice, and the hedonic
treadmill really be seen as all the same single topic of how people like some
choice but not too much?
Answer sketch:
This is a specific example of the possibility of looking for unifying themes
that connect bits of PosPsy normally reported separately. I think I sketched
the connection in a lecture. In answering this, you can of course argue for
or against such a connection as you please.
Qu.4
To what extent is positive psychology just a translation /
relabelling of ancient religious and cultural practices?
Answer sketch:
If you've thought about this then you might want to review as many topics as
possible (rather than just picking 2 or 3), but obviously briefly, for whether
they do or don't seem related to old practices. Most obvious to me is
gratitude and religious thanksgiving, mindfulness and Buddhist practices.
Qu.5
Does posPsy add anything both worthwhile and new?
Answer sketch:
This is an invitation to discuss the sceptical line of argument that each
topic in PosPsy is just really part of an old topic under another name e.g.
flow is just part of Attention; pleasure vs. meaning is a footnote to Maslow's
hierarchy etc.
If you've read it, Csikszentmihalyi has written about how useless he
found standard academic psychology: it is partly about the definition of the
topics but also the methods. Thus if you were stuck in a Freudian approach to
mental illness you would never even consider exercise as something to test as
a remedy. So one line of argument could be that of course most bits of PosPsy
relate to old topics but the latter would never arrive at the same findings
because their methods and/or assumptions would blind them.
Qu.6
What is the most impressive finding so far in PosPsy and why might a
sceptic be forced to agree with you?
Answer sketch:
Many of the topics are reasonable candidates for this: and the question is
then an invitation to discuss the strength of the evidence.
Exercise being as effective as anti-depressants is impressive, though possibly
this could be argued to be part of Abnormal rather than Positive psy.
Bad drives out good seems to most people to have evidence that is overwhelming
because it comes from so many different things (but personally, though I seem
to be the only one, I don't believe it).
You could argue that flow is most impressive because it is the oldest idea in
PosPsy just about, and is very widely referred to outside the field: but you
might also have to admit the evidence for it (for an experimental
psychologist) is very weak (i.e. most impressive is some ways, but weakly
supported?). And so on: take your pick and concentrate on the quality of your
argument.
Qu.7
How much of PosPsy is related to the single idea of rebalancing your
interpretation of events, rather than fixating on your first impression?
Answer sketch:
Like qu.3, this suggests a unification of areas by hypothesising a single
connecting idea; and you can discuss the pros and cons of it. Thus Seligman's
learned optimism is about counteracting catastrophising thinking; mindfulness
is similarly about neither denying nor dwelling too much on events you don't
like.
Qu.8
What have clinical approaches got to learn from positive psychology?
Answer sketch:
A surprising number of the topics have studies where clinical measures
(besides others) were used. E.g. studying how regular counting your blessings
changed visits to the health centre. So a survey of this (i.e. how many
topics seem to have this connection) is called for here.
Qu.9
Discuss critically the best and worst established areas of positive
psychology that you know of in terms of empirical results.
Answer sketch:
Qu.10
Take two or more topics in positive psychology e.g. from the 12
assigned to groups, or any other topics that can reasonably be claimed to be
part of positive psychology: What is your best assessment of the worth of
this topic, and what degree of certainty would you assign to your opinion?
Answer sketch:
Qu.11
Discuss the nature of happiness from a psychological and critical perspective.
Answer sketch:
Qu.12
What for you is the most interesting issue in, or related to,
positive psychology? Construct an argument, drawing on the literature, why
all psychologists should find it interesting.
Answer sketch:
Qu.13
[by Mable]
Use one or more fields within positive psychology to discuss how the pursuit of
happiness may be achieved.
Answer sketch:
Many ways to tackle this question. But one interesting way would be to
contrast two groups of fields: those about fending off bad stuff (learned
optimism, mindfulness, avoiding too much choice making you unhappy) with those
more directly creating happiness (gratitude, flow, ...).
Qu.14
[by Cleo]
Pick 3 or more topics, and discuss how one underlying theme could perhaps
unify these into one topic.
Answer sketch:
Qu.15
[Finals exam qu. in 2009]
Discuss whether there are any validated self-help exercises in positive
psychology, and how strong the evidence of benefits is. Mention at least one
example where the evidence is relatively strong, and at least one where it is
absent or weak.
Answer sketch:
Qu.16
[Finals exam qu. in 2009]
Pick two or more specific topics in positive psychology. In what ways do they
qualify as belonging to posPsy, and in what ways might they be seen as
belonging to other areas in psychology?
Answer sketch:
Qu.17
[Finals exam qu. in 2009]
What project would you propose and implement to maximise increasing
happiness in non-clinical populations?
Answer sketch:
a) David Cameron's 'Big society' seems partly inspired by PosPsy in that
more collectivised societies have greater happiness: a social approach to
PosPsy. Within that, more interaction with people seems to go with greater
happiness, more joint projects. Successful local projects would also probably
go with greater self-efficacy.
b) Find a new way to get more exercise into people's lives: exercise has so many benefits that potentially it's a big winner. The difficulty would be in finding innovative ways in. Until recently, people seldom thought about exercise as a separate activity: it was part of walking the kids to school, doing the gardening, carrying stuff home from the shops, doing your job. Seeing it as a separate thing, requiring separate time separate places separate clothes and equipment may be part of the problem.
c) Teach meditation in primary schools. Teach a variety of "dealing with problems" methods, rather than let each person be ambushed by problems with no prior training.
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