 Emotion Focused Approaches:

 Ch. 5 Subjective well-being

 Ch.6 & 7 (Resilience & Flow)
 Ch.8(Positive Affectivity)
 Ch.9(Positive Emotions)
 Ch.10(The Social Construction of Self Esteem
 Ch. 11(The Adaptive Potential of Coping
through Emotional Approach
 Ch.12 (The Positive Psychology of Emotional
Intelligence
 Ch. 13 (Emotional Creativity)
 Emotion-Focused Approach
-Subjective well-being/ psychological well - being/
happiness
-Person himself like his life
- His cognitive and affective evaluation of his life
- experiencing pleasant emotions
Freud`s pleasure principle (instinctive need-
gratification)
Happiness= positive affects+ life satisfaction
Hedonic perspective – well being &happiness
(synonym)
 Eudaimonia –Happiness+ meaning = well-being
 True self
 eudaimonia occurs when people’s life activities are
most congruent or meshing with deeply held values
and are holistically or fully engaged.
 Ryff & Keyes (1995) : psychological well-being
 Six distinct aspects of human actualization:
autonomy, personal growth, self-acceptance, life
purpose, mastery, and positive relatedness.
Ryff`s Psychological well-being
 Psychological well being
 Self acceptance
 Personal Growth
 Purpose in life
 Environmental mastery
 Autonomy
 Positive relations with others
 Social Well being
 Social Acceptance
 Social Actualization
 Social contribution
 Social coherence
 Social integration
 Emotional well being
 Positive affect
 Negative effect
 Life satisfaction
 Happiness
 Theoretical approach
 1.need and goal satisfaction theories
-individuals attain SWB when they move
toward an ideal state or accomplish a valued
goal.
- One’s “ideal self” and one’s “ought self”
-Tension reduction theories-happiness is
desired end state toward which all activity is
directed.
 SBW is strongly affected by stable personality
dispositions.
 stability coefficient
 Genetic vs. environmental component
 Personality type and SWB
 How we think about life (expectancy of control)
 Demographic variables& SBW
 income
 age
 Gender
 Health
 Marital status
 Religious activities
 Culture & SWB
 Collectivist vs. individualist cultures
Interventions

 Optimism Training
 Positive outlook, meaningful goals, close
social relationships, temperament (low
worry)
 Positive Affectivity

positive affectivity, a trait that reflects stable

individual differences in positive emotional
experience. i.e cheerful, enthusiastic, energetic,
confident, alert, happiness, excitement, vigor,
and confidence.
Meehl proposed that individual differences in
hedonic capacity were present at birth and
partly heritable. phenotypic variations in
positive emotionality and extraversion.
 Summary of Research Findings
 Temporal Stability and Cross-Situational
Consistency.
 -Considerable evidence suggests that
personality continues to develop and evolve
throughout the 20s; accordingly, stability
estimates are significantly lower prior to age
30(Costa&Mc Crae1994). Consistent with the
broader personality literature, studies of older
adults have yielded impressive levels of stability
(i. e., correlations in the .60 to .80 range), even
across extremely long time spans.
 Causes and Correlates of Positive Affectivity
 Genetic Evidence
 Role of multiple genes & Environmental
interaction
Researchers using the MPQ (Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire)
Well-Being scale have reported heritability
estimates in the .40 to .50 range (Finkel &
McGue, 1997; Tellegen et al., 1988).
 Neurobiological Basis of Positive Affectivity
 Happy individuals tend to show relatively
greater resting activity in the left prefrontal cortex
than in the right prefrontal area; conversely, dysphoric
(An emotional state characterized by anxiety,
depression, or unease) individuals display relatively
greater right anterior activity.
 Depue et al.(1994) found that various measures of
dopaminergic activity (initiated by the neurotransmitter
activity of dopamine or related substances) were
strongly correlated with individual differences in
positive affectivity but were unrelated to negative
affectivity.
 Meehl’s (1975) some persons [are] born with more
“cerebral joy-juice.”
 Demographic and Environmental Correlates
 Age, gender, marital status, ethnicity, income and
socioeconomic status.
 Lykken and Tellegen (1996) reported that income,
educational attainment, and socioeconomic status
each accounted for less than 2% of the variance in
scores on the MPQ Well Being scale.
 In an analysis of 169,776 respondents across 16
nations, found that 80% of men and 80% of women
said that they were at least “fairly satisfied” with life.
 Married People
 Extrovert, socially active and emotional
Stable
 Spiritual& religious
 Job(.44 with PA)
 Positive Emotions
They are markers of optimal well-being. positive
emotions (such as joy, interest, contentment,
love, and the like)
Subjective experience,
Facial expressions,
Physiological changes.
Affect : Affect is a person`s immediate,
physiological response to a stimulus and it is
typically based on underlying sense of arousal-
(autonomic arousal)
the broaden-and-build theory describes the
form of positive emotions in terms of broadened
thought-action repertoires and describes their
function in terms of building enduring personal
resources.
The first central claim of the broaden-and-build
theory is that experiences of positive emotions
broaden a person’s momentary thought-action
repertoire.
Emotion------ thought-----------action
 Transform people and
produce upwards spiral

Build enduring personal

Resources

Broaden momentary
thought-action repertoires

Experience of Positive
Emotions

Positive emotions trigger upward spiral toward emotional well-being Fredrickson

& Joiner, 2002
 The Building Hypothesis
 The second central claim of the broaden-and
build theory is that experiences of positive
emotions, through their broadening effects,
build people’s enduring personal resources.
Correlational and experimental Studies---indirect
evidence positive traits and states and
behaviors linked with positive states— such as
play— to increase in physical, intellectual, and
social resources.
 Coping Through Emotional Approach

 Problem-focused coping includes such

strategies as defining the problem, generating
and weighing alternative solutions, and
following a plan of action.
 Emotion-focused coping includes processes
such as avoidance, denial, seeking emotional
support, and positive reappraisal.
 Emotional Intelligence

 For psychologists, the 1990s were best known

as the “Decade of the Brain.” But there were
moments during those 10 years when the
popular press seemed ready to declare it the
“Decade of the Heart,” not so much for a
popular interest in cardiovascular physiology
but rather as a reflection on the growing interest
in emotions.
 Emotional intelligence represents the ability to
perceive, appraise, and express emotion
accurately and adaptively;
 the ability to understand emotion and
emotional knowledge;
 the ability to access and/ or generate feelings
when they facilitate cognitive activities and
adaptive action;
 and the ability to regulate emotions in oneself
and others (Mayer & Salovey,1997).
 four branches---(Ability Model).
 The first of these branches, emotional perception and
expression, involves recognizing and inputting verbal
and nonverbal information from the emotion system.

 The second branch, emotional facilitation of thought

(sometimes referred to as using emotional
intelligence), refers to using emotions as part of
cognitive processes such as creativity and problem
solving.
 The third branch, emotional understanding, involves
cognitive processing of emotion, that is, insight and
knowledge brought to bear upon one’s feelings or the
feelings of others.
 fourth branch, emotional management, concerns the
regulation of emotions in oneself and in other people.
 Golemen (1995,1998)Mixed Model
 Self-awareness--knowing your emotions, recognizing
feelings as they occur, and discriminating between
them.
 Mood management--handling feelings so they're
relevant to the current situation and you react
appropriately .
 Self-motivation--"gathering up" your feelings and
directing yourself towards a goal, despite self-doubt,
inertia (inactivity), and impulsiveness.
 Empathy--recognizing feelings in others and tuning
into their verbal and nonverbal cues.
 Managing relationships--handling interpersonal
interaction
Trait emotional intelligence (trait EI or trait
emotional self-efficacy)
 It is defined as a constellation of emotional self-
perceptions located at the lower levels of
personality hierarchies (Petrides, et. al. 2007).
 The construct provides a comprehensive
operationalization of the affect-related aspects of
personality and lies wholly outside the taxonomy
of human cognitive ability (Carroll, 1993).
 Trait EI essentially concerns individual
differences in people’s self-perceptions of their
emotional abilities.
The Adult Sampling Domain of Trait Emotional Intelligence ( 15 trait emotional intelligence facets)
 
Facets High scorers perceive themselves as… 
 
Adaptability …flexible and willing to adapt to new conditions.
Assertiveness …forthright, frank, and willing to stand up for their rights.
Emotion perception (self …clear about their own and other people’s feelings. 
and others)
Emotion expression …capable of communicating their feelings to others.
Emotion management …capable of influencing other people’s feelings. 
(others)
Emotion regulation …capable of controlling their emotions. 
Impulsiveness (low) …reflective and less likely to give in to their urges. 
Relationships …capable of having fulfilling personal relationships.
Self-esteem …successful and self-confident. 
Self-motivation …driven and unlikely to give up in the face of adversity. 
Social awareness …accomplished networkers with excellent social skills. 
Stress management …capable of withstanding pressure and regulating stress. 
Trait empathy …capable of taking someone else’s perspective. 
Trait happiness …cheerful and satisfied with their lives. 
Trait optimism …confident and likely to “look on the bright side” of life.
Copyright (c) K. V. Petrides 2001 - 2010
 Denial Golemen (1995) -20%counts for IQ
& rest goes for emotional and social
intelligence.
 In 1998 he found in his another study that
67% of abilities regarded as essential for
effective performance were emotional
competencies.
 -It accounts almost twice as much as IQ
and Expertise.
 Essential for Interpersonal (Understanding
others, and their feelings) & Intrapersonal
relationships (Understanding yourself, your
goals, intentions, responses, behaviour and all.
 Clinical Intervention
 relaxation and increasing pleasant activities.
(from behaviorism) For emotional positivity
 One example of a therapy with such a goal is
Emotionally focused therapy (EFT; e.g.
Greenberg & Paivio, 1997; Safran &
Greenberg,1991), which seeks to help clients
achieve more adaptive functioning through
evoking and exploring emotions and
restructuring maladaptive emotional schemes.
 Emotion-focused therapy was aimed at
acceptance, exploration, and discharge of
emotions related to the loss.
 For Emotional Intelligence
 For example, in a guidebook for developing
emotional intelligence curricula for elementary
school students, Schilling (1996) recommends
units on self-awareness, managing feelings,
decision making, managing stress, personal
responsibility, self-concept, empathy,
communication, group dynamics, and conflict
resolution.
 Social & Emotional learning program
 There are over 300 curriculum-based programs
in the United States purporting to teach Social and
Emotional Learning (Cohen, 1999b).
 “character development” (Lickona, 1991).
 The curriculum provides 25 to 50 hours of highly
structured classroom instruction at each grade level.
Included in the early years of this curriculum are units
on self-monitoring, feelings awareness, perspective
taking (empathy), understanding nonverbal
communication, anger management, and many other
topics, some of which are loosely consistent with our
model of emotional intelligence.
 Self Science, which was developed and
field tested by Jensen, et. al 1998). This
program begins with three assumptions:
 There is no thinking without feeling and no
feeling without thinking;
 the more conscious one is of what one is
experiencing, the more learning is
possible; and self-knowledge is integral to
learning.
 Goal 3, called “Becoming More Aware of
Multiple Feelings,”
 Intervention in the workplace
 old and familiar training sessions on human relations,
achievement motivation, stress management, and
conflict resolution.
 MBA students receive experiences designed to
promote initiative, flexibility, achievement drive,
empathy, self-confidence, persuasiveness
(expressive), networking, self-control, and group
management.
 Communication and emotion-related skills are also
increasingly being incorporated into physician training
(Kramer, Ber, & Moores, 1989).
 Direction for future research
 Neurological underpinnings
 Psychological & physiological effects of positive
emotions.
 A third critical direction for future research will be to
test the build component of the broaden-and-build
theory. Although the evidence that positive emotions
trigger an upward spiral toward enhanced emotional
well-being (Fredrickson & Joiner, in press) provides
initial support for the hypothesis that positive emotions
build psychological resilience, the building hypothesis
merits much additional testing.
 Emotional Creativity
 The way creativity and emotions are evaluated in
everyday affairs is reflected in our scientific theories.
 Psychologically, for example, creativity is classed
among the “higher” thought processes, whereas
emotions often are treated as non cognitive.
 Physiologically, creativity is considered a neocortical
activity, whereas emotions are presumed to be a
manifestation of sub cortical regions of the brain.
 Finally, from a biological perspective, creativity is
regarded as a late evolutionary development.

Emotional Intelligence and Emotional Creativity by Ivcevic et.al (2007)

http://www.unh.edu/emotional_intelligence/EI%20Assets/Reprints...EI%20Proper/EI2007%20Ivcevic
%20Creativity.pdf
For test detail
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-6494.00058/pdf
 the relevant beliefs and rules must be
internalized to form emotional schemas.
--Cause of individual differences
 An emotional state is a temporary (episodic)
disposition to respond in a manner consistent
with an emotional syndrome, as that syndrome
is understood by an individual.
 Emotional responses are what a person does
when in an emotional state.
 The threefold distinction also applies to emotions
as creative products:
 First, corresponding to ready-made art, emotional creativity
may involve the particularly effective application of a
preexisting emotion, or combinations of emotions.
 Second, emotional creativity may involve the modification
(“sculpting”) of a standard emotion to better meet the needs o
the individual or group.
 Third, emotional creativity may involve the development of
new forms of expression, with fundamental changes in the
beliefs and rules by which emotional syndromes are
constituted.
 Individual Differences in Emotional Creativity
 Creativity Inventory (ECI) has been constructed (Averill,
1999b).
 The facets comprise the preparedness items;, the novelty
items; and , a combination of the effectiveness and
authenticity items.
 Inversely correlated trait with EQ/I & EC
 The Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20) is commonly
used to measure the condition (Bagby, et. al.(1994)
 Factor 1 assesses a person’s difficulty identifying feelings
as distinct, say, from bodily sensations;
 Factor 2 reflects difficulty describing feelings or
communicating feelings to others; and
 Factor 3 indicates a preference for externally oriented
thinking, that is, a focus on situational details as opposed to
one’s own thoughts and feelings.
 Intervention
 (Nickerson, 1999) might be fruitful incorporated into
psychotherapy.
 These techniques fall into four broad categories:
 (a) preparedness— gaining knowledge and expertise
within a domain;
 (b) motivation— cultivating a desire to innovate on
what is known, and a willingness to take risks;
 (c) imagination— learning to envision new approaches
and realities;
 and (d) self-monitoring— guiding and assessing
one’s own efforts for effectiveness.
Environment: Family, School etc.