Flourishing

In positive psychology, flourishing is living "within an optimal range of human functioning, one that connotes goodness, generativity, growth, and resilience.”[1] Flourishing is the opposite of both pathology and languishing, which are described as living a life that feels hollow and empty.

Flourishing is a positive psychology concept which is a measure of overall life well-being and is viewed as important to the idea of happiness.[1][2] Many components and concepts contribute to the overall concept of flourishing and the benefits of a life that can be characterized as flourishing. It incorporates many other concepts in the positive psychology field such as cultivating strengths, subjective well-being and positive work spaces.

Background

History

The study of positive emotions

Researchers have been interested in mental illnesses and their negative psychological consequences. However, many are coming to realize that studying positive psychological consequences and positive experiences is also beneficial. Barbara Fredrickson, who posited the broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions, has helped to discover the wide variety of positive effects that positive emotions and experiences have on human lives.[3]

Previous theories of emotion stated that all emotions are associated with urges to act in particular ways, called action-tendencies.[4] For instance, anger creates the urge to seek retribution or to attack, fear creates the urge to escape, guilt creates the urge to make amends for actions, etc. People do not necessarily act on these urges when they experience these particular emotions, but rather people’s ideas about possible courses of action narrow to reflect these specific urges. These action-tendencies are not merely thoughts, but actions which also manifest physiologically, for example, when someone is afraid, blood flow increases to major muscle groups and pupils dilate, preparing the body to flee.[5] Emotions have adaptive value, such as mobilizing and preparing our minds and bodies during times of danger. The reflexive action-tendencies that are associated with emotions probably developed over the course of humankind’s evolution.[6]

Fredrickson was one of the first to note that most positive emotions did not follow this model of action-tendencies. Positive emotions do not usually occur in life-threatening circumstances and thus do not generally elicit specific urges. Fredrickson proposes that instead of one general theory of emotions, psychologists should develop theories for each emotion or for subsets of emotions. More specifically, Fredrickson notes two characteristics of positive emotions that differ from negative emotions. First, positive emotions do not seem to elicit specific action tendencies the same way that negative emotions do. Instead, they seem to cause some general, non-direction oriented activation. Second, positive emotions do not necessarily facilitate physical action, but do spark significant cognitive action. For this reason, Fredrickson conceptualizes two new concepts: thought-action tendencies, or what a person will normally do in a particular situation, and thought-action repertoires, rather an inventory of skills of what a person is able to do.[7]

The broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions proposed by Fredrickson states that while negative emotions narrow thought-action tendencies to time tested strategies as handed down by evolution, positive emotions broaden thought-action repertoires. Positive emotions often cause people to discard time-tested or automatic action tendencies and pursue novel, creative, and often unscripted courses of thought and action.[7] These positive emotions and thought-action repertoires can be seen as applicable to the concept of flourishing because flourishing children and adults have a much wider array of cognitive, physical, and social possibilities, which results in the empirical and actual successes of a flourishing life.

Flourishing

Flourishing is a concept of psychology that helps the social scientists and psychologists study and measure fulfillment, purpose, meaning, and happiness.[8] Corey Keyes, a famous researcher in flourishing, argues that mental health does not imply an absence of mental illness. Rather, mental health is a “separate dimension of positive feelings and functioning.”[8] Therefore, Keyes has operationalized many of the symptoms of positive feelings and positive functioning in life by reviewing dimensions and scales of subjective well-being and, therefore, creating a definition of flourishing.[9]

Keyes claims that flourishing is the product of mentally healthy adults having high levels of emotional well-being; they are happy and satisfied; they tend to see their lives as having a purpose; they feel some degree of mastery and accept all parts of themselves; they have a sense of personal growth in the sense that they are always growing, evolving, and changing; finally, they have a sense of autonomy and an internal locus of control, they chose their fate in life instead of being victims of fate. Keyes reports that only 18.1% of Americans are actually flourishing. The majority of Americans can be classified as mentally unhealthy (depressed) or not mentally unhealthy or flourishing (moderately mentally healthy/languishing).<ref name="(2001).[9]

Definition

Modern researchers believe that individuals described as flourishing have a combination of high levels of emotional well-being, psychological well-being, and social well-being.[10] Keyes states that mental health may be operationalized “as a syndrome of symptoms of an individual’s subjective well-being.”[9]

To complete, or operationalize, the definition of what it means to be functioning optimally, or flourishing, there has been diagnostic criteria created for a flourishing life:[1][10]

  1. Individual must have had no episodes of major depression in the past year
  2. Individual must possess a high level of well-being as indicated by the individuals meeting all three of the following criteria
    1. High emotional well-being, defined by 2 of 3 scale scores on appropriate measures falling in the upper tertile.
      1. Positive affect
      2. Negative affect (low)
      3. Life satisfaction
    2. High psychological well-being, defined by 4 of 6 scale scores on appropriate measures falling in the upper tertile.
      1. Self-acceptance
      2. Personal growth
      3. Purpose in life
      4. Environmental mastery
      5. Autonomy
      6. Positive relations with others
    3. High social well-being, defined by 3 of 5 scale scores on appropriate measures falling in the upper tertile.
      1. Social acceptance
      2. Social actualization
      3. Social contribution
      4. Social coherence
      5. Social integration

Theoretical Approaches

Psychologists study well-being and subjective well-being by conceptualizing, measuring, and studying the measurement structure of mental health. Subjective well-being, is an individual’s perceptions of their own lives in terms of their affective states, psychological functioning, and social functioning. Many social scientists study and measure flourishing through self-report measures. Individuals are asked to respond to structured scales measuring the presence of positive affect, absence of negative affect, and perceived satisfaction with life. Participants are specifically asked about their emotions and feelings because scientists theorize that flourishing is something that manifests itself internally rather than externally.[9]

Components of flourishing

Researchers have argued that flourishing is characterized by four main components: goodness, generative, growth, and resilience.[1]

In another view, an important component of flourishing making it such a strong concept in positive psychology, is that it must be a true pursuit of human flourishing; it must be a genuine search for positivity that is grounded in the reality of current circumstances. When it is feigned positivity may be more negative than good. Flourishing and the pursuit of an optimal lifestyle is one that encourages a truly genuine and heartfelt pursuit.[1]

Major empirical findings

The antonym of flourishing: Languishing

One reason to study and cultivate flourishing is to learn about the antonym of languishing and depression. Cultivating flourishing does not eliminate depression; instead depression is on the opposite side of the scale from flourishing. However, it is important to note how much more beneficial flourishing is in comparison to either depression or languishing, which can be considered as the midpoint between the two concepts.

A study by Keyes found that there are major costs of depression, which 14% of adults experience annually: it impairs social roles; it costs billions each year due to work absenteeism, diminished productivity, and healthcare costs; finally, depression accounts for at least one-third of suicides. Therefore, it is important to study flourishing to learn about what is possible if issues such as depression are tackled and how the ramifications of focusing on the positive make life better not just for one person, but also for others around them.[9]

Flourishing has significant positive aspects magnified when compared to languishing adults and when languishing adults are compared to depressed adults, as explained by Keyes. For example, languishing adults have the same amount of chronic disease as those that are depressed whereas flourishing adults are in exceptionally better physical health. Languishing adults miss as many days at work as depressed adults and, in fact, visit doctors and therapists more than depressed adults.[11]

General benefits of flourishing

Positive emotional feelings such as moods, and sentiments such as happiness, carry more personal and psychological benefits than just a pleasant, personal subjective experience. Flourishing widens attention, broaden behavioral repertoires, which means to broaden one’s skills or regularly performed actions, increase intuition, and increase creativity. Secondly, good feelings can have physiological manifestations, such as significant and positive cardiovascular effects, such as a reduction in blood pressure. Third, good feelings predict healthy mental and physical outcomes. Also, positive affect and flourishing is related to longevity.[1]

The many components of flourishing elicit more tangible outcomes than simply mental or physiological results. For example, components such as self-efficacy, likability, and prosocial behavior encourage active involvement with goal pursuits and with the environment. This promotes people to pursue and approach new and different situations. Therefore, flourishing adults have higher levels of motivation to work actively to pursue new goals and are in possession of more past skills and resources. This helps people to satisfy life and societal goals, such as creating opportunities, performing well in the workplace, and producing goods, work and careers that are highly valued in American society. This success results in higher satisfaction and reinforces Frederickson’s Broaden and Build model, for more positive adults reap more benefits and, are more positive, which creates an upward spiral.[12]

Studies have shown that people who are flourishing are more likely to graduate from college, secure “better” jobs, and are more likely to succeed in that job. One reason for this success can be seen in the evidence offered above when discussing languishing: those that flourish have less work absenteeism, cited by Lyubomirsky as “job withdrawal” (6) Lyubomirsky, S., King, L. A., & Diener, E. (in press). The benefits of frequent positive affect: Does happiness lead to success? Psychological Bulletin, 131, 803-855. Finally, those that are flourishing have more support and assistance from coworkers and supervisors in their workplace.[12]

Flourishing has been found to impact more areas than simply the workplace. In particular community involvement and social relationships have been cited as something that flourishing influences directly. For example, those that flourish have been found to volunteer at higher levels across cultures. Moreover, in terms of social support and relationships, studies have shown that there is an association between flourishing and actual number of friends, overall social support, and perceived companionship.[12]

Ratio for a flourishing life

Fredrickson and Losada postulated in 2005 that the ratio of positive to negative affect, known as the critical positivity ratio, can distinguish individuals that flourish from those that do not. Languishing was characterized by a ratio of positive to negative affect of 2.5. Optimal functioning or flourishing was argued to occur at a ratio of 4.3. The point at which flourishing changes to languishing is called the Losada line and is placed at the positivity ratio of 2.9. Those with higher ratios were claimed to have broader behavioral repertoires, greater flexibility and resilience to adversity, more social resources, and more optimal functioning in many areas of their life.[1] The model also predicted the existence of an upper limit to happiness, reached at a positivity ratio of 11.5. Fredrickson and Losada claimed that at this limit, flourishing begins to disintegrate and productivity and creativity decrease. They suggested as positivity increased, so to "appropriate negativity" needs to increase. This was described as time-limited, practicable feedback connected to specific circumstances, i.e. constructive criticism.[1]

This positivity ratio theory was widely accepted until 2013, when Nick Brown, a graduate student in applied positive psychology, co-authored a paper with Alan Sokal and Harris Friedman, showing that the mathematical basis of the paper was invalid.[13] Fredrickson partially retracted the paper, agreeing that the math may be flawed, but maintaining that the empirical evidence is still valid.[14] Brown and colleagues insist there is no evidence for the critical positivity ratio whatsoever.[15]

Applications

The definition or conceptualization of mental health under the framework of flourishing and languishing describes symptoms that can cooperate with intervention techniques aimed at increasing levels of emotional, social, and psychological well-being[16] Furthermore, as Keyes implies, in a world full of flourishing people, all would be able to reap the benefits that this positive mental state and life condition offers.[11]

Education

Keyes focuses on children as well as adults. He cites that children will be directly affected by the concerted effort to motivate adults to flourish. He brings up the example of a school filled with flourishing teachers. He emphasizes that this area of study, of where teachers are on the scale of well-being, is very understudied and could benefit the school system. He states that we can not expose our children to languishing adults and expect them to flourish. Therefore, the application is far reaching into the depths of our school systems. While the children might not be directly attempting to flourish, they are feeling the benefits of those around them consciously attempting to flourish.[11] Furthermore, if students can be made to flourish, then the benefits to the education process will be even greater, as flourishing can increase attention and thought-action repertoires.[17]

Engagement

Flourishing also has many applications to civic duty and social engagement. Keyes believes that most people do not focus enough on those aspects of life and focus instead on personal achievement. Keyes suggests that people should provide encouragement to children, and adults, to participate socially. People that exhibit flourishing are engaged in social participation and people that are engaged in social participation exhibit flourishing. Therefore, he suggests that people should give their kids a purpose, which will create a sense of contribution and environmental mastery that will enhance feelings of well-being and fulfilment.[11]

Human nature

Flourishing has been noted to have connections with the overall concept of human nature. A view generally known as Neo-Aristotelian[18] comes from modernized theories incorporating doctrines of Aristotle[19] It claims that human flourishing offers a view of the human good that is objective, inclusive, individualized, agent-relative, self-directed and social. It views human flourishing objectively because it is desirable and appealing. Flourishing is a state of being rather than a feeling or experience. It comes from engaging in activities that both express and produce the actualization of one’s potential.

Criticisms

The concept of flourishing is built on Fredrickson’s broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions, but some researchers have suggested that there are other functions of positive emotions. Mackie and Worth propose that positive emotions diminish cognitive capabilities. They showed that when exposed to a persuasive message for a limited amount of time, subjects experiencing a positive mood showed reduced processing as compared with subjects in a neutral mood.[20] Others have suggested that positive emotions diminish the motivation but not the capacity for cognitive processing.[21] Flourishing is still a newly-developing subject of study and, more tests need to be done to fully define, operationalize, and apply the concept of flourishing; this lack of research is also one criticism of the concept flourishing.

Conclusion

Flourishing is something that must be cultivated over the course of a lifetime, but the consequences of research can be far reaching. People who experience and express positive emotions cope more effectively with chronic stress and other negative experiences.[17] The benefits of flourishing extend beyond the individual and have implications for communities and society as well. It has a role to be played in educational reform, greater workplace productivity and healthcare on a national scale. Further research in flourishing, and positive psychology in general, would greatly add to the applicable body of knowledge in the field of psychology beyond the specific field of abnormal psychology and help to improve oneself, one's community, and one's world.

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Fredrickson, B. L., & Losada, M. F. (2005). Positive affect and complex dynamics of human flourishing. American Psychologist, 60, 678-686.
  2. ↑ Dunn, D. S., & Dougherty, S. B. (2008). Flourishing: Mental health as living life well. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 27, 314-316.
  3. ↑ Fredrickson, B. L. (2004). The broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions. Philosophical Transactions: Biological Sciences, 359, 1367-1377.
  4. ↑ Frijda, N. H. (1986). The emotions. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
  5. ↑ Levenson, R. W. (1992). Autonomic nervous system differences among emotions. Psychological Science, 3, 23-27.
  6. ↑ Tooby, J., & Cosmides, L. (1990). The past explains the present: Emotional adaptations and the structure of ancestral environments. Ethology and Sociobiology, 11, 375-424.
  7. 1 2 Fredrickson, B. L. (1998). What good are positive emotions? Review of General Psychology, 2, 300–319.
  8. 1 2 Horwitz, A. V. (2002). Outcomes in the sociology of mental health and illness: Where have we been and where are we going? Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 43, 143-151.
  9. 1 2 3 4 5 Keyes, C. L. M. (2002). The mental health continuum: From languishing to flourishing in life. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 43, 207-222.
  10. 1 2 Keyes C. L. M. Toward a science of mental health. In S. J. Lopez & C. R. Snyder (Eds.). Oxford handbook of positive psychology (pp. 89-95). New York: Oxford University Press.
  11. 1 2 3 4 (2001). Ask an expert: What is ‘positive psychology’? Retrieved from http://archives.cnn.com/2001/fyi/teachers.tools/01/24/c.keyes/
  12. 1 2 3 Lyubomirsky, S., King, L. A., & Diener, E. (in press). The benefits of frequent positive affect: Does happiness lead to success? Psychological Bulletin, 131, 803-855.
  13. ↑ Brown NJ, Sokal AD, Friedman HL (2013). "The complex dynamics of wishful thinking: the critical positivity ratio.". Am Psychol 68 (9): 801–13. doi:10.1037/a0032850. PMID 23855896.
  14. ↑ Fredrickson BL (2013). "Updated thinking on positivity ratios". Am Psychol 68 (9): 814–22. doi:10.1037/a0033584. PMID 23855895.>
  15. ↑ Brown NJ, Sokal AD, Friedman HL (2014). "The persistence of wishful thinking". Am Psychol 69 (6): 629–32. doi:10.1037/a0037050. PMID 25197848.
  16. ↑ Snyder, C. R., Lopez, S. J., & Pedrotti, J. T. (2011). Positive psychology: The scientific and practical explorations of human strengths. Los Angeles: Sage.
  17. 1 2 Fredrickson, B. L., & Branigan, C. A. (2005). Positive emotions broaden the scope of attention and thought–action repertoires. Cognition and Emotion, 19, 313–332.
  18. ↑ Henderson, G. E., & Brown, C. (1997). Glossary of Literary Theory. Retrieved from http://www.library.utoronto.ca/utel/glossary/Neo-Aristotelianism.html
  19. ↑ Rasmussen, D. B. (1999). Human flourishing and the appeal to human nature. Social Philosophy and Policy, 16, 1-43.
  20. ↑ Mackie, D. M., & Worth, L. T. (1989). Processing deficits and the mediation of positive affect in persuasion. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 57: 27-40.
  21. ↑ Martin, L. L., Ward, D. W., Achee, J. W., & Wyer, R. S. (1993). Mood as input: People have to interpret the motivational implications of their moods. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 64, 317-326.
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