Jewish American

Shirley Murray

Psy/220

November 11, 2011

Cassidy Hawf

Positive psychology focuses on human flourishing. While many other branches of psychology focus on dysfunction and abnormal behavior, positive psychology focused on helping people, become happier. Being mentally healthy means a person would have complete control over their behavior from what I understand. They are more than capable of changing their surroundings as well as their life to improve quality of life. Intelligence is one of the central themes in positive psychology.

Entity theorists believe that if you have to work hard to do something, then you are not very good at it. I disagree, if you want something you have to work hard to get, because nothing comes easy. Freedom comes to all at least those here in America. We have the choice to go and do whatever we please. Our occupations are not limited because race and sex. When one is forced to make decision and have no control over there life’s decisions, I believe that person has low autonomy and cannot fully function with guidance from someone else. Lovers can display the same scenario. A woman may be lost with no sense of direction in her own life and look to someone else to guide her, putting herself in an unhealthy controlling relationship.

Control is another central theme. Feelings of personal control contribute to a sense of responsibility for behavior and the consequences that come with that control. Positive Psychology focuses on positive individual traits, such as love, courage, perseverance, and spirituality, as well as contentment with the past, finding hope and optimism for the future and obtaining happiness in the present to build human strengths. We have external factors such as biology factor and environmental factors that shape our behaviors. From reading the text, I have learned that Positive Psychology studies the freedom one has to make their own decisions and change their behavior as well as the environment in which they live,...