【哈佛积极心理学笔记】第6讲 乐观主义

第6讲 乐观主义

How can we create consciously and subconsciously a positive environment, where we actually can take out the most moral, the most successful self to appreciate that self.

Create a powerful positive situation to bring out the best in people.

Power of the positive situation.

Priming is can be done on the conscious or subconscious level

Self-Help Movement
John Quincy Adams:
Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish.

When you measure a phenomenon, you’re also changing yourself.

Napoleon Hill says, “Whatever you mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve.”
Norman Vicent Peale, “Have great hopes and dare to go on for them, have great dreams and dare to live them, have tremendous expectations and believing them.”

The law of attraction is that you attract to your life, whatever you image, whatever you believe in, and gain powerful message.

“Believe, and you will achieve. Conceive and it will conceived in reality, in the world. It will come to you.”

over-premise and under-deliver, which at times can be destructive.

Talk is no substitute for action.

Albert Bandura
self effficacy
Beliefs in personal efficacy affect life choices, level of motivation, quality of funtioning, resilence to adversity, and vulnerablity to stress and depression.

self-esteem

self-concept

The mind plays a very important role in creating our physical, certainly emotional, cognitive as well as the eternal reality.

Belief very often become self-fulfilling prophecies.
How does it work. What mediates between beliefs expectations and actual performance in the real world.
two mechanisms: 1. Motivation 2. the notion of consistency or congruence.

When there is a discrepancy, when there is inconsistency between the inside and the outside.

1. update my schema
2. ignore/discard external information
3. actively seek confirmation
4. create new reality
   
   pervasive, everything

optimism: “I just didn’t do well here on the specific exam, what can I learn from it, how can I do better next time”

learning to interpret events subjectively as optimists leads to much higher success.

So what if I didn’t do well now, I will do better next time, or the time after that.

Jame Stockdales said, “you must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end which you can never afford to lose, with a discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.”

Realistic optimism.

False optimism, sooner or later means disillusionment, anger and hopelessness.

Optimism, passion and hard work.

Jefferson, “I’m a greater believer in luck, and I find that the harder I work the luckier I get”

wrong:
William James, “self-esteem is equal to our success over pretensions.”
self-esteem = achievement / goal

right:

1. Self-perception theory: derive conclusions about ourselves in the same way that we derive conclusion about others meaning by looking at behavior.