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= __ Pos itive Psych ology__ = A detailed study of the young discipline, and what the average person can learn from it!

The Basics - What is positive psychology? In a nutshell, positive psychology is about making what is already good even better. It is about identifying one's strengths and fostering them in all aspects of life.

... And how is it different from "normal" psychology? Psychology's major concern is with making "miserable people less miserable" (Martin Seligman). It is concerned with minimizing pathology, disease, and trauma.

The Number Scale The difference between psychology and positive psychology is commonly represented through a number line. Psychology's primary concern is getting people's lives from negative numbers to zero, whereas positive psychology's primary concern is moving people from zero into the positive (no pun intended) numbers.

What is Flow Flow is a major subcomponent of positive psychology. The pioneer of flow research, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, defines flow as, "the state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter; the experience itself is so enjoyable that people will do it even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it." Here is an illustration of flow:


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Topic - Positive Psychology and Flow

Working Question - If students at Newton North High School increase flow in their daily lives, what effect will it have on stress they feel related to the future?

Working Thesis - If NNHS students increase flow in their daily lives, it will help them decrease stress about the future by increasing happiness and fulfillment in the present moment, and helping them discover what would really make them happy to do in the future (as opposed to what their surrounding environment is telling them, directly or indirectly, will make them happy in the future).