Barbara is a social psychologist who stands out for the study of the positive psychology and the emotions, concretely she centres on the positive emotions. She has the teacher's work of psychology at the University of North Carolina, in Chapel Hill. In this essay, I am going to defend that our well-being and way of thinking are related to the positivity with which we live our lives.
For that, I am going to discuss the roots of this study and we are going to continue with the different theories including examples of each one. In addition, we will observe the influence of certain actions done on other people and their reactions, concluding our thesis with the contribution of positive emotions in psychology. Positive psychology has its beginnings
But first we must ask ourselves… How do we know what emotion we are in? There are several gestures that help us understand where we are, such as facials. If we are in a situation of anger, fear or sadness, we gesticulate a lot with our face in emotions that are not complacent; on the contrary, to something positive, we react with a simple smile. On the other hand, the negative has an impact on our nervous system, which is mainly linked to the survival instinct of our ancestors. In a situation of "threat", humans reacted by the impulses for our defense. Nevertheless, the investigations focused on the understanding of the negative, leaving aside the positive, so if we evaluate without taking into account that framework centered on the negative, two theories appear: “The Broaden-and-Build Theory” and “The Undoing Hypothesis”. The Broaden-and-Build Theory shows us how positive emotions help develop the individual, preparing him for later times to obtain a series of resources for its defense. One of the cases that
Barbara shows us is through words. If you teach a group three words that have a
If you see a group of kids playing football and having fun, several factors are being encouraged. The first factor would be that you are making an improvement in your health by having a physical activity; you develop your skills by doing tactics and you create a social bond by being with other individuals. We can say that it helps our physical, psychic and social well-being. The Undoing Hypothesis shows us how something positive can deal with the negative. A clear example is this: if you tell a group of teenagers that they have to prepare a school work with a very limited time, they are likely to suffer stress (negative emotion) and their heart rate increases.
However, if you after show them a certain film (of love, happiness, fear, sadness ...) telling them that they won't have to deliver the work, those who are given the movie with positive emotions recover faster than negative. We see with this that the positive can reduce what affects us, making us feeling good. On the other hand, being a person who is emotionally positive every day, makes his life more prosperous by not having the presence of the negative. Isen (Barbara's partner) showed that