Positive psychology faces numerous obstacles and critics in the twenty-first century. While some philosophers support emphasizing extreme pleasure, others disagree. Notably, Ed Dier's analysis has revealed what causes happiness and why individuals experience it. Positive psychology should also sympathize because it makes people happier. Having said that, since it prolongs life and fosters positive feelings, happiness is crucial to everyone's well-being. However, other philosophers have also made the case that the positive psychology ideology's emphasis on extreme pleasure should be avoided because it is undesirable for a variety of reasons. To begin, extreme happiness should be emphasized due to various reasons. Happiness is the sole purpose of life. It usually is determined by an individual’s state of mind and not external conditions or circumstances. Notably, positive psychology has been widely used as a weapon to heal the troubled, cure illness, and to study genius and talent. Moreover, happiness has also been used to improve the lives of many people across the globe. It is used to free people whose days are primarily overt of mental dysfunction. However, we still do not know what makes people kind, optimistic, engaged, contented or brilliant. Furthermore, according to Dill-Shackleford and Karen, happiness is something that you can purchase. In other words, materials don't give us genuine fulfillment (174). However, the final product of an individual may provide the achievement we as a whole need for. This incorporates securing work, fun condition, and healthy family. Different analysts have uncovered that satisfaction keeps on developing as a multi-billion-dollar industry from self-improvement guides to the energizer. An English logician trusted that each endeavor to wind up plainly cheerful by amplifying delight and limiting torment. Consequently, it's of momentous significance to everybody's life since it can be utilized remember the abused frame torment.
Apart from the mentioned, positive psychology should be emphasized since it contributes to the well-being of a person. At an individual level, it is all about courage, love, interpersonal skill, vocation, and perseverance. There are three main paths to happiness. Firstly, pleasure is very important in everyone’s life. It is noted that individuals living a life of joy usually maximize positive emotions while minimizing negative emotions. In other words, such individual is always happy, and this is good for their health since they avoid stress or depression hence living a happy lifestyle. Engagement is another path to happiness. According to Lopez and Shane, people leading a life of commitment tend to continually seek out activities that will allow them to stay in the flow (152). Lastly, the meaning is an important path since it people who lead a life of purpose belongs to serve things that are bigger than themselves such as family, community, and religion among others.
On the contrary, Diener argues that positive psychology should not be emphasized due to some reasons. His research in this field of subjective well-being has referred to what we think and how we feel about our lives. Moreover, it also focused on the effective and cognitive conclusions reach when we evaluate our existence. Subjective prosperity is more logical that implies bliss. Nevertheless, individual success depends on worldwide self-evaluations that could be scrutinized on different grounds since its discoveries are lucid and conceivable. Diners start by checking on identity and touchy connection of individual statistic and prosperity attributes of gatherings high on the personal prosperity. Besides, the broad, multifaceted research on the theme is then surveyed, proposing intriguing connections among large-scale social conditions and satisfaction (Dutt, Amitava, and Benjamin Radcliff 324).
Positive psychology has tremendously helped in treating individuals with mental illness. Statistically, in 1946, there was no proper and effective treatment for psychological disorders compared to now since we can treat one or two. Moreover, the intensive study of psychology has led to the rise of several methods of classifying mental disorders in the society. With the help of these methods, a clinical psychologist has been able to produce acceptable and accurate diagnoses. Therefore, this study has helped in making the troubled individual less miserable. In other words, extreme happiness proposed by the positive psychology should be emphasized due to the above reasons. No one ever wants to be sad, and this is where positive psychology helps. However, some scientists have argued that extreme happiness should not be emphasized since it has never encouraged or promoted positive thinking. According to Horowitz and Daniel, it is only a study that allows individuals to work at the peak of their potential (4).
Moreover, extreme happiness should not be emphasized since some activities are not associated with positive emotions. Gratification is some of the activities that may be enjoyable to humans especially kids. For instance, let us consider the gratification that comes from training for an endurance event like a marathon. During the grueling event, the athlete may feel some physical pain, exhausted or even discouraged. Nevertheless, the athlete may describe this experience as intensely gratifying. Therefore, it is evident that flow in gratifications does not involve anything more significant than the self (Efklides, Anastasia, and Despina Moraitou 17). Though the pursuit of satisfaction entails deploying our strengths which are the third route to happiness. Extreme happiness is thus not necessary is such cases hence should not be emphasized. The third route of joy satisfies a longing for purpose in our daily lives, therefore, the solution to a “fidgeting until we die” condition.
According to Peterson, Extreme happiness should also not be emphasized since people differ in their tendency to rely on each other. He developed reliable measures that demonstrated how people change when it comes to happiness. In his research, it was noted that people call the tendency to follow in happiness by boosting positive emotions. However, Positive emotions have increased and promoted the lives of many people. According to this study, it is possible to raise an individual’s level of happiness. For instance, people usually prefer being treatment well. Buying gifts for a person are one of the standard ways of boosting a person’s happiness. Everyone is usually happy when they are given gifts or certain favors. Therefore, happiness can be increased by several means. Another good way of improving someone’s happiness is by specially treating them. Other than giving gifts, you can always do favors to your friends, and this will help in boosting their happiness especially when they are stressed.
The effects of extreme happiness can sometimes be catastrophic. For instance, there has been a lot of cases whereby one has died due to extreme pleasure. In such cases, it is clear that happiness can end one’s life. On the contrary, the interventions to nurture happiness has been designed to promote emotions. Notably, these intervention entails recording the good things that have happened and reasons as to why they occurred. After this, it was found that everyone including those who were stressed happier than before. According to Seligman’s findings, extreme happiness should not be emphasized since it can transcend unwarranted confidence. However, extreme happiness is more culture-bound since psychology requires judgment based on our social norms and cultural context. Moreover, there is increasing evidence that has shown how beliefs and cultural values have influenced our lives. Due to this, extreme happiness should not be emphasized since it can affect our lives negatively.
Another survey has revealed that extreme happiness is not healthy to our lives in general. Various individuals have been examined based on their well-being, political participation, and monthly income. These surveys have illustrated that those with a stable income, health, and in a fruitful relationship recorded the highest level of happiness. Nevertheless, extreme happiness can be damaging. In a scale of one to ten whereby ten is extremely happy, the 8s were more efficient than the 10s and 9s. Therefore, this study revealed that those who somewhat discontent but not so depressed have the highest chance of improving their lives than the 10s. Notably, individuals who are extremely happy have no urgency of improving their lives. Due to this, extreme happiness should not be astonishing since negative emotions progressed for a reason. For instance, Wilson argues that “the happy man is a hollow man.” Eminent philosopher or politicians are usually melancholic. In his argument, he states that the blues can be a facilitator for a particular kind of genius.
David shows his synthesis of research on satisfaction in this chapter. His point of view, while entirely in light of definite confirmation, is educated by a conviction that conventional esteems must contain essential components of truth on the off chance that they are to make due to crosswise overages. Consequently, he is more adjusted than most to issues that are not extremely popular in the field, for example, the frequently discovered relationship between religious confidence and joy. The other two possibilities for advancing happiness. He considers our financial development and pay (very little there, after a base limit of riches is passed) and close individual connections (a strong affiliation). Albeit given correlational review investigations of self-detailed joy, the strength of the discoveries duplicated crosswise over time and distinctive societies proposes that these findings should be considered necessary by anybody intrigued by understanding the components that add to a real personal satisfaction.
This part concentrates on self-assurance, Chittister and Joan talks about another attribute that is integral to positive psychology and has been widely examined (77). Self-assurance hypothesis explores three related human needs: for capability, for belongingness, and for self-rule. At the point when these requirements are fulfilled, the creators assert individual prosperity and social improvement are enhanced. People in this condition are naturally spurred, ready to satisfy their possibilities and search out dynamically more prominent difficulties. The creators consider the sorts of social settings that help independence, ability, and relatedness, and those that obstruct self-improvement. Particularly critical is their discourse of how a man can keep up self-rule even under outer weights that appear to deny it. Ryan and Deci's commitment demonstrates that the guarantees of the "humanistic brain science" of the 1960's can create an indispensable program of specific research.
One crucial gap concerns the connection between flashy encounters of satisfaction and durable prosperity. A straightforward hedonic math proposes that by including a man's specific occasions in awareness, subtracting the negatives, and totaling after some time, one will get an entirety that speaks to that individual's general prosperity. This bodes well, to a limited degree. Be that as it may, as a few articles in this issue recommend, what makes us cheerful in little measurements won't include fulfillment in more significant sums; a state of consistent losses is immediately come to in many cases going from the measure of pay one wins to the joys of eating great sustenance (Holder and Mark 89). The things that were found to make individuals upbeat incorporate sex, drinking with companions, and work itself (feeling refined and secure).
A large number of people fear to commute to places or being stuck in traffic jams. By staying in a short distance from your pleasant and secure occupation, having a drink with a few companions now and then, and engaging in sexual relations could make one excited and happy as indicated by the statistics. Social and behavioral aspects can play a great role in doing this. They can clarify a fantasy of the critical life that is observationally steady while being reasonable and engaging. They can likewise show what exercises provoke success, to constructive individuals, and to thriving gatherings. Mental science ought to be able to empower report what sort of family's outcome in kids who to thrive, what work settings strengthen the best fulfillment among laborers, what strategies end up in the most grounded city engagement, and how our health and existence can be most worth living (Compton and William 9)
In conclusion, extreme happiness should not be emphasized due to the discussed reasons above. For instance, absolute pleasure may lead to loss of life among other things. Positive psychology has brought a tremendous growth which has led to a parallel social movement. Positive psychology has been used to treat mental illness and relieving the sick of pain and stress. However, extreme happiness should not be emphasized since it can lead to a catastrophic scenario such as death. For instance, there has been a lot of incidences where people end up losing their lives due to extreme happiness. Therefore, sheer joy should not be emphasized since its cons out weigh the pros.
Works Cited
Dill-Shackleford, Karen. The Oxford Handbook of Media Psychology. New York: Oxford University Press, 2013. Print.
Lopez, Shane J. The Encyclopedia of Positive Psychology. Chichester, U.K: Wiley-Blackwell Pub, 2009. Internet resource.
Efklides, Anastasia, and Despina Moraitou. A Positive Psychology Perspective on Quality of Life [recurso Electrónico]. , n.d.. Internet resource.
Dutt, Amitava K, and Benjamin Radcliff. Happiness, Economics and Politics: Towards a Multi-Disciplinary Approach. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 2009. Internet resource.
Horowitz, Daniel. Happier?: The History of a Cultural Movement That Aspired to Transform America. Oxford University Press, 2017. Print.
Holder, Mark D. Happiness in Children: Measurement, Correlates and Enhancement of Positive Subjective Well-Being. Dordrecht: Springer, 2012. Internet resource.
Compton, William C, and Edward Hoffman. Positive Psychology: The Science of Happiness and Flourishing. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2013. Print.
Chittister, Joan. Happiness. Grand Rapids, Mich: W.B. Eerdmans Pub. Co, 2011. Print.
