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Tutorial 06: Growth psychology

Resource type: this resource contains a tutorial or tutorial notes.

This is the sixth and final tutorial for the Motivation and emotion unit of study.

Overview

This tutorial is about growth psychology, self-actualisation, and provides active review of key learning from the unit.

Growth psychology assumptions

To what extent do you agree with the underlying assumptions of growth psychology? Not sure? Consider these questions (do a class line-up (as per the first tutorial for each and discuss):

  1. Do you think that "evil" (or anti-social) behaviour:
    • is inherent in human nature?
    • is a product of a sick culture?
  2. How does learning best occur? Does effective learning follow from:
    • well-developed curricula and expert teaching?
    • having one’s interests identified, facilitated, and supported?
  3. Does psychological therapy work best by:
    • fixing what is broken?
    • nurturing what is best?
  4. Which answers correspond to growth psychology paradigms? (the 2nd answer in each case)

Self-actualisation

  1. Self-actualising is the process of fulfilling your potential.
  2. Complete this Self-evaluation of self-actualisation
  3. Review your answers and highlight:
    1. What are you doing that is particularly helping you towards self-actualisation?
    2. What aspects could you grow and develop to help towards self-actualisation?

Happiness

Since the development of positive psychology in 1990s, there has been a significant focus on psychological research and understanding of happiness.

  1. Martin Seligman suggests three components of happiness which he calls the:
    1. Pleasant life: Dealing with the past, optimism about the future, happiness in the present (hedonic pleasure and the skills to amplify pleasure). However, this form of happiness is limited by being short-lived, subject to the hedonic treadmill, and heritable.
    2. Good life: or Eudaimonia; Engagement (flow, absorption)
    3. Meaningful life: Connection to a higher purpose)
  2. Dan Gilbert, author of Stumbling on Happiness, suggests two components of happiness: (Why are we happy? (Dan Gilbert, 2004, 21:20, TED talk)):
    1. Natural happiness: What we feel when we get what we want
    2. Synthetic happiness: What we feel when we learn to like what we get

Pearls of wisdom - Nuggets of truth

This exercise seeks to crystallise and share the:

  • "pearls of wisdom"
  • "nuggets of truth"
  • "flashes of insight"
  • "take-home messages" etc.

that have arisen from your engagement with Motivation and emotion content and/or learning activities.

  1. What pearl(s) of wisdom or nuggets of truth have occurred to you through this unit?
  1. Write each pearl of wisdom on a separate post-it note (generate as many as possible) - place these nuggets upside down in a collective pile. Sources may include:
    1. What have been the most valuable theoretical or practical insights you have gained from the unit?
    2. What have you learnt from the unit that you've put into practice in your own life?
    3. What was the key message of the book chapter you worked on?
  2. Take turns to pick up a random nugget, read it out to the class, explain what you think the author means, then then select a location for the nugget on the wall (organise around themes)
  3. Based on these nuggets of truth, what meta-themes have emerged from this unit?

Link: Pearls of wisdom

Recording

See also

Additional tutorial material
Lectures and tutorials
Wikipedia

References

    Fredrickson, B. (2001). The role of positive emotions in positive psychology: The broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions. American Psychologist, 56, 218-226.

    Peterson, C. (2006). What is positive psychology? In A primer in positive psychology (pp. 3-24).

    Seligman, M. E. P., & Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2000). Positive psychology: An introduction. American Psychologist, 55, 5-14.

    Seligman, M. E. P., Rashid, T., & Parks, A. C. (2006). Positive psychotherapy. American Psychologist, 61, 774-788.

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