PSYC 305 Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Autotelic, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Cognitive Flexibility
Document Summary
Positive psychology: a complementary field of psychology that moves beyond simply treating mental illness & dysfunction. Forgiveness correlated positively with cognitive flexibility, positive affect, and distraction; it correlated negatively with rumination, vengeance, and hostility: predicted 4 components of psychological well-being: anger (-), anxiety (-), depression (-), and satisfaction with life (+). Mindfulness: the intentionally focused awareness of one"s immediate inner & outer experiences, moment-by-moment attention to thoughts, emotions, sensations, and surroundings. Losing oneself in the present moment, lack of judgment, simple observation. Flow: a state of complete absorption in work, play, or creative expression. Intense concentration, loss of self-awareness, loss of time awareness (or time flying"), loss of environmental awareness, and feeling perfectly challenged (neither bored nor overwhelmed). The activity becomes an end in itself (csikszentmihalyi): reported by artists, athletes, and mathematicians alike. The autotelic personality: mihaly csikszentmihalyi proposes a flow personality or autotelic personality a disposition to actively seek challenges and flow experiences.
