How can we get the most out of our close relationships? Research in the area of personal relationships continues to grow, but most prior work has emphasized how to overcome negative aspects. This volume demonstrates that a good relationship is more than simply the absence of a bad relationship, and that establishing and maintaining optimal relationships entails enacting a set of processes that are distinct from merely avoiding negative or harmful behaviors. Drawing on recent relationship science to explore issues such as intimacy, attachment, passion, sacrifice, and compassionate goals, the essays in this volume emphasize the positive features that allow relationships to flourish. In doing so, they integrate several theoretical perspectives, concepts, and mechanisms that produce optimal relationships. The volume also includes a section on intensive and abbreviated interventions that have been empirically validated to be effective in promoting the positive features of close relationships.
The motto of this book is smarter through laughter. If you can laugh about it, you can probably change it. The authors use a heavy dose of humor (the laughing side), and a healthy measure of science (the learning side) to help you improve yourself, your relationships, and your surroundings. The book introduces the “I CAN model,” which stands for Interactions, Context, Awareness, and Next steps. Interactions are powerful determinants of health and happiness. There are two skills that can make our interactions healthier: the ability to connect and the capacity to communicate. Context is also a powerful but often neglected driver of change. The contexts of our lives consist of people, places, and things. To leverage context to our advantage we need to master the art of reading cues and changing cues in the environment. Awareness is the next driver of change. Regardless of where you are in the process of change, there is always a next step to strengthen your change, maintain your gains, and keep thriving. To do that, you need to make a plan, and you need to make it stick. The book will teach you how to use these drivers of change to flourish and thrive.
Positive Psychology brings together a range of research and a comprehensive review of the more recent work and lessons learned since the founder’s original vision of this field. Organised into five sections: An Introduction, Positive Experiences, Personality Processes, External Influences, and Applications, this text provides a thorough introduction to an interesting and challenging area in Psychology. With a final look at the future of Positive Psychology, and its potential to inform social change and how useful this knowledge can be when considering the well-being of entire societies, this text is an enlightening read and invaluable resources for students. Strongly guided by empirical work this text encourages the reader to think critically and go beyond the facts. Key features: Provides a framework for teaching and understanding global trends in Positive Psychology. Inclusion and a review of up-to-date research. Using storytelling and happiness’s intrinsic appeal to foster interest in the methods we use to answer important questions in Positive Psychology. Online resources including student self-tests, and links to additional web content.
This exceptional volume analyzes the intricate roles interest plays in cognition, motivation and learning, and daily living, with a special focus on its development and maintenance across life domains. Leading experts discuss a spectrum of interest ranging from curiosity to obsession, and trace its functions in goal-setting, decision-making, self-regulation, and performance. New research refines the current knowledge on student interest in educational settings and the social contexts of interest, with insights into why interest levels change during engagement and in the long run. From these findings, contributors address ways to foster and nurture interest in the therapy room and the classroom, for optimum benefits throughout life. Among the topics covered: · Embedding interest within self-regulation. · Knowledge acquisition at the intersection of situational and individual interest. · The role of interest in motivation and engagement. · The two faces of passion. · Creative geniuses, polymaths, child prodigies, and autistic savants. · The promotion and development of interest. A robust guide to a fascinating area of study, The Science of Interest synthesizes the field’s current knowledge of interest and indicates future directions. Its chapters contribute depth and rigor to this growing area of research, and will enhance the work of researchers in education, psychologists, social scientists, and public policymakers.
The body of literature has pointed to the benefits of educational interventions in facilitating improvement in school motivation and, by implication, learning and achievement. However, it is now recognized that most extant motivation and learning enhancing intervention programs are grounded in Western motivational and learning perspectives, such as attribution, expectancy-value, implicit theories of intelligence, self-determination, and self-regulated learning theories. Further, empirical evidence for the positive impacts of these interventions seems to have primarily emerged from North American settings. The cross-cultural transferability and translatability of such educational interventions, however, are often assumed rather than critically assessed and adapted before their implementation in other cultures. In this volume, the editors invited scholars to re-assess their intervention work from a sociocultural lens. Regardless of the different theoretical perspectives and strategies they adopt in their interventions, these scholars are in unison on the importance of taking into account sociodemographic backgrounds of the students and sociocultural contexts of the interventions to optimize the benefits of such interventions. Indeed, placing culture at the heart of designing, implementing, and evaluating educational interventions could be a key not only to strengthen the effectiveness and efficacy of educational interventions, but also to ensure that students of a wider and more diverse range of educational and cultural backgrounds reap the benefits from such interventions. This volume constitutes the foundation towards a deeper and more systematic understanding of culturally relevant and responsive educational interventions.
First, she taught you the value of your highly sensitive nature in her bestselling classic The Highly Sensitive Person. Now, Dr. Elaine Aron is back to teach you how to utilize your sensitivity to tackle a new challenge: Parenthood. Parenting is the most valuable and rewarding job in the world, and also one of the most challenging. This is especially true for highly sensitive people. Highly sensitive parents are unusually attuned to their children. They think deeply about every issue affecting their kids and have strong emotions, both positive and negative, in response. For highly sensitive people, parenting offers unique stresses—but the good news is that sensitivity can also be a parent’s most valuable asset, leading to increased personal joy and a closer, happier relationship with their child. Dr. Elaine Aron, world-renowned author of the classic The Highly Sensitive Person and other bestselling books on the trait of high sensitivity, has written an indispensable guide for these parents. Drawing on extensive research and her own experience, she helps highly sensitive parents identify and address the implications of their heightened sensitivity, offering: • A self-examination test to help parents identify their level of sensitivity • Tools to cope with overstimulation • Advice on dealing with the negative feelings that can surround parenting • Ways to manage the increased social stimulation and interaction that comes with having a child • Techniques to deal with shyness around other parents • Insight into the five big problems that face highly sensitive parents in relationships—and how to work through them Highly sensitive people have the potential to be not just good parents, but great ones. Practical yet warm and positive, this groundbreaking guide will show parents how to build confidence, awareness, and essential coping skills so that they—and their child—can thrive on every stage of the parenting journey. “This book is filled with validating, healing and empowering information about how to navigate one of the most important roles of our lives while being highly sensitive. It changed my life in the most healing and empowering ways.” —Alanis Morissette, artist, activist, teacher
First, she taught you the value of your highly sensitive nature in her bestselling classic The Highly Sensitive Person. Now, Dr. Elaine Aron is back to teach you how to utilize your sensitivity to tackle a new challenge: Parenthood. Parenting is the most valuable and rewarding job in the world, and also one of the most challenging. This is especially true for highly sensitive people. Highly sensitive parents are unusually attuned to their children. They think deeply about every issue affecting their kids and have strong emotions, both positive and negative, in response. For highly sensitive people, parenting offers unique stresses—but the good news is that sensitivity can also be a parent’s most valuable asset, leading to increased personal joy and a closer, happier relationship with their child. Dr. Elaine Aron, world-renowned author of the classic The Highly Sensitive Person and other bestselling books on the trait of high sensitivity, has written an indispensable guide for these parents. Drawing on extensive research and her own experience, she helps highly sensitive parents identify and address the implications of their heightened sensitivity, offering: • A self-examination test to help parents identify their level of sensitivity • Tools to cope with overstimulation • Advice on dealing with the negative feelings that can surround parenting • Ways to manage the increased social stimulation and interaction that comes with having a child • Techniques to deal with shyness around other parents • Insight into the five big problems that face highly sensitive parents in relationships—and how to work through them Highly sensitive people have the potential to be not just good parents, but great ones. Practical yet warm and positive, this groundbreaking guide will show parents how to build confidence, awareness, and essential coping skills so that they—and their child—can thrive on every stage of the parenting journey. “This book is filled with validating, healing and empowering information about how to navigate one of the most important roles of our lives while being highly sensitive. It changed my life in the most healing and empowering ways.” —Alanis Morissette, artist, activist, teacher
"Self-determination theory (SDT) represents a comprehensive framework for the study of human motivation, personality development and wellness as evidenced by the breadth and variety of chapters in this handbook. In introducing this collection, we review the basic assumptions, philosophy of science, methods, and mission of SDT. We also provide a brief history of SDT, linking various developments within the theory to the contributions found in this volume. Finally, we attempt to place SDT within the landscape of past and contemporary theoretical psychology, as well as modern historical and cultural developments, in part explaining the continued growth of SDT's basic research and real-world applications"--