AP® Psychology review sheet from Aim for Five (aimforfive.com/psych/units/5/5-2)
Unit 5 · Topic 5.2
5.2 Positive Psychology
Positive psychology is the scientific study of what helps people thrive, not just what goes wrong. It looks at positive emotions, strengths and experiences that build well-being and resilience. Key findings involve gratitude, character strengths, and the growth some people report after hard experiences.
Key terms
- positive psychology
- subjective well-being
- gratitude
- character strengths and virtues
- resilience
- posttraumatic growth
What positive psychology studies
For much of its history, psychology focused on disorders and problems. Around 2000, Martin Seligman and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi called for a positive psychology that would also study what makes life go well. Its goal is to find out what builds happiness, the ability to bounce back, good feelings and healthy minds.
Subjective well-being is your own judgment of how your life is going: how satisfied you are with it and how often you feel positive versus negative emotions. It's measured mostly with self-report scales, such as rating 'I am satisfied with my life' from 1 to 7.
Resilience is the ability to adapt well and recover after adversity, trauma or stress. Many people show resilience after difficult events, and it's often supported by close relationships, problem-solving skills and a sense of purpose.
Gratitude and character strengths
Gratitude, noticing and appreciating the good things in your life, is a positive subjective experience. Experiments have found that people who regularly write down things they're grateful for, compared with people who write about neutral events or daily hassles, report higher well-being afterward. Because participants were randomly assigned to conditions, these studies support a causal link, though the effects are usually modest.
Christopher Peterson and Martin Seligman developed a classification of 24 character strengths grouped under six broad virtues. Your signature strengths are the ones that feel most central to who you are. People who use their signature strengths in new ways often report more happiness and well-being.
| Virtue | Sample strengths |
|---|---|
| Wisdom | Curiosity, creativity, love of learning |
| Courage | Bravery, persistence, honesty |
| Humanity | Kindness, love, social intelligence |
| Justice | Fairness, teamwork, leadership |
| Temperance | Forgiveness, self-control, humility |
| Transcendence | Gratitude, hope, humor, appreciation of beauty |
Posttraumatic growth
Posttraumatic growth is positive psychological change that some people report after struggling with trauma or major stress. Examples include a deeper appreciation of life, closer relationships, a greater sense of personal strength, new priorities, or spiritual change.
Two cautions matter. First, growth doesn't mean the trauma was good or that the person no longer struggles; growth and distress can exist side by side. Second, not everyone experiences it, and no one should be expected to. Posttraumatic growth is also different from resilience: resilience is bouncing back to your earlier level of functioning, while growth means reporting change beyond that level.
Worked examples
Try each one yourself first, then open the solution.
- Example 1
Evaluating a gratitude study
A researcher randomly assigns 80 students to two groups. For four weeks, Group A writes five things they're grateful for each week, and Group B writes five events from their week. On a 1–7 life-satisfaction scale, Group A's average rises from 5.0 to 5.6, and Group B's rises from 5.0 to 5.1. What can the researcher conclude, and what is one limitation?
Show the solutionHide the solution
- Step 1: Identify the design: there's random assignment and a manipulated independent variable (type of writing), so it's an experiment.
- Step 2: Compare changes: Group A rose by 5.6 − 5.0 = 0.6 points; Group B rose by 5.1 − 5.0 = 0.1 points. The gratitude group improved by 0.5 points more.
- Step 3: Because of random assignment, the researcher can tentatively conclude that writing about gratitude caused the larger increase in life satisfaction, if the difference is statistically significant.
- Step 4: Limitation: participants may have guessed the purpose and reported higher satisfaction to please the researcher (demand characteristics), or the results may not generalize beyond these students or past four weeks.
Answer: Gratitude writing likely caused a larger rise in life satisfaction (0.6 vs. 0.1 points, a 0.5-point difference), assuming the difference is significant. A limitation is possible demand characteristics or limited generalizability.
- Example 2
The trap: resilience versus posttraumatic growth
After her family's home was damaged in a flood, Keisha struggled for months. A year later she says, 'I'm back to normal, the same as before.' Her brother says, 'It was awful, but I'm closer to our family now and I've decided to study emergency management.' Which sibling describes posttraumatic growth?
Show the solutionHide the solution
- Step 1: Resilience means adapting and returning to your previous level of functioning. Keisha describes getting back to how she was before, which fits resilience.
- Step 2: Posttraumatic growth means positive change beyond your previous level, such as closer relationships or new life priorities. Her brother describes both.
- Step 3: Note that both siblings found it hard; growth doesn't mean the event wasn't painful.
Answer: Her brother shows posttraumatic growth; Keisha's return to her previous level is better described as resilience.
Common mistakes
- Thinking positive psychology means 'just think positive.' It's a research field that tests claims with data.
- Confusing resilience with posttraumatic growth. Resilience is recovering to where you were; growth is change beyond that.
- Treating every gratitude finding as causal. Only experiments with random assignment support cause and effect; surveys showing grateful people are happier are correlational.
- Listing gratitude as a virtue. In the classification, gratitude is a strength under the virtue of transcendence.
On the exam
- Positive psychology often appears with research questions: identify the design, the operational definition of well-being, and whether the conclusion matches the method.
- If asked for a defensible claim, tie it to evidence: 'Gratitude can increase well-being, because in experiments, participants randomly assigned to gratitude journaling reported higher life satisfaction.'
Connected topics
Videos
Check yourself
4 questions on 5.2 Positive Psychology. Pick an answer to see if you got it, and why.
Researchers randomly assigned 120 college students to one of two groups for eight weeks. Each week, students in the gratitude group wrote down five things they were thankful for. Students in the comparison group wrote down five events from their week without being told to focus on anything positive.
Before and after the eight weeks, all students rated their life satisfaction on a scale from 1 to 7. The gratitude group's mean rating rose from 5.1 to 5.9, while the comparison group's mean rating went from 5.0 to 5.1. The difference between groups at the end was statistically significant.
Hypothetical experiment
What is the independent variable in this experiment?
Why did the researchers have the comparison group write about weekly events instead of doing nothing?
Which conclusion is best supported by the results?
A year after surviving a serious car accident, Jae says the experience was terrible but that he now feels closer to his family, appreciates each day more and has changed his career plans to do work he finds meaningful. Jae's experience best illustrates
0 of 4 answered