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Compton Response
Submitted by Walter L. Harris on Sat, 02/02/2008 - 8:54am.
I liked they way that Mr. Compton walked you back through the history of Psychology to show how the positive side was overlooked throughout history. He talked about the three major dimensions: positive subjective states, positive traits, and positive institutions. I understood the positive traits and the positive subjective states, but I couldn’t figure out the positive institutions! He also talked about how our emotions come from hereditary factors, if so how much? Why can people create different emotions from similar events through their interpretation? I thought about this for awhile and I came up with the fact that it’s in the processing of the information. I also get the idea that we can broaden our response options through positive emotions. I love the idea of a happiness set point, which I understand is an average level of happiness that we return to after we adjust to the effects of temporary highs and lows. What I really liked about the book was how he wrote it. He used short inserts to get his point across. He isn’t trying to change how psychology works, but he shows how positive psychology enhances what we know and how we useit. Compton was writing about balance in psychology.