(Answer to Q. 1) Answer: The student has seven to choose from, as listed in Table 13.3 on page 389. They need to describe two of the seven and present some idea of how each functions. Reference to a specific piece of evidence would be a bonus. For example, they could mention that highly resilient people tend to describe their lives as meaningful, and that there is evidence that having meaning in ones life creates positive emotions with all the benefits that positive emotions engender. Specific research suggests that this increases the activity of the immune system and often provides for a feeling of low, a start involving intense concentration, complete absorption and deep enjoyment.
(Answer to Q. 2) Answer: There have been a number of research projects that looked at the nature of happy people. According to the textbook, happy people tend to have high self-esteem, an internal locus of control, and score high on tests of Extraversion and low on Neuroticism. They are more engaged in life and less sensitive to negative events. They tend to have close and positive relationships with a number of people and are comfortable sharing intimate issues. They tend to have successful marriages. There is a correlation between being religious minded and being happy.
(Answer to Q. 3) Answer: One of the survival benefits of positive emotions may lie in their role in undoing some of the psychological and physiological damage of negative emotions. Research has shown that subjects who are encouraged to feel good recovered baseline heart rate faster than control subjects. Positive emotions lessened the cardiovascular activity associated with anxiety, and they did so even for African Americans.
(Answer to Q. 4) Answer: The textbook points out that there are some interesting differences between negative and positive emotions, in general. Positive emotions dont involve as much physiological arousal as negative emotions, for one. Fear is just more physiologically arousing than joy. Also, there is a much larger variety of negative emotions: three or four times as many. Also, there are many more unique facial expressions associated with negative emotions. Almost all positive emotions seem to be expressed facially through the Duchenne, or true, smile. Positive emotions must have survival value, but they do not have the same intensity or urgency. Negative emotions are compelling and cause strong reactions.
(Answer to Q. 5) Answer: The student has four models to draw from. They are:
- Health behavior models,, in which individuals high in awareness or internal locus of control adopt a healthier lifestyle.
- Transactional stress moderation models in which individual traits affect health. Individuals low in sensation seeking or Neuroticism will behave in a healthier manner and take fewer risks with their health.
- Constitutional predisposition models, in which underlying genetic factors influence both personality and disease. Biological or genetic factors may what cause both psychological and physical disorders.
- Interactional stress moderation models suggest that personality characteristics modify physiological responses by reducing or increasing them. For example there is evidence that optimism increases immune system effectiveness.
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