{"product_id":"the-good-life-unifying-the-philosophy-and-psychology-of-wellbeing","title":"The Good Life: Unifying the Philosophy and Psychology of Well-Being","description":"\u003cp\u003ePhilosophers defend theories of what well-being is but ignore what psychologists have learned about it  while psychologists learn about well-being but lack a theory of what it is. In The Good Life  Michael Bishop brings together these complementary investigations and proposes a powerful  new theory for understanding well-being.  The network theory holds that to have well-being is to be \"stuck\" in a self-perpetuating cycle of positive emotions  attitudes  traits and accomplishments. For someone with well-being  these states -- states such as joy and contentment  optimism and adventurousness  extraversion and perseverance  strong relationships  professional success and good health -- build upon and foster each other. They form a kind of positive causal network (PCN)  so that a person high in well-being finds herself in a positive cycle or \"groove.\" A person with a lesser degree of well-being might possess only fragments of such a network -- some positive feelings  attitudes  traits or successes  but not enough to kick start a full-blown  self-perpetuating network.  Although recent years have seen an explosion of psychological research into well-being  this discipline  often called Positive Psychology  has no consensus definition. The network theory provides a new framework for understanding Positive Psychology. When psychologists investigate correlations and causal connections among positive emotions  attitudes  traits  and accomplishments  they are studying the structure of PCNs. And when they identify states that establish  strengthen or extinguish PCNs  they are studying the dynamics of PCNs. Positive Psychology  then  is the study of the structure and dynamics of positive causal networks.  The Good Life represents a new  inclusive approach to the study of well-being  an approach committed to the proposition that discovering the nature of well-being requires the knowledge and skills of both the philosopher in her armchair and the scientist in her lab. The resulting theory provides a powerful  unified foundation for future scientific and philosophical investigations into well-being and the good life.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44962906439733,"sku":"ByrdShop_0199923116","price":35.77,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780199923113.jpg?v=1770400276","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/the-good-life-unifying-the-philosophy-and-psychology-of-wellbeing","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}