Seligman lab meeting this week in place of the reading group

[Daniel Preotiuc]

Hello,

Just a reminder there will be no reading group meeting this week. However, everyone is encouraged to join the Seligman lab meeting from 3-4:30, see description below.

We'll resume the regular reading group schedule starting next week.

Daniel

___________

Hey everyone,

We will be having a lab meeting at the PPC's non-windowed conference room this Thursday, October 1st from 3:00 pm - 4:30 pm. David Yaden will be leading what promises to be a fascinating, stimulating, and fun discussion. As always, Linda will be kind enough to organize light refreshments for us.

Find more details about his talk below:

Speaker: 

David Yaden
Research Fellow

Positive Psychology Center

Title: 

The Varieties of Spiritual Experiences: Theoretical, Neurological, & Psychological Advances

Abstract: 

Spiritual experiences have been a puzzle for psychology since the field's inception. Research shows that spiritual experiences occur in over one-third of cross-cultural populations, are associated with a number of positive outcomes related to well-being, and are often counted among life's most meaningful moments. Despite their prevalence and significance, psychology has offered little in the way of explanation for the why, the what, or the how of these experiences. In my talk I will discuss how recent methodological and technological advances can provide new insights into old questions on this topic. Theoretically, we now know that spiritual experiences come in different forms with different triggers and outcomes, we are creating a new scale to capture this diversity. For this discussion, I will focus on one sub-type called self-transcendent experience, which is marked by decreased self-salience and increased feelings of connection to other people and one's environment. A self-transcendent quality can be found in common psychological constructs such as mindfulness, flow, self-transcendent positive emotions (love, joy), awe, peak experiences, and mystical experiences. Neurologically, I will show how imaging research is now being used to provide neural correlates for noninvasive brain stimulation research capable of inducing aspects of self-transcendent experiences in laboratory settings. Psychologically, I will present new findings from psychometric and linguistic analysis studies on these experiences. Lastly, as a result of data from these studies, I will discuss a theory that attempts to explain the phenomenology and positive outcomes of spiritual experiences.

I look forward to seeing many of you there!

Cheers,

Alejandro