Optimal Human Being

The phrase "optimal human being" is used to refer to the empirically documented features that tend to characterize high-quality human functioning. "Optimal human being" is a profile that is developed within this book by consulting what contemporary theorizing at different levels of analysis might have to say about what causes a optimal functioning.

This volume deals with the human desire to live the good life, defined as seeking that which "is good, optimal, or ultimately desirable." While there may be different ways of achieving this goal, the pathways are similar in some ways. In exploring the ways in which these paths cross, Mortensen asserts that an ability to sustain optimal human relations--that is, healthy communication, interpersonal compatibility, and prosocial influence--is a standard against which the good life can be measured. Optimal Human Relations explores the favorable conditions for human beings to live the best possible way of life imaginable; it both argues the case for and documents recent advances in the study of social influences on everyday life. Social influences help to develop an expansive sense of intrinsic motivation in daily encounters with others. While optimal relations are not easily achieved or maintained, it is through healthy relationships that one may pursue pleasure and happiness--even meaning, importance, and significance with valued companions. The cultivation of physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual health through these relations generates an enhanced sense of well-being, growth, and maturity. Mature individuals are more likely to maintain optimal relations by counting daily blessings more than lamenting routine burdens. This inspirational conception of "the good life" invites productive inquiry into the conditions responsible for the pursuit of optimal conditions, fulfilled expectations, and a rich, vital, way of life. It is through this lens that Mortensen measures the good life, pointing to these aspects of human communication as a litmus test of the relative importance of individualistic and collective orientations. Along the way, the reader discovers who and what we are in relation to the quality of the world in which we reside alongside those who journey with us.

Counseling psychologists have always been vitally involved in promoting good health and preventing mental, physical, and social disorders. This volume focuses on how their efforts can foster and build optimal human strength and well-being. The chapters show how counseling psychology plays a major role in helping people make changes at home, at work, and in the community in ways that prevent disease risk and strengthen personal and social resources. Written by leading psychologists, the volume shifts away from pathology and illness and moves more toward the science of positive psychology. Five major themes--intact personalities, individual assets and strengths, positive mental health, person--environment interaction, and career development-are discussed. These serve to unite the roles and tasks of counseling psychology. All students and professionals concerned with mental health and career counsiling with find Counseling Psychology and Optimal Human Functioning thought-provoking and helpful reading.

Production ergonomics – the science and practice of designing industrial workplaces to optimize human well-being and system performance – is a complex challenge for a designer. Humans are a valuable and flexible resource in any system of creation, and as long as they stay healthy, alert and motivated, they perform well and also become more competent over time, which increases their value as a resource. However, if a system designer is not mindful or aware of the many threats to health and system performance that may emerge, the end result may include inefficiency, productivity losses, low working morale, injuries and sick-leave. To help budding system designers and production engineers tackle these design challenges holistically, this book offers a multi-faceted orientation in the prerequisites for healthy and effective human work. We will cover physical, cognitive and organizational aspects of ergonomics, and provide both the individual human perspective and that of groups and populations, ending up with a look at global challenges that require workplaces to become more socially and economically sustainable. This book is written to give you a warm welcome to the subject, and to provide a solid foundation for improving industrial workplaces to attract and retain healthy and productive staff in the long run.

This volume integrates and makes sense of the growing body of theoretical and empirical research conducted on purpose across the lifespan. It opens with a comprehensive yet detailed discussion of the definitions of purpose most commonly used in studies on the topic. In addition to defining the construct, the author also discusses its philosophical roots and distinguishes it from related concepts, including meaning, goals, and ultimate concerns. This volume discusses the disparate perspectives on the construct and addresses the tendency to position purpose in the broader frame of positive psychology. It synthesizes distinct strands of research on purpose across the lifespan, it explores studies on the daily and longer-term experience of a purposeful existence, and it delves deeply into the wide range of measurement tools that have been used to assess the purpose construct. Further, it examines the prevalence and forms of purpose among diverse groups of youth and discusses the developmental trajectory of the construct. Other topics discussed include the central role of purpose in supporting optimal well-being and positive youth development. The book closes with empirically-supported steps adults, educators, and mentors can take to effectively and intentionally foster purpose among young people and makes recommendations for future research on the topic.

Why do we do the things we do? Over a decade in the making, this game-changing book is Robert Sapolsky's genre-shattering attempt to answer that question as fully as perhaps only he could, looking at it from every angle. Sapolsky's storytelling concept is delightful but it also has a powerful intrinsic logic: he starts by looking at the factors that bear on a person's reaction in the precise moment a behavior occurs, and then hops back in time from there, in stages, ultimately ending up at the deep history of our species and its genetic inheritance. And so the first category of explanation is the neurobiological one. What goes on in a person's brain a second before the behavior happens? Then he pulls out to a slightly larger field of vision, a little earlier in time: What sight, sound, or smell triggers the nervous system to produce that behavior? And then, what hormones act hours to days earlier to change how responsive that individual is to the stimuli which trigger the nervous system? By now, he has increased our field of vision so that we are thinking about neurobiology and the sensory world of our environment and endocrinology in trying to explain what happened. Sapolsky keeps going--next to what features of the environment affected that person's brain, and then back to the childhood of the individual, and then to their genetic makeup. Finally, he expands the view to encompass factors larger than that one individual. How culture has shaped that individual's group, what ecological factors helped shape that culture, and on and on, back to evolutionary factors thousands and even millions of years old. The result is one of the most dazzling tours de horizon of the science of human behavior ever attempted, a majestic synthesis that harvests cutting-edge research across a range of disciplines to provide a subtle and nuanced perspective on why we ultimately do the things we do...for good and for ill. Sapolsky builds on this understanding to wrestle with some of our deepest and thorniest questions relating to tribalism and xenophobia, hierarchy and competition, morality and free will, and war and peace. Wise, humane, often very funny, Behave is a towering achievement, powerfully humanizing, and downright heroic in its own right.