Cultivating Positive Emotions, Annotated Bibliography Example

Fredrickson, B. L. (2000, March 7). Cultivating positive emotions to optimize health and well-being, 3, Article 0001a. Retrieved November 20, 2000, from: http://www.rickhanson.net/wp-content/files/papers/CultPosEmot.pdf

Cultivating Positive Emotions to Optimize Health and Well-Being

Fredrickson, 2000, has developed a hypothesis in his article titled “Cultivating Emotions to Optimize Health and Well-being” that usage of intervention strategies could cultivate positive emotions against people. They are especially suited for prevention and treatment of those problems which find their roots in aggression, anxiety, depression, stress and other negative emotions and stressful health related problems. The Broaden and Build model by Fredrickson in 1998, has provided the basis for this application. Positive emotions such as satisfaction, pleasure, motivation lead to a broad thought-action repertoire which in turn leads to the building of personal resources which serve the ancestral function of promoting survival. Another aspect of the Broaden and Build model is that positive emotions function as an erasing supplement for negative emotions and their after affects. In fact, empirical studies have proved cardiovascular after affects to have subsided due to joy and contentment. It was also established, that individuals with positive emotions succeeded in rapidly recovering from the negative emotion or aftereffects of cardiovascular surgery.

Galley, M., (2004), Global Climate Change and Wildlife in North America, Maryland, The Wildlife Society.

Effects of Global Climate Change in North America

The wildlife of North America and its required habitats is highly values by its society. The benefits provided by the wildlife to the society are also far ending. This includes medicine, food, fiber, recreation, tourism, income and jobs, ecosystem stability and much more. The residents have also created several state and federal laws accordingly so that environment can be conserved. Several wildlife management professionals have been charged with the responsibility of restoring and maintaining wildlife habitats and population.

The need to accommodate growing population and its related challenges has affected wildlife besides many others. Global loss of wildlife habitats due to industrial development, urban sprawl and agriculture has also affected the North American Wildlife. Some other significant effects include diseases, extinction of species, depletion of ozone layer and the global warming including green house effect.

Increased levels of CO2 have lead to dangerous weather warming, such as increased atmospheric vaporization and rising sea levels due to rapid melting of snow in the Arctic. Fossil fuel emissions and tropical deforestation have also lead to drastic effects in North America.

Greenwald, P., (2010), Health Care in United States: Organization, Management, and Policy, Hoboken, John Wiley & Sons

Healthcare Costs in the USA

For several years, health care costs in the USA have been rising. Triggering concerns were raised when healthcare costs in the US exceeded USD 2.3 trillion in 2008. This was three times the amount spent for healthcare in 1990, which was $714 billion. This concern has become a major policy issue for stakeholders such as the government, consumers, and politicians etc who continually struggle to keep up with healthcare costs.

USD 7,681 per resident had been spent by the US government in 2008, which accounted for 16.2% of the American Gross Domestic Product. Since 2008, healthcare expenditures have been rising at the constant rate of more or less 4% per annum. However, experts regard this as a relative slower rate, but yet it exceeds inflation and national income growth. Government health care programs such as Medicaid and Medicare take away the major portion of healthcare spending the US government, but they have accelerated less as compared to private healthcare insurance providers. Enrollment in government healthcare programs has increased during the recession, perhaps because of the cost effective solution provided to them.

Dr. Kay, A., (2011, November 21), Ignorance is Bliss When it Comes to Challenging Social Issues, Retrieved December 7th, 2011 [http:// www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2011/11 /ignorance.aspx]

Ignorance to Bliss

According to a new research published by the American Psychological Association, lesser knowledge in people about complex important issues such as the environment, economy, energy crisis, etc, leads to even lesser motivation to being informed about such issues. In fact, it leads to increasing avoidance to being well informed.

According to the paper published APA “Journal of Personality and Social Psychology” people’s reluctance to be aware of an issue increase by its urgency. This phenomenon is known as the “ignorance to bliss” approach for social issues. The paper aimed to address those significant barriers which come into the way a general person’s involvement, motivation and/or commitment in a particular issue. The researchers have described about a “chain reaction from ignorance about a subject of dependence in and trust in the government to deal with issue.”

For example, in one study, pariticipants who had been among those who were most affected by recession, avoided those types of information which challenged the government’s ability to deal with it. However, they did not avoid positive information

Winter, K., (2006), Safety of Genetically Engineered Food, California, University of California.

Safety of Genetically Engineered Food

Genetically engineered food is manufactured from plants, microbes and animals whose genetic code is modified by the use of gene splicing. This involves modifying these bodies with introduction of selected DNA segments.

Traditional methods of food safety involve the examination of affects of respective chemicals on animals, however, this method is not an accurate measure and is an impractical method to study the safety of edible items regarding human beings. The major cause behind this is the presence of thousands of complex and unique chemicals and particles in the food and the practical inability of animals to consume large and rapid amounts of engineered food.

Whether it is conventional food, organic, or genetically engineered, risk of hazard always exist due to the presence of naturally occurring substances such as proteins which might provoke allergies or other abnormal activities in the human body. In United States of America, there are three regulatory agencies that that regulate food in the country:

• The US Department of Agriculture (USDA)
• The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
• The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA)