Positive Psychology

Positive psychology is the new science of optimal human functioning: what

makes people happier, more productive and more successful. It focuses on

what works by studying human success rather than human weakness or failure.

It qualifies as a science because positive psychologists form hypotheses and

then test them with controlled experiments and longitudinal studies. Positive

psychology focuses on individuals, groups and communities. Positive

psychology is a popular movement that began in the late 1990’s. It is the

branch of psychology that has as its primary focus on the strengths, virtues,

and talents that contribute to successful functioning and enable individuals and

communities to flourish. Core topics include happiness, resiliency, well-being,

and states of flow and engagement. It was spearheaded by a former president

of the American Psychological Association, Martin Seligman. Seligman

supported his call for positive psychology by noting the imbalance in

psychology: too much attention to weaknesses and reducing human misery,

and not enough attention to strengths and promoting health. Seligman’s hope

was that positive psychology would help expand the scope of psychology

beyond the disease model to promote the study and understanding of healthy

human functioning. Seligman suggested that “Psychology has, since World

War II, become a science largely about healing and away from building

strengths. It concentrates on repairing damage within a disease model of

human functioning.
 Misconceptions about weaknesses

1. Fixing what is wrong automatically leads to well-being

• Positive affect and negative affect are not on the same continuum

• Getting rid of anger, fear, and depression will not automatically cause peace,

love, and joy

• The absence of mental illness does not imply the presence of mental health

(and vice versa).

2. Effective coping is reflected by a reduction of negative states

• e.g. it is not the absence of stress that is related to successful weight

maintenance, but rather the ability to effectively deal with stress.

3. A weakness focus can help to prevent problems

• When it comes to prevention, the question should not be “How can we treat

people with problem X effectively?”, but “How can problem X be prevented

from occurring?”

• “Why do people suffer from problem X?” vs “Why do some people flourish

despite difficult circumstances?”

• The goal of positive psychology is not to replace therapies and interventions

that center on coping with or healing from negative experiences, but instead

to expand the protocols and processes for helping people to focus on what

they do well and enable those individuals to thrive.

• 1. A major goal of positive psychology is to restore balance within the

discipline. This goal is reflected in two areas of research and theory that need

further development.

• There is a need for improved understanding of positive human behaviors to

balance the negative focus of much mainstream research and theory.

• Related to this is the need for psychologists to overcome their skepticism

about the scientific and “authentic” status of positive psychology’s subject

matter.

• 2. A second need is to develop an empirically-based conceptual

understanding and language for describing healthy human functioning that

parallels our classification and understanding of mental illness.

• 1. At the subjective level, positive psychology looks at positive subjective

states or positive emotions such as happiness, joy, satisfaction with life,

relaxation, love, intimacy, and contentment.

• Positive subjective states also can include constructive thoughts about the

self and the future, such as optimism and hope, as well as feelings of energy,

vitality, and confidence and the effects of positive emotions such as joy.

• 2. At the individual level, positive psychology focuses on a study of positive

individual traits, or the more positive behavioral patterns seen in people over

time, such as manifestations of courage, honesty, persistence, and wisdom.

• It can also include the ability to develop aesthetic sensibility or tap into

creative potentials and the drive to pursue excellence.

• That is, positive psychology includes the study of positive behaviors and traits

that in the past were understood in the language of character strengths and

virtues.

• 3. Last, at the group or societal level, positive psychology focuses on the

development, creation, and maintenance of positive institutions.

• In this regard, it addresses issues such as the development of civic virtues, the

creation of healthy families, and the study of healthy work environments.

• Positive psychology may also be involved in investigations that look at how

institutions can work better to support and nurture all of the citizens they

impact.
• In a more specific formulation, Seligman and his colleagues have proposed

that happiness as a central focus of positive psychology can be broken down

into three components:

• The pleasant life (reflects the emphasis in positive psychology on

understanding the determinants of happiness as a desired state— what some

people might call the “good life)

• The engaged life (an aspect of happiness focused on active involvement in

activities (e.g., work and leisure) and relationships with others that express our

talents and strengths and that give meaning and purpose to our lives)

• The meaningful life (an aspect of happiness that derives from going beyond

our own self-interests and preoccupations. This is a deeper and more enduring

aspect of happiness that stems from giving to, and being involved in,

something larger than your self—what Seligman and his colleagues called

“positive institution)

• These three aspects of happiness capture the two major themes in positive

psychology, namely that positive psychology is the scientific study of optimal

mental functioning and happiness.

1. The Good Life

• Positive psychology is concerned essentially with the elements and predictors

of the good life.

• The notion of the good life comes from speculations about what holds the

greatest value in life—that is, what is the nature of the highest or most

important good.

• When this idea is applied to human life, the good refers to the factors that

contribute most to a well-lived and fulfilling life.

• In positive psychology, the good life is seen as a combination of three

elements: connections to others, positive individual traits, and life regulation

qualities

• In short, positive psychology’s concern with living the good life entails the

consideration of factors that lead to the greatest sense of well-being,

satisfaction, or contentment

2. Positive Emotions Are Important

• Positive emotions can actually help to fight the psychological problems.

• Positive emotions and adaptive behavior have on various positive outcomes

in life.

• People who experience more positive emotions tend to have greater success

in numerous areas of life compared to those more negatively oriented.

goals.

• In addition, people who experience and express positive emotions more

often are more likely to be physically healthier, be more resistant to illness, and

live longer than others.

• Therefore, the study of positive emotions and adaptive behavior can offer real

benefits to the search for how to build more fulfilling lives by helping people

reach their potentials and helping to eliminate negative emotions and

problematic behaviors.

3. People Can Flourish and Thrive

• Positive psychology recognizes that many people adapt and adjust to life in

highly creative ways that allow them and those they come in contact with to

feel good about life.

• Previous psychological theories have often argued that people are driven by

their past, their biology, their cultural conditioning, or unconscious motives.

• Positive psychology takes the position that despite the real difficulties of life,

it must be acknowledged that most people adjust well to life’s vicissitudes.

• For example: Most people at least try to be good parents, to treat others with

some degree of respect, to love those close to them, to find ways to contribute

to society and the welfare of others, and to live their lives with integrity and

honesty.
• Therefore, a basic premise of positive psychology is that “human beings are

often, perhaps more often, drawn by the future than they are driven by the

past”

• Among the goals of positive psychology is to understand how such people

manage to accomplish such high levels of thriving and flourishing.

• Thriving has been defined as feeling and functioning well, as being resilient

and adaptable, and being motivated to be the best person one can be. All of

this occurs across multiple areas of a person’s life.

• People who score high on well-being and low on mental illness are

flourishing.

• The term flourishing is used in many areas of positive psychology to describe

high levels of well-being.

• In contrast, someone who exhibits both high well-being and high mental

illness is struggling.

• This refers to someone who is generally doing well in life but is currently

experiencing significant distress about some issue.

• People who are low on well-being but high on mental illness symptoms are

floundering.

• Floundering describes a difficult situation.

• When someone shows signs of low well-being but also scores low on mental

illness, they are languishing.

is also dissatisfied or unfulfilled in life.

• These classifications may be especially important in understanding the lives of

college students today.

4. People Need Positive Social Relationships

• A corollary to the preceding assumption is the recognition that people exist

in social contexts and that well-being is not just an individual pursuit.

• Differences may exist in how cultures conceptualize, encourage, or teach

their children about the nature of happiness and the good life.

• In general, the search for happiness appears to be a universal quest.

Nonetheless, there is a fascinating variety of ideas among cultures of the world

about the specific nature of happiness.

• One of the more prominent distinctions is between cultures that view

happiness as an emotion that is achieved by individuals through their own

unique efforts or whether it is a more collective experience, that is, a joint

product of persons and their immediate family environments

5. Strengths and Virtues Are Important

• In positive psychology, it is recognized that any discussion of what constitutes

the good life must inevitably touch on virtues, values, and character

development.
• It is not possible to discuss the dimensions of an admirable and fulfilling life

without introducing discussions of virtues—such as courage, fidelity, and

honesty.

6. Compassion and Empathy Are Important

• For several years, much research in psychology was based on the assumption

that human beings are driven by base motivations such as aggression, egoistic

self-interest, and the pursuit of simple pleasures.

• Consequently, the view of humanity that prevailed was of a species barely

keeping its aggressive tendencies in check and managing to live in social

groups more out of motivated self-interest than out of a genuine affinity for

others or a true sense of community.

• However, that some early theorists did see potentials in human beings for

caring, cooperation, and empathy.

• Alfred Adler and Carl Jung, both believed that certain positive traits were

innate. Other researchers also saw potentials for prosocial behaviors in people.

• Nevertheless, a distinct trend in much psychological research was toward a

fairly negative view of why people behave the way they do. Even positive

behaviors, such as altruism, were viewed as essentially the result of self-

centered motives.

• In contrast, a new vision of human beings has been emerging from recent

psychological research that sees human socialization and the ability to live in

groups as a highly adaptable trait.

to help others may be biologically based and innate

7. Independence of Positive and Negative Emotions

• Another basic theme in positive psychology concerns the relationships

between positive emotional states and well-being.

• For some time, psychologists assumed that if people could eliminate their

negative emotions, then positive emotions would automatically take their place.

• That is, these people assume that positive and negative emotions exist in a

dependent relationship such that if negative emotions go down, then positive

emotions must go up.

• Several research studies that examined this question and found that positive

and negative emotions are relatively independent. It was discovered that

positive and negative emotions tend to have distinct causes and can even

occur at the same time.

• For instance, a mother can easily feel both some degree of sadness and

considerable joy when attending the wedding of her only daughter.