1.1: Introduction to Positive Psychology

 

Learning Objectives - Upon reading this chapter, the reader should be able to: 

• Describe what positive psychology is, who started it, and why it came into existence.
• Identify some of the most important findings from the science of positive psychology with respect to forgiveness, gratitude, and humility.
• Explore how positive psychology might make a difference in how you think about your own life, the nature of human nature, and what is really important to you.

 

What is Positive Psychology?

WATCH List 

Watch What is Positive Psychology?¹, a video by the Test Prep Gurus introducing the concept of Positive Psychology. They will briefly cover topics of well-being, mindfulness, flow, learned optimism, and more!

  

 

In 1998, Martin Seligman, who was then president of the American Psychological Association, urged psychologists to focus more on understanding how to build human strength and psychological well-being. In deliberately setting out to create a new direction and new orientation for psychology, Seligman helped establish a growing movement and field of research called positive psychology (Compton, 2005)². In a very general sense, positive psychology can be thought of as the science of happiness; it is an area of study that seeks to identify and promote those qualities that lead to greater fulfillment in our lives. This field looks at people’s strengths and what helps individuals to lead happy, contented lives, and it moves away from focusing on people’s pathology, faults, and problems. 

 

According to Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi (2000)³, positive psychology, at the subjective level is about valued subjective experiences: well-being, contentment, and satisfaction (in the past); hope and optimism (for the future); and… happiness (in the present). At the individual level, it is about positive individual traits: the capacity for love and vocation, courage, interpersonal skill, aesthetic sensibility, perseverance, forgiveness, originality, future mindedness, spirituality, high talent, and wisdom. 

 

Some of the topics studied by positive psychologists include altruism and empathy, creativity, forgiveness and compassion, the importance of positive emotions, enhancement of immune system functioning, savoring the fleeting moments of life, and strengthening virtues as a way to increase authentic happiness (Compton, 2005)⁴. Recent efforts in the field of positive psychology have focused on extending its principles toward peace and well-being at the level of the global community. In a war-torn world in which conflict, hatred, and distrust are common, such an extended “positive peace psychology” could have important implications for understanding how to overcome oppression and work toward global peace (Cohrs, Christie, White, & Das, 2013)⁵. (Spielman et al., 2020)²⁸. 

Throughout most of its history, psychology was concerned with identifying and remedying human ills. It has largely focused on decreasing maladaptive emotions and behaviors, while generally ignoring positive and optimal functioning. In contrast, the goal of positive psychology is to identify and enhance the human strengths and virtues that make life worth living. Unlike the positive thinking or new thought movements that are associated with people like Norman Vincent Peale or Rhonda Byrne (The Secret), positive psychology pursues scientifically informed perspectives on what makes life worth living. It is empirically based. It focuses on measuring aspects of the human condition that lead to happiness, fulfillment, and flourishing.

 

Moving from an exclusive focus on distress, disorder, and dysfunction, positive psychology shifts the scientific lens to a concentration on well-being, health, and optimal functioning. Positive psychology provides a different vantage point through which to understand human experience. Recent developments have produced a common framework that locates the study of positive states, strengths and virtues in relation to each other and links them to important life outcomes. Recent developments suggest that problems in psychological functioning may be more profitably dealt with as the absence, excess, or opposite of these strengths rather than traditional diagnostic categories of mental illness. The principal claim of positive psychology is that the study of health, fulfillment and well-being is as deserving of study as illness, dysfunction, and distress, and has resonated well with both the academic community and the general public.

 

Understanding the VIA Classification of Character Strengths 

As a relatively new field of research, positive psychology lacked a common vocabulary for discussing measurable positive traits before 2004. Traditional psychology benefited from the creation of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), which provided researchers and clinicians with the same set of language from which they could talk about the negative. As a first step in remedying this disparity between traditional and positive psychology, Chris Peterson and Martin Seligman set out to identify, organize and measure character. The Values in Action (VIA) classification of strengths was an important initial step toward specifying important positive traits (Peterson & Seligman, 2004)⁶. Peterson and Seligman examined ancient cultures (including their religions, politics, education and philosophies) for information about how people in the past construed human virtue. The researchers looked for virtues that were present across cultures and time. Six core virtues emerged from their analysis: courage, justice, humanity, temperance, transcendence and wisdom. The VIA is the positive psychology counterpart to the DSM used in traditional psychology and psychiatry. Unlike the DSM, which scientifically categorizes human deficits and disorders, the VIA classifies positive human strengths. This approach vastly departs from the medical model of traditional psychology, which focuses on fixing deficits. In contrast, positive psychologists emphasize that people should focus and build upon what they are doing well.

 

The VIA is a tool by which people can identify their own character strengths and learn how to capitalize on them. It consists of 240 questions that ask respondents to report the degree to which statements reflecting each of the strengths apply to themselves. For example, the character strength of hope is measured with items that include ‘‘I know that I will succeed with the goals I set for myself.’’ The strength of gratitude is measured with such items as ‘‘At least once a day, I stop and count my blessings.’’

 

Within the United States, the most commonly endorsed strengths are kindness, fairness, honesty, gratitude and judgment (Park, Peterson & Seligman, 2005)⁷. Worldwide, the following strengths were most associated with positive life satisfaction: hope, zest, gratitude and love. The researchers called these strengths of the heart. Moreover, strengths associated with knowledge, such as love of learning and curiosity, were least correlated with life satisfaction (Park, Peterson & Seligman, 2005)⁸. (Emmons, 2024)²⁹. 

 

Guiding Questions  

1. What is Positive Psychology?
2. What led to the field of Positive Psychology
3. What is the difference between learned optimism and learned helplessness?
4. What are the pillars of positive psychology?
5. What is the problem with the disease model of psychology?
6. What is eudaimonia vs. hedonia?
7. What is learned optimism?
8. What are the different types of "lives" Dr. Seligman proposes?

 

 

Supplementary Material

• For those of you who found this too simple and need a bit more detail on the background of Positive Psychology, What (and Why) is Positive Psychology?⁹ by Gable et al. may help. 

• Learn more about Martin Seligman life and contribution to the field of Positive Psychology from the National Endowment for the Humanities featured article¹⁰ (2020) and watch him discuss The new era of positive psychology¹¹, hosted by TED Talks (2004). 

• The PERMA model, introduced by psychologist Martin Seligman, is a framework for understanding and enhancing well-being, encompassing five key elements: Positive Emotion, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning, and Accomplishment. By emphasizing these components, the PERMA model provides a holistic approach to cultivating happiness and fulfillment in individuals' lives. Read more about his PERMA Model¹². 

Definition: Values in Action (VIA)

tool by which people can identify their own character strengths and learn how to capitalize on them. It consists of 240 questions that ask respondents to report the degree to which statements reflecting each of the strengths apply to themselves.

 

Attribution

¹Test Prep Gurus (Newport Beach). (2012, October 10). What is Positive Psychology? [Video]. https://youtu.be/1qJvS8v0TTI?si=wW0RnSGqjCNyxEZx 

²,⁴Compton, W. C. (2005). An introduction to positive psychology. Thomson Wadsworth.

³Seligman, M. E., & Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2000). Positive psychology. An introduction. The American psychologist, 55(1), 5–14. https://doi.org/10.1037//0003-066x.55.1.5 

⁵Cohrs, J. C., Christie, D. J., White, M. P., & Das, C. (2013). Contributions of positive psychology to peace: Toward global well-being and resilience. The American Psychologist, 68, 590–600. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0032089 

⁶Peterson, C., & Seligman, M. E. P. (2004). Character strengths and virtues: A handbook and classification. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. 

⁷,⁸Seligman, M. E. P., Steen, T. A., Park, N., & Peterson, C. (2005). Positive psychology progress: Empirical validation of interventions. The American Psychologist, 60(5), 410–421. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.60.5.410 

⁹Gable, S. L., & Haidt, J. (2005). What (and why) is positive psychology? Review of general psychology, 9(2), 103-110. https://doi.org/10.1037/1089-2680.9.2.103 

¹⁰Gibbon, P. (2020). Martin Seligman and the Rise of Positive Psychology. Humanities, 41(3). The National Endowment for the Humanities. https://www.neh.gov/article/martin-seligman-and-rise-positive-psychology 

¹¹TED. (2008, July 21). The new era of positive psychology | Martin Seligman [Video]. https://youtu.be/9FBxfd7DL3E?si=ZxG6n2CSpDdXkz5G

¹²Madeson, M. (2017, February 24). The PERMA Model: Your Scientific Theory of Happiness. PositivePsychology.Com. https://positivepsychology.com/perma-model/ 

²⁸,³⁰Spielman, R. M., Jenkins, W. J., & Lovett, M. D. (2020). The Pursuit of Happiness. In Psychology 2e. OpenStax. Houston, Texas. https://openstax.org/books/psychology-2e/pages/14-5-the-pursuit-of-happiness  Access for free at https://openstax.org/books/psychology-2e/pages/1-introduction CC-BY

²⁹Emmons, R. A. (2024). Positive psychology. In R. Biswas-Diener & E. Diener (Eds), Noba textbook series: Psychology. Champaign, IL: DEF publishers. Retrieved from http://noba.to/9z4jf5xe CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0