What is Positive Psychology?

Positive psychology was developed to help us flourish and learn from the best, after years of classifying and healing the worst of human experience. This broad and diverse study today encompasses a wide range of topics, drawing on Aristotelian and Maslowian theories and methods.

Traditionally, the focus of psychology has been on recognising and treating mental health issues such as depression. This is vital for people dealing with mental illness, yet it only gives a partial picture of mental wellness. Positive psychology is a relatively young discipline of psychology that focuses on promoting wellbeing and the building of a meaningful life filled with pleasure, engagement, positive connections, and accomplishment rather than what is clinically wrong.

It is “… the study of the factors and activities that contribute to the thriving or optimal functioning of people, organisations, and institutions,” according to Gable and Haidt (2005).

Positive psychology is not about putting on a pleasant face all the time. Life can be difficult, and disappointments and difficulties are unavoidable. Scientific study, on the other hand, has revealed that there are some tactics and abilities that can help people negotiate life’s problems more effectively and enjoy life more.

Positive psychology moves the scientific perspective from a focus on stress, disorder, and dysfunction to a focus on well-being, health, and optimal functioning. It offers a distinct perspective on human experience. Recent discoveries have resulted in the development of a shared paradigm that ties the study of positive feelings, strengths, and virtues to crucial life outcomes.

Recent research suggests that rather than established diagnostic categories of mental disease, difficulties in psychological functioning may be better treated as the lack, excess, or inverse of these qualities. Positive psychology’s main premise, that the study of health, fulfilment, and well-being is just as worthy of study as illness, dysfunction, and misery, has found favour with both academics and the general public.

Positive psychology’s single most important contribution has been to establish a collective identity—a common voice and vocabulary for scholars and practitioners of all stripes who share an interest in health as well as sickness, in realising potential as well as alleviating pathology.

Academic psychologists may specialise in aberrant, cognitive, developmental, or social psychology while still identifying as positive psychologists. Professional psychologists can operate in a variety of settings, including clinical counselling, education, forensics, health, and industrial/organisational settings, yet still consider themselves to be positive psychology practitioners.

Positive psychology is distinctive in that it transcends standard psychological dualities and divisions to offer truly integrative and cross-setting approaches to problem solving. A positive psychologist is as natural for a neuroscientist investigating positive affect as it is for a social psychologist exploring religious experience, a developmental psychologist studying resilience, or a health psychologist working to enhance health and well-being.

History of Positive Psychology

Even before Socrates, Aristotle, and Plato, philosophers in Ancient Greece pondered over what it meant to live a virtuous life and how a person could aspire to find contentment.

In the late 19th century, a link was clearly established between local regions of the brain and specific motor skills and behaviour, and modern psychology transitioned from thought experiment to scientific inquiry. In 1874, one of the earliest psychologists, Wilhelm Wundt, published the seminal Principles of Physiological Psychology. Psychology as a research field blossomed in less than three decades, and theories like operant and classical conditioning shaped the behaviouristic paradigm of the early twentieth century.

Positive psychology became a prominent trend that emerged in the late 1990s and it has since grown in popularity. It is a discipline of psychology that focuses on the qualities, virtues, and talents that enable individuals and societies to prosper. Martin Seligman, a past president of the American Psychological Association, was the driving force behind it.

Positive psychology has its roots in twentieth-century humanistic psychology, which placed a strong emphasis on happiness and fulfilment. A number of humanistic psychologists, including Abraham Maslow, Carl Rogers, and Erich Fromm, established theories and practises related to human pleasure. Positive psychologists have now discovered empirical evidence for the notions of human flourishing espoused by these humanistic psychologists. Positive psychology has also advanced in a variety of new directions: rather than treating mental illness, positive psychologists attempt “to uncover and develop brilliance and talent,” and “to make normal life more fulfilling,”.

Positive psychology shifted the attention away from “what’s broken” and toward “what works.” Contentment with the past, happiness in the now, and optimism for the future are the defining pillars of positive psychology, according to Christopher Peterson, a co-author with Seligman and a professor at the University of Michigan. 

Presently, positive psychology is being used by experts in a wide range of sectors. Positive psychology is used by businesses to analyse employee engagement, retain critical talent, improve job happiness, and match people to the most productive jobs within their organisations. When giving constructive comments or developing mental and physical wellness initiatives in the workplace, key research can help. Positive psychology is important in practically every sector, and it equips leaders with a deeper knowledge of happiness to drive staff.

The Father of Positive Psychology

Psychology used to be all about figuring out what was wrong with you before the term “positive psychology” was coined.

It was when Martin Seligman was elected President of the American Psychological Association in 1998, the phrase “positive psychology” was coined. As a result, he is commonly referred to as the father of positive psychology.”

All available psychology resources were dedicated toward researching and treating psychological problems in the aftermath of World War II due to humanitarian crises. And it is for this reason that psychology has come to operate inside a sickness paradigm. 

However, there developed a gap in the science and study of psychology because of the neglect to investigate positive characteristics such as abilities, strengths, and so on. This is due to the simple truth that when a branch of science deals with the most fundamental subject of human life, it is incomplete if it only considers the bad aspects while completely ignoring the positive ones.

However, at a Ted Talk in 2008, Martin Seligman highlighted why he believes positive psychology should focus on both mental health and mental well-being. He said, 

“Psychology should be just as concerned with human strength as it is with weakness. It should also be as interesting in building the best things in life as in repairing the worst, and it should just be as concerned with making the lives of normal people fulfilling, and with nurturing high talent as with healing pathology.”

The most significant contribution of positive psychology in mental health counseling and therapy is the introduction of happiness as a treatment goal (Gruman, Schneider, & Coutts, 2017).However, one positive outcome of this paradigm is that fourteen formerly incurable psychological disorders such as low self-esteem, PTSD, confusion, demotivation,can now be treated.

Who is Martin Seligman?

Dr. Martin E.P. Seligman is the Director of the Penn Positive Psychology Center and the Zellerbach Family Professor of Psychology at Penn. He’s also the programme director for the Penn Master of Applied Positive Psychology (MAPP). 

In 1998, he served as President of the American Psychological Association, and one of his presidential initiatives was to promote Positive Psychology as a scientific field. In the subjects of positive psychology, resilience, learned optimism, depression, optimism, and pessimism, he is a major authority. He’s also an expert in therapies that help people avoid depression and improve their strengths and well-being. He has over 350 scholarly publications and 30 books to his credit.

[ A picture of Martin]

The Hope Circuit (Public Affairs, 2018), Flourish (Free Press, 2011), Authentic Happiness (Free Press, 2002), Learned Optimism (Knopf, 1991), What You Can Change & What You Can’t (Knopf, 1993), The Optimistic Child (Houghton Mifflin, 1995), Helplessness (Freeman, 1975, 1993), and Abnormal Psychology (Freeman, 1975, 1993) are among his more well-known works (Norton, 1982, 1988, 1995, with David Rosenhan). With Christopher Peterson, he co-authored the book Character Strengths and Virtues: A Handbook and Classification (Oxford, 2004). The New York Times, Time, Newsweek, U.S. News and World Report, Reader’s Digest, Redbook, Parents, Fortune, Family Circle, USA Today, and many more popular magazines have featured his work on their front pages.

Dr. Martin Seligman was elected President of the American Psychological Association in 1996 with the greatest vote in the organisation’s history. His main goal as APA President was to bring practice and science together so that both might thrive, a goal that he has pursued throughout his career as a psychologist. The prevention of ethnopolitical violence and the study of positive psychology were two of his key objectives. His main objective has been to promote the field of positive psychology since 2000.

Dr. Seligman received his A.B. from Princeton University, Summa Cum Laude (Philosophy), 1964; Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania (Psychology), 1967; Ph.D., Honoris causa, Uppsala University, Sweden, 1989; Doctor of Humane Letters, Honoris causa, Massachusetts College of Professional Psychology, 1997; Ph.D., Honoris causa, Complutense University, Spain, 2003; and Ph.D., Honoris causa, University of East London, 2006.

The PERMA Model of Positive Psychology

Positive psychology is a natural extension of happiness research, with the goal of figuring out what makes individuals happy or fulfilled rather than diagnosing and treating what makes them unhappy. Nonetheless, the problem of suffering must be addressed. Positive psychologists, on the other hand, take a different approach.

Martin Seligman is a pioneer of Positive Psychology (the phrase was coined by Abraham Maslow), not just because he has a coherent theory about why happy people are happy, but also because he investigates it using scientific methods. Seligman discovered that the most satisfied and upbeat people were those who had discovered and used their unique combination of “signature qualities,” such as humanity, temperance, and tenacity. 

Confucius, Mencius, and Aristotle’s virtue ethics are combined with modern psychology theories of motivation in this vision of happiness. According to Seligman, happiness can be nurtured in three dimensions: the Pleasant Life, the Good Life, and the Meaningful Life.

Seligman gave the theory of PERMA for Positive Psychology 

“Seligman originally suggested that Positive psychology can be delineated into three overlapping areas of research.

Pleasant Life:Research into the Pleasant Life, or the “life of enjoyment,” examines how people optimally experience, forecast, and savour the positive feelings and emotions that are part of normal and healthy living (relationships, hobbies, interests, entertainment, and so forth). Seligman has suggested that this is the most transient element of happiness and may be the least important, despite the attention it is given.

Good Life: The study of the Good Life, or the “life of engagement,” investigates the beneficial effects of immersion, absorption, and flow that individuals feel when optimally engaged with their primary activities. These states are experienced when there is a positive match between a person’s strength and the task they are doing, in other words, when they feel confident that they can accomplish the tasks they face.

Meaningful Life: Inquiry into the Meaningful Life, or “life of affiliation,” questions how individuals derive a positive sense of well-being, belonging, meaning, and purpose from being part of and contributing back to something larger and more permanent than themselves (such as nature, social groups, organisations, movements, traditions, belief systems).

Seligman later suggested that “Meaningful Life” would be better considered as three different categories, resulting in five elements of well being with the acronym PERMA.

Positive psychology: New World Encyclopedia. Org

Seligman created the PERMA model to explain and define well-being in a larger sense in this regard. The term PERMA stands for “five elements of well-being,” and it is a well-known concept in the field of positive psychology. 

• P: Positive Emotion

Positive emotions have a significant impact on improving well-being. Gratitude and forgiveness for past experiences, enjoying oneself in the moment, and being enthusiastic about the future can all lead to positive emotions.

• E: Engagement

It’s also crucial to cultivate a sense of participation in order to improve your well-being. This can be accomplished by thoroughly immersing oneself in something you enjoy and excel at. This level of commitment leads to the sensation of “flow”, which occurs when your talents are adequate for a specific challenge with a specific goal in mind. Mihaly Csikszentmihaly, a pioneer in the field of positive psychology, invented the term “flow.”

• R: Relationships

Individuals rely on forming connections with other people to live as social creatures, and the support we receive from these ties can give life meaning and purpose.

• M: Meaning 

It is not enough to have positive emotions to live a happy life. Finding meaning, according to Seligman, is the highest form of  happiness. Applying your personal strengths to something larger than yourself, such as a social cause, a significant contribution to a community you’re a member of, or a philanthropic duty, can provide meaning.

• A: Achievement

There’s no denying that when we reach our objectives and succeed, we feel fulfilled. A true sense of well-being is difficult to achieve if the motivation to achieve these goals is lacking.