Positive Psychology

As one of the newest branches of psychology, positive psychology focuses on how to help people live happier and healthier lives. It differs from the other branches of psychology because it does not focus on dysfunctions and abnormalities but strives to do the opposite. It relies on humanistic psychology, which assumes human beings have free will to decide how they want to live their lives.

• First, we will explore the nature and scope of positive psychology.
• Then, we will discuss the positive psychology theory, providing positive psychology intervention examples.
• After, we will evaluate different viewpoints concerning the relevance of positive psychology in society.
• We will explore positive psychology criticism.

Fig. 1 - Positive psychology focuses on how to help people live happier lives.

Nature and Scope of Positive Psychology

Since the subject of positive psychology is relatively vast, its dimensions are essentially aimed at making one’s life more fulfilling by focusing on three general areas of human experience (Csíkszentmihályi, 2000). There are three levels to consider:

1. The subjective level includes positive emotions such as happiness, satisfaction with life, love, intimacy, etc. In addition to these feelings, this level can also include optimism and hope (regarding oneself and the future) and confidence.
2. The individual level is about positive behaviour patterns that individuals develop over time. These include courage, honesty and wisdom. The ability to understand one’s own creative potential and work toward excellence also falls into this category.
3. The societal level focuses on developing, creating, and maintaining positive institutions and relationships. These can be family, friendship, romantic relationships, and relationships in your work environment.

From this, we can infer that positive psychology is the study of positive human functioning and flourishing at the various levels of one’s life and experiences.When we talk about the scope of positive psychology, it becomes increasingly harder to define. Obviously, people are good at doing things well, but the different ways of doing that are extensive. If we think about it, the scale runs from A to Z and includes things like altruism, bravery, compassion, determination, and so on.

Positive psychology has been incorporated into various aspects of society, such as:

• Education (such as in curriculum, wellbeing policies and workshops such as the Penn Resilience Program)
• Places of work
• Healthcare (therapies such as mindfulness therapy are widely used)

Positive Psychology Theory

Martin Seligman is an American psychologist and the founder of positive psychology. He first proposed the theory of authentic happiness. In it, he stated that every person has the potential to feel happy through different experiences and that these experiences can be of three different types:

1. The pleasant life: refers to feeling a positive emotion because you experience a pleasant feeling. Something as simple as eating a specific type of food because you like it, or spending time with friends because it is fun, can induce this feeling. This type of experience usually requires little to no effort.
2. The engaged life: To engage in life, one must have some form of flow, characterised by the experience of losing oneself completely in an activity (Csíkszentmihályi, 1996). This is the case when one gets so lost in what they are doing that they lose track of time. Typically, an activity with a clear goal is more likely to enable flow, which leads to intrinsic motivation and inner reward. Unlike a pleasant life, you have to put more effort to feel positive emotions.
3. The meaningful life: Regardless of how engaging activities that have flow can be, once the activity is over, it is more than likely that the individual will again feel some emptiness that they were unable to fill. For an experience to have meaning, people need to engage in activities that serve a larger purpose, a goal beyond themselves, such as helping others.

After revising and amending this theory, Seligman proposed the theory of well-being/PERMA theory.

PERMA theory consists of five components that all combine to create an overarching construct known as well-being. This construct predicts the well-being of groups, communities, organisations, and nations (Forgeard, Jayawickreme, Kern, & Seligman, 2011). These components are discussed below:

1. Positive emotions: this goes beyond simply experiencing happiness and includes hope, love, compassion, pride, gratitude, etc. These emotions are an essential indicator of well-being and can be strengthened to achieve well-being (Fredrickson, 2001). Some of the different ways to build these emotions are:
   • Spend time with your loved ones.
   • Pursue your hobbies/interests.
   • Listen to uplifting music.
   • Think about things you are grateful for and what is going well in your life.
2. Engagement refers to living in the present moment and actively focusing on the task at hand. Engagement can be increased by:
   • Engaging in activities that you truly love and enjoy, where you lose track of time.
   • Practicing living in the moment, even if it’s just for a daily task/chore.
   • Spending time in nature and/or the outdoors observing your surroundings.
   • Identify your strengths and learn about them to do activities that match those strengths.
3. Relationships: specifically in the PERMA model, a relationship is one in which you feel supported, loved, and valued. Most people aim to improve the relationships they already have to be happy, while some struggle to build those relationships in the first place. Here are some tips you can try:
   • Join a class, group, or society that has the same interests as you do.
   • Ask questions to learn more about the people you want to get to know better.
   • Reach out to people you may not have talked to or interacted with in a while.
4. Meaning: Seligman (2012)defined meaning as belonging and/or serving something larger than ourselves. For most people, having meaning in life helps them to identify what is truly important in the face of adversity. It is essential to know that everyone has a different sense of purpose. Some people strive for meaning by excelling in their career, others by a political cause, still others by a religious/spiritual belief, and so on. Since meaning depends mainly on your values, here are some ways you can find your purpose and, by extension, your goal:
   • Find a cause/organisation that is important to you and look for opportunities to get involved and/or volunteer there.
   • Try new activities to find things you can identify with.
   • Think about how you can use your passions to help others.
5. Accomplishments refer to when you not only work toward a goal but end up achieving that goal. How does this contribute to your well-being, you may ask? Well, when you reach something you set out to do, you can look at yourself with a sense of pride, and this feeling helps you achieve a status of well-being (Seligman, 2012). Tips to successfully achieve this step include:
   • Set SMART goals – specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound.
   • Reflect on the times you have been successful in the past.
   • Find ways to celebrate when you reach your goal – sometimes it helps to have something to look forward to!

Fig. 2 - The PERMA model¹.

We all want to increase our happiness levels and flourish and succeed in our lives, but often we do not know how to achieve that. Therefore, the PERMA model is an evidence-based strategy for promoting happiness and reducing feelings of anxiety, depression, and stress.

Examples of Positive Psychology Interventions

Parks and Schueller (2014) conducted a literature review in which they found that positive psychology interventions can be divided into several categories, which are discussed below:

Positive Psychology Criticism

As positive psychology is a rather new branch of psychology there are debates as to whether it is beneficial today compared to the more traditional branches of psychology.

Argument for the Importance of Positive Psychology

First, let's identify arguments for positive psychology.

• The therapies used in positive psychology have been found to be very effective. Crane et al. (2014) found that home practise of mindfulness therapy led to a significant reduction in levels of depression.
• Kubzansky and Thurston (2007) conducted a prospective study to investigate the relationship between emotional vitality (a sense of energy, positive well-being, and effective emotion regulation) and coronary heart disease. They interviewed 6265 people without coronary heart disease where they completed a the General Well-being Schedule, follow-up studies were conducted during the next 15 years. It was found that emotional vitality was a protective factor against coronary heart disease. This emphasises the importance of positivity in todays society.
• Positive psychology has positive ethical implications as unlike common treatments such as prescription drugs, therapies do not have harmful biological side effects or issues of becoming dependent on the drug. Also, there is consent given as the individual needs to agree to take part in the therapy.
• Contributions to the education system, such as the Positive Psychology curriculum, students who took part in this curriculum reported increased enjoyment and engagement in school and improved social skills such as empathy and co-operation (Seligman, 2009). This has positive ethical implications as positive psychology teaches students lessons such as how to live a meaningful life.
• Brings positivity to work, according to Csíkszentmihályi and LeFevre (1998) we experience more flow at work than in leisure, so if we learn to enjoy the work experience, we would feel more satisfaction at work, leading to being more effective workers and improving the quality of our life.
• There are many organizations that promote and help to live a positive life such as Action for Happiness.

Argument Against Positive Psychology

Now, let's examine arguments against positive psychology.

• It is hard to establish a cause and effect relationship between happiness and health.
• As there is not a clear relationship between happiness and health, it could mean many therapies are in fact ineffective, which poses social and ethical problems.
• Mindfulness based therapies may only help those with depression, excluding those with other disorders such as schizophrenia. In addition, these therapies only minimise depressive symptoms rather than get to the root cause.
• Biopsychology may be more relevant as there are an assortment of drugs available for different kinds of needs such as anti-depressants, anti-psychotics etc.
• There is lack of empirical evidence about the efficacy of positive psychology in education (Spence and Shortt, 2007).
• There are negative economic implications regarding putting positive psychology into a school curriculum, as this would mean further spending, which means schools might need to stop other essential parts of the curriculum or other activities such as school trips.
• Leisure activities that increase flow may not be available to a lot of people because they are expensive.