Source: [20201220 Book Notes - Positive Psychology Theory, Research and Application](evernote:///view/463671/s5/7a17c54a-c607-dac0-5f3e-c224da591850/57ba5125-cfd0-4795-9c56-4f9115b91ae9/) ## 1  Introduction to Positive Psychology - Positive psychology, which aims to ‘understand, test, discover and promote the factors that allow individuals and communities to thrive’ (Sheldon et al., 2000). - Positive psychology focuses on wellbeing, happiness, flow, personal strengths, wisdom, creativity, imagination and characteristics of positive groups and institutions. (Boniwell & Tunariu, 2011) - We will look at how individuals and groups thrive and how increasing the wellbeing of one will have a positive effect on the other, leading to a win-win situation. - Flourishing is defined as ‘a state of positive mental health; to thrive, to prosper and to fare well in endeavours free of mental illness, filled with emotional vitality and function positively in private and social realms’ (Michalec et al., 2009: 391) - Indeed, existing figures show that only 18 per cent of adults meet the criteria of flourishing, 65 per cent are moderately mentally healthy and 17 per cent are languishing - positive correlates such as academic achievement, mastery goal setting, higher levels of self-control and continued perseverance (Howell, 2009). ### Authentic happiness and the good life - Positive psychology has traditionally conceptualized authentic happiness as a mix of hedonic and eudaimonic wellbeing (Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi, 2000). - Hedonic happiness - high level of positive affect - Eudaimonic wellbeing - creation of meaning and purpose in life. - ‘authentic happiness’ has been further broken down by Seligman - pleasurable life, (At present, the concept of authentic happiness is more a theory than a causal recipe for happiness (Rashid, 2009a) - 1)positive emotions - joy, gratitude, serenity, interest, hope, pride, amusement, inspiration, awe and love – Fredrickson, 2009) ‘protective reservoir’ upon which a person can draw from during unpleasant or distressing times - 2)an engaged life - flow, engagement, absorption and wellbeing  - 3)meaningful life. - service to something higher than the self. ### The origins of modern-day positive psychology - Martin E. P. Seligman (learned helplessness theory), to correct the pathologically focused psychology ### Psychology as usual (pre-1998) - Prior to WW2, there were three tasks in psychology, (1) cure mental illness (2) enhance the lives of the normal population (3) study geniuses. After the war, funding went into the first task. - Start to become off-balance, emphasis on illness, what is wrong, instead of what makes it right. ### Disease model debate - what is health, what is illness? who is considered as "healthy?" - Promote and maintain of mental health and prevent and treatment of mental illness (Keyes and Michalec, 2009). ### History of positive psychology - Greeks - Utilitarianism - William James - Humanistic psychology **Can we measure happiness?** ### Where is positive psychology today?