What is Positive Psychology, and how can it be used to improve wellbeing?

Positive psychology uses scientifically-based research to understand what makes life worth living. It is a relatively new field that looks at psychological states and traits such as happiness, wellbeing, contentment, and satisfaction. Implementing positive psychology strategies has been shown to improve mental and physical health, work performance, and relationships. It also helps individuals to achieve their goals and reach their full potential.

Positive psychology is an excellent way to frame and understand how you can improve your life and wellbeing. Positive psychology research is helping scientists, psychologists, and philosophers define happiness, quantify it, and give us strategies for achieving it.

Positive Psychology concepts

Whereas traditional psychology looks to define and treat what is “wrong” with people, positive psychology aims to reinforce and nurture what is “right” with them. It represents a perspective change from trying to identify and rectify shortcomings and dysfunctions to embracing strengths and savouring life’s positive feelings and experiences. The field of positive psychology has produced a wealth of research that is improving the quality of life for individuals and groups.

We should be equally concerned with:	As we are with:
Identifying strengths	Identifying weaknesses
Building good things in our lives	Repairing bad things in our lives
Making ‘normal’ lives fulfilling	Healing mental illness and pathology

On an individual level, positive psychology focuses on two main pillars:

1. Acknowledgement and enjoyment of positive emotions, such as happiness, hope, interest, gratitude and love

2. Development and use of positive personal traits, including resilience and courage, self-acceptance, self-esteem, optimism, compassion and empathy

On the higher level, the third pillar is:

3. Understanding positive institutions involves studying societal and interpersonal issues such as the promotion of good governance, the significance of family and community and altruism, among others.

Who founded positive psychology, and when did it begin?

The basic concepts behind living a good life have been considered throughout recorded human history, likely even much longer. Although human nature and human behaviour have long been a topic for philosophers, the positive psychology movement brought this concept and the scientific method together for more rigorous study.

The term ‘positive psychology’ was coined by Abraham Maslow, of Maslow’s Hierarchy fame, in the mid-1950s, although the topic of his study did not yet fully align with what we think of nowadays. Positive psychology in the form it is known today came to prominence with the publication of Authentic Happiness, a book by Martin Seligman and the first international conference of positive psychology in the early 2000s. At this time, the structure of positive psychology developed and spread and has become increasingly popular.

Criticisms of positive psychology

Soft science and self-reporting

Psychology, on the whole, is generally viewed by the broader scientific community as a ‘soft science’. This view is likely because the study of human behaviour is based more on participant observation and self-reporting than objective and rigorous scientific methods (e.g. experimentation), making it difficult to benchmark and validate results. These views have led to some scepticism within the scientific community about the validity of psychology itself. It is important to note that, in this author’s opinion, each study needs to be considered on its structure and merit and that determining ways to make psychological research more consistent is valuable work.

Cultural bias

Much of the research conducted within positive psychology has been completed in the USA and Europe and lacks cultural diversity among participants. Critics of positive psychology have highlighted this and the lack of attention paid to cultural differences in wellbeing between cultures as a point of contention. Positive psychology research has improved in this area, but it still has work ahead to understand these differences further.

It doesn’t address other serious issues

In some cases, people have serious health issues or mental illnesses arising from unbalanced brain chemistry, structural damage to the nervous system or other causes. Individuals with these conditions can’t just practice positive psychology; they have different treatments to undergo. Positive Psychology is NOT a replacement for traditional treatments for all conditions.

Overly positive?

Sometimes it is necessary and healthy to experience the full range of human emotions. It is not realistic to cut anger, sorrow or fear, for example, out of your life completely. Whilst positive psychology aims to move to a more consistent optimistic viewpoint, it need not cross over into ‘toxic positivity’ where reactions to individual circumstances are suppressed.

Using positive psychology concepts to improve wellbeing

Positive psychology uses the ‘PERMA’ acronym to outline the various things you can do to improve your overall happiness and wellbeing, as follows:

Positive Emotions

• Seek and embrace opportunities for pleasures and things you enjoy and savour these pleasures
• Practice gratitude regularly – check out this quick gratitude meditation script if you need some inspiration!
• Watch or listen to media with a positive vibe and message

Engagement

• Find activities that fully engross you, that you can 100% focus on and enjoy
• Practice mindfulness doing everyday activities
• Identify your highest strengths and use them in everyday situations, or seek challenges you know you would excel at

Relationships

• Nurture your relationships with others
• Build and maintain meaningful connections
• Find and join a group with similar interests

Meaning

• Use your strengths to support or assist a community (school, church, hobby group, volunteer work, government)
• Perform random acts of kindness for loved ones or strangers

Accomplishment

• Set and work towards meeting achievable goals
• Celebrate your accomplishments

Conclusion

The field of positive psychology, though a relative newcomer on the scene, has uncovered several interventions that can be used to improve overall wellbeing and mental health, as outlined in the PERMA structure. Despite its recent development, positive psychology has made great strides in improving our understanding of what makes a fulfilling and meaningful life. The field has the potential to continue making valuable contributions to our experience of life satisfaction as further research is undertaken. Watch this space!

Interested in the various types of wellbeing and looking for ways to improve yours? Check out this post next!

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