Positive psychology and its prominence
Positive psychology is a part of science that deals with the functioning of human and this science understands human better. Positive psychology takes into consideration the concepts related to human performance by using interventions, which helps in building sustainability in well being of the individual (Gable &Haidt, 2005). The elements that the positive psychology deals with are:
- Positive emotions
- Engagement or involvement
- Relationships
- Meaning
- Accomplishments
Positive psychology is different from traditional psychology because traditional psychology focuses on the illness like depression or relative things and positive psychology deals with the ways that are essential for healthy relationships and flourished growth (Gable &Haidt, 2005). Positive psychology answers questions like what an individual do properly, what keeps them engaged, what gives individual more satisfaction and long lasting performance? Positive psychology also makes an individual learn the value of relationships in their life. It offers them the ability to experience job satisfaction and determine career objectives. It motivates intrinsic performance and gives an individual the idea regarding how to stifle organizations achievement. Positive psychology is the head of all these theories that determines the meaning of life (Gable &Haidt, 2005).
This paper will discuss about positive psychology and its prominence, it will also describe difference of positive and traditional psychology. This paper also describes the research area of ‘character strengths’ and used the research findings to identify the research area’s impact on well being along with the analysis of the research methods used in the given articles. This paper is to determine the role and impact of positive psychology for the well-being of an individual.
Before World War II, there was existence of three types of psychology. They were mental illness cure, productivity and fulfillment in the lives of human and identifying talent. However, with the ending of the war, productivity and fulfillment in the lives of human and identifying talent psychology also ended and the mental health psychology became the primary concern of the psychologist. However, positive in positive psychology means the strength that people have the functioning of the people but it never describes the other psychology as negative. Positive psychology came into prominence in the year of 1998 when Martin Seligman turned to be the president of American Psychological Association and invented the idea of learning something positive in men (Gable & Haidt, 2005). In the early 2006, positive psychology consists of a long past but smaller history. Positive psychology consists of studying the positive things in life from the day life starts until it ends. Positive psychology involves the study of the purposes that leads to human emotion like joy, happiness, sadness and others. Positive psychology also involves studying about the determinants of positive strength in the life of people. Positive psychology provides a clear view about the relation between happiness and success along with pointing the reason that will make people live a healthy life (Niemiec & Wedding, 2013). At work positive psychology provides the individual with an insight about what they can do better, how can get be more engaged at work and how can they utilize their enquiry power to get appreciation. Positive psychology highlights the effects of the variables that determine positivity in human health. Positive psychology consists of the positive aspects of life that involves the people to live a happy and worthy life with fewer complexions in it. Positive psychology understands emotions of people and determines the reason the emotions come out. Positive psychology deals with positive experiences, involves the study of all those emotions, and tries to find out the reason behind the expressing of those emotions. Martin Seligman is the profounder of Positive psychology, the reason behind his invention was that that he observed that identifying the abilities of the people is very important, and for helping, they enhance those abilities in their life.
Difference between positive and traditional psychology
Positive psychology is all about the study of positive experience consisting of the past, present and future by highlighting the past well-being, present experiences and future concepts. Positive psychology offers something through which human beings are benefited (Seligman &Csikszentmihalyi, 2000). Whereas, traditional psychology identifies the problem and ways, that will lead to the solving of problem using many techniques. Traditional psychology focuses on learning how traumatic events contribute in the life of the individuals and indulges in the overall life of human being. Positive psychology aims to discuss on improving the lives of people rather than trying to investigate the trauma in someone’s life like traditional psychology. Positive psychology is the study that has diverse approaches towards improving human life. Positive psychology is a challenger against traditional psychology. Positive psychology concentrates on happiness and suggests ways that make a normal people happy however, traditional psychology concentrates on the mental illness of the people. The traditional psychology consists of the techniques such as cognitive behavioral therapy, psychodynamic therapy, solution focused therapy, motivational interviewing, humanistic psychology, family system therapy, narrative therapy and lastly hypnotherapy (Oxford, 2016). Traditional psychology has negative bias and it depicts that humans are often carried by negative emotions and it even depicts that humans are passively victims and they are not the controller of their fate. Positive psychology focuses on positive objectives involved in life and always aims in providing positive experiences to human beings whereas traditional psychology involves that it is not in the hands of the people to ascertain when they will be happy or sad, it is controlled by some external force (Harze & Ruch, 2013). Positive psychology is different from traditional psychology because it does not deal with a single problem in human life but it involves full emotional section of human life. Positive psychology consists of positive emotions, positive traits and positive institutions (Seligman &Csikszentmihalyi, 2000) Emotions concerns the content of an individual’s past, traits focuses on strengths and assets, institutions consists of strengths to dwell in a better community. Positive psychology connects to human life and traditional to a specific context.
The research area of the first article is among the 5299 adults for determining the relation between the character strength and their satisfaction towards life. The research was from the internet samples utilizing the value in action inventory of strength (Park, Peterson & Seligman, 2004).
The research area of the second article is the life of 319 students regarding their satisfaction towards life, positive and negative effects of their life and their self-esteem. This research was done using quasi-experimental treatment-control condition design ( Proctor et al., 2011)
Character strength
Both the article states that character strength is very important for developing well being, be it adolescents or adults. This can be said because both the article has researched among adolescents and adults and the result was that the individuals in both the cases that involved in the research was to evaluate the impact of character strength and both the research was successful. In the first article, it was seen that character strength is one of the important concern of positive psychology and the second article depicted that the adolescents had gained increased life satisfaction and the result was hence positive and encouraging that enhanced the practicing of character strength activities for increasing their satisfaction towards life and develop their well-being. The first article depicted that character strength is a disposition of desires and feelings that involves practice of judgment and leads to excellence in human life. Character strength is comprised of positive traits and is not segregated with the behavioral effects (Niemiec, Shogren & Wehmeyer, 2017). It involves self-virtue and help people to identify and reflect their own strengths. Character strength is different from talents, understandings and abilities (Schueller et al., 2015). The research was done to identify the resemblance of the strategies and character strength is fully comprised of hope, optimism and future mindedness and orientation (Crossan, Mazutis & Seijts, 2013). There are a certain criteria for character strength. The elements are ubiquity, is the first element and it is identified among all the cultures. Next one is fulfilling, which contributes to self-satisfaction of the individuals. Coming to the next point, it is moral values, which is the value of the rights of the individuals. Next is not to diminish others, followed by non-felicitous opposite, trait like, measurable, distinctiveness, paragons, prodigies, selective absence and lastly institutions (Baer, 2015). These all are associated with character strength and partially with developing well-being and enhancing life satisfaction. The second article finds many determinants that help in evaluating the result of character strength and those are the intervention, life satisfaction, well-being and positive psychology.
The research method used in the first article was evaluating the relation between character strength and its connection to well being of an individual by highlighting the point of life satisfaction, which is the cognitive concept of individual wellbeing (Sokatch, 2017). Life satisfaction is the whole life appraisal of a human being and this is related to less depression and other social and psychological problems. The questions that were taken under consideration of the research was either any one of the character strength play a specific role in life satisfaction and the next question was whether character strength to an extreme level harmful for developing wellbeing among the individuals (Littman-Ovadia & Niemiec, 2016). One of the character strength organizes the others and thus it can be said that one specifies character strength cannot diminish the well-being of the individuals. The method adapted for the research was involving the participants, measuring and surveying with the help of online questionnaires. The result of the research was positive and thus it can be said that yes character strength plays a very efficient role in wellbeing development and life satisfaction of individuals (Niemiec, 2013).
Describing the research area
The second article also proceeded the research using the participants and the measures such as the positive and negative affects schedule, the student’s life satisfaction scale, the Rosenberg self-esteem scale. The process involved two schools of Britain and an intervention program was organized for the research. The result of the research was that positive psychology is efficient in building the strength and wellbeing of the individuals and thus it is very useful. Thus it can be said that the research methods used by both the articles influenced the importance of character strength in developing wellbeing of the individual and gaining life-satisfaction (Lottman, Zawaly & Niemiec, 2017).
Conclusion:
From the above discussion, it can be concluded that positive psychology and traditional psychology are different things however, positive psychology can beat traditional psychology but traditional psychology cannot. Positive psychology deals with positive experience and traditional psychology deals with a specific part of human life especially the traumatic phase. Psychology is different from traditional psychology because it does not deal with a single problem in human life but it involves full emotional section of human life. Positive psychology aims to discuss on improving the lives of people rather than trying to investigate the trauma in someone’s life like traditional psychology. Positive psychology is the study that has diverse approaches towards improving human life. Positive psychology is a challenger against traditional psychology. Character strength is very important for the well-being of an individual. This is because it enhances life satisfaction among the human being. Be it an adolescent or an adult, the impact of character strength is large. It not only enhances their life satisfaction but also has control over the development of well-being among the people. Character strength is comprised of positive traits and is not segregated with the behavioral effects. It involves self-virtue and help people to identify and reflect their own strengths. Character strength is different from skills, understandings and abilities and character strength is one of the most important concerns of positive psychology. Character strength is a disposition of desires and feelings that involves practice of judgment and leads to excellence in human life.
References:
Baer, R. (2015). Ethics, values, virtues, and character strengths in mindfulness-based interventions: a psychological science perspective. Mindfulness, 6(4), 956-969.
Crossan, M., Mazutis, D., & Seijts, G. (2013). In search of virtue: The role of virtues, values and character strengths in ethical decision making. Journal of Business Ethics, 113(4), 567-581.
Gable, S., &Haidt, J. (2005). What (and why) is positive psychology? Review of General Psychology, 9(2), 103–110.
Harzer, C., & Ruch, W. (2013). The application of signature character strengths and positive experiences at work. Journal of Happiness Studies, 14(3), 965-983.
Littman-Ovadia, H., & Niemiec, R. M. (2016). Character strengths and mindfulness as core pathways to meaning in life. In Clinical Perspectives on Meaning (pp. 383-405). Springer International Publishing.
Lottman, T. J., Zawaly, S., & Niemiec, R. (2017). Well-being and well-doing: bringing mindfulness and character strengths to the early childhood classroom and home. In Positive Psychology Interventions in Practice (pp. 83-105). Springer International Publishing.
Niemiec, R. M. (2013). Mindfulness and character strengths. Hogrefe Publishing.
Niemiec, R. M., Shogren, K. A., & Wehmeyer, M. L. (2017). Character strengths and intellectual and developmental disability: a strengths-based approach from positive psychology. Education and Training in Autism and Developmental Disabilities, 52(1), 13.
Oxford, R. L. (2016). Anxious language learners can change their minds: Ideas and strategies from traditional psychology and positive psychology. New insights into language anxiety: Theory, research, and educational implications. Bristol, UK: Multilingual Matters.
Park, N., Peterson, C., & Seligman, M. E. P. (2004). Strengths of Character and Wellbeing. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology,23(5), 603?619.
Proctor, C., Tsukayama, E., Wood, A. M., Maltby, J., Eades, J. F., & Linley, P. A. (2011). Strengths gym: The impact of character strengths?based interventions on the life satisfaction and well?being of adolescents. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 6(5), 377–388.
Schueller, S. M., Jayawickreme, E., Blackie, L. E., Forgeard, M. J., & Roepke, A. M. (2015). Finding character strengths through loss: An extension of Peterson and Seligman (2003). The Journal of Positive Psychology, 10(1), 53-63.
Seligman, M. E., &Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2000). Positive psychology: An introduction. American Psychologist,55(1), 5–14.
Sokatch, A. (2017). Toward a research agenda: building character strengths in school settings.
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