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The document discusses the emergence of positive psychology as a discipline and its focus on human strengths and optimal functioning, in contrast to the traditional deficit-based approach of psychology. Positive psychology emerged in 1998 under Martin Seligman and aims to study factors that allow individuals and communities to thrive, focusing on what is right along with what is wrong. It represents a shift from the medical model to a strengths model.

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14 views3 pages

Notes 1

The document discusses the emergence of positive psychology as a discipline and its focus on human strengths and optimal functioning, in contrast to the traditional deficit-based approach of psychology. Positive psychology emerged in 1998 under Martin Seligman and aims to study factors that allow individuals and communities to thrive, focusing on what is right along with what is wrong. It represents a shift from the medical model to a strengths model.

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Introduction to positive psychology: Background and emergence of the discipline

Psychology (APA, 2024): The study of the mental process and behavior. Psychology consists
of diverse scientific discipline comprising several major branches of research (e.g.,
experimental, biological, cognitive, lifespan developmental, personality, social, clinical,
industrial/organizational, school and educational, human factors, health, neuropsychology,
cross-cultural).
• Traditionally, psychology involves the study of mental disorders
• The term psychology is often used in the context of disorders and symptoms such as
depression, anxiety, suicide, addiction, phobia, schizophrenia and anxiety
• Over the years, psychology has largely focused on disorders and treatment, but not optimal
performance, well-being and ways to enhance individual’s lives
• Numerous studies on why children of parents diagnosed with mental disorders inherit the
same disorders or why children born into difficult conditions do not develop healthy
adjustment
• Not as much focus on children of parents diagnosed with mental disorders who do not
inherit the same disorders or children born into conditions of war of poverty who develop
healthy adjustment This above-mentioned approach is now referred to as the deficit
based/pathological/medical approach.
• Prof. Martin Seligman, the founder of positive psychology drew attention to this deficit-
based approach in 1998 when he was elected as the President of the American Psychological
Association • He pointed out how after the world wars, the focus of psychologists had shifted
almost entirely towards treating disease and pathology, as a consequence of conditions such
as phantom limbs, somatoform disorders and post-traumatic stress disorder that soldiers
reported
• Thus symptoms became the priority of researchers instead of memory, learning, happiness
and other areas that did not focus on disease or pathology. This trend towards studying
pathology continued to be dominant for many decades.
• Seligman’s efforts led to a change in perspective from How can we reduce suffering? to
How can we become lastingly happier?
• This movement came to be known as the positive psychology movement while the change
in perspective came to be known as the change from the deficit/medical model to the
strengths mode
There have been 70,856 articles on depression from 1887 to 2000 versus 2,958 on
happiness (Myers, 2000)

Negative Emotions Positive Emotions

9,760 on “anger” 1,021 on “joy”


65,531 on “anxiety” 4,129 on “life satisfaction”

79,154 on “depression” 3,522 on “happiness”

20,868 on “fear” 781 on “courage

207,110 on “treatment” 31,019 on “prevention”

Barrier in the study of happiness: “Ice Age” brain:


 Why have we focused so much on negatives i.e. failures, deficits, weakness and
sufferings?
 Negative selectivity bias: Individuals pay more attention to negative emotions and
events than positive ones
 “Bad is stronger than good” - Baumeister, Bratslavsky, Finkenauer, and Vohs (2001).
 “Because our brain evolved during a time of ice, flood, and famine we have a
catastrophic brain…looking for what’s wrong. The problem is, that – this approach
worked in that era. It favored people then, but it doesn’t work in the modern world”
(Seligman, 2005)
 Fixing what is wrong may not lead to well-being. Absence of symptoms does not
indicate a sense of well-being just as the diagnosis of disorder does not mean that the
individual is entirely dysfunctional.
Positive psychology
 Question raised by Seligman as the President of the APA: Can happiness be attained
simply by fixing what is wrong?
 Martin Seligman’s presidential address of the American Psychological Association
(1998) – introduction of the term positive psychology
 Focusing on “what is right” along with “what is wrong” - that is, treatment of
disorders + fulfilling potential
 This movement came to be known as the positive psychology movement
 Positive psychology is the “scientific study of optimal human functioning which aims
to discover and promote the factors that allow individuals and communities to thrive”
(Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000, p.5)
 Change in perspective came to be known as the change from the deficit/medical
model to the strengths model
 Positive psychology works with the belief that people want to lead meaningful and
fulfilling lives, to cultivate what is best within themselves, and to enhance their life
experiences.
 Humanistic and positive psychology both focus on similar concerns, such as the
frequently neglected view from psychology of what is healthy and growth-oriented.
 Positive psychology is not a replacement of traditional psychology rather it is
intended as a supplement (Seligman & Pawelski, 2017).
 Positive psychology (PP) is different from positive thinking: (i) PP grounded in
empirical and replicable scientific study and (ii) positive thinking urges positivity on
us for all times and places, but positive psychology does not.
 In 1992, there were 216 Positive Psychology–related articles published, and this
number steadily grew through 2011, when there were 2,300 articles, a 10- fold
increase (Seligman, 2019).

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