Historical Roots of Positive Psychology (1).pdf

Historical Roots of
Positive Psychology
Aqsashahid

• After the Second World War, the focus of Psychology was on treating abnormal behaviors and the
resulting mental illnesses.
• Dissatisfied with this approach, humanist psychologists, such as Abraham Maslow, Carl Rogers,
and Eric Fromm helped renew interest in the more positive aspects of human nature.
• This revelation of developing what was right, rather than fixating on what was wrong, sparked
what Seligman would go on to promote during his career as APA president - that we should teach
our children and ourselves to look at our strengths rather than our weaknesses.
• Positive psychology can be viewed as the “fourth wave” in the evolution of psychology, the first
3 waves being, respectively, the disease model, behaviorism, and humanistic psychology.
• This approach contrasts with how, in its early years (the second half the 19 th century and the first
half of the 20 th), the practice of psychology focused mainly on cure and treatment of psychic
ailments, which is a decidedly negative focus.

• Positive Psychology, as the name suggests, is psychology with a positive orientation. The science
behind what makes humans well.
• It does not imply that the rest of psychology is unhelpful or all negative and, in fact, the term
“psychology as usual” has been coined to denote the rest of psychology.

The Four Waves of Psychology
• To understand the roots of positive psychology, we have to revisit the three waves of psychology
that came before that. After all, it was not until recently that the field of psychology began
expanding its research criteria to study what makes people thrive, instead of what makes people
sick.
The 1st W ave: The Disease M ode
• During the second half of the 19 th century and the early part of the 20th, Psychology was
concerned with curing mental disorders, such as schizophrenia and human complexes of various
kinds (inferiority, power etc).
• Over time, this disease focus pushed psychology towards the dark recesses of the human mind
and away from the deeper well- springs of human energy and potential. As highlighted by Martin
Seligman, in Positive Psychology, the negative focus of psychology resulted in three major
drawbacks for the field:

1. Psychologists became victimologists (they forgot that people make choices and have
responsibility);
2. They forgot about improving normal lives and high talent (the mission to make relatively
untroubled people happier, more fulfilled, more productive), and;
3. In their rush to repair the damage, i t never occurred to them to develop interventions to make
people happier.
The 2nd W ave: Behaviorism
• Skinner of Harvard University was the originator, along with Watson and Pavlov, of the behavioral
approach in Psychology. Skinner believed that free will was an illusion, and human behavior was
largely dependent on the consequences of our previous actions.

• I f a particular behavior attracted the r ight type of reinforcement i t had a high probability of being
repeated, and i f , on the other hand, the behavior resulted in punishment i t had a good chance of
not being repeated.
• This theory undoubtedly has a lot of merits, particularly the idea of operant conditioning -
influencing and eliciting desired behavior, through a well -conceived reward system .
• However, the manipulation of behavior that such a properly structured reward system allows, is
open to gross abuse by autocrats and dictators in terms of oppressing their subjects. And not just
in society at large, but in the workplace as well. Staddon was among Skinner’ s major critics.
• Criticisms of his theory notwithstanding, Skinner stands tall as a brilliant psychologist and prolific
writer. With 21 books and 180 articles to his credit, he was voted the most influential psychologist
of the 20th century in a 2002 survey.

The 3rd Wave: Humanistic Psychology
• This wave is known for its two major strands of thought – existentialist psychology (Sartre) and
humanistic psychology (Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers).
• According to Sartre, every human being is responsible for working out his identity and his l i fe’ s
meaning through the interaction between himself and his surroundings. No one else can do it for
him, least of all a non- existent God. For this reason, meaning is something truly unique to each
person – separate and independent.

• Uncontrollable anxiety would be inevitable, particularly in the absence of faith in a supernatural
being, an idea rejected by existentialism. This anxiety is recognized in psychotherapy as
“existential anxiety” and has been of major therapeutic concern of many leading psychologists,
particularly Victor Frankl, the originator of logo- therapy.
• There is a considerable divergence of views on the question of “What is life’ s meaning?” and,
clearly, each individual needs to work it out for themselves, with their own unique experience and
surroundings.

The 5 basic principles of humanistic psychology are:
• Human beings, as human, supersede the sum of their parts. They cannot be reduced to
components.
• Human beings have their existence in a uniquely human context.
• Human beings are aware and are aware of being aware - i.e. they are conscious. Human
consciousness always includes an awareness of oneself in the context of other people;
• Human beings have the ability to make choices and therefore have responsibility.
• Human beings are intentional - they aim at goals, are aware that they cause future events, and
seek meaning, value, and creativity.

The 4th W ave: Positive Psychology
• Positive psychology is psychology with a positive orientation, concerned with authentic happiness
and a good life.
• Humanistic psychologist Abraham Maslow maintained that psychology itself does not have an
accurate understanding of the human potential and that the field tends not to raise the bar high
enough with respect to maximum attainment.

• While the previous waves of psychology focused on human flaws, overcoming deficiencies,
avoiding pain, and escape from unhappiness, positive psychology focuses on well- being,
contentment, excitement, cheerfulness, the pursuit of happiness, and meaning in life.

The 5 Founding Fathers: Developing Positive Psychology
• In 1998 , Martin Seligman was elected President of the APA and it was then that Positive
Psychology became the theme of his term as president. He is widely seen as the father of
contemporary positive psychology.
• However, while most people see Seligman as the face of Positive Psychology, he didn’ t start the
field alone and was not the first ‘positive psychologist.’
• There have been many influencers which have contributed to this new era of psychology.

William James
• James was a philosopher, physician, and psychologist, and he was the f i rst educator to offer a
Psychology course in the United States. He argued that in order to thoroughly study a person’ s
optimal functioning, one has to take in how they personally experience something, otherwise
known as their subjective experience.
• Despite this, many consider James to be America’ s “first positive psychologist ” because of his
deep interest in the subjectivity of a person.

Abraham Maslow
• While the entire 3rd Wave of Humanistic Psychology played a vital role in providing Positive
Psychology with foundational concepts, there was no greater influence from the approach than
Abraham Maslow.
• In fact, the term “positive psychology” was first coined by Maslow, in his 1954 book “Motivation &
Personality” Maslow did not like how psychology concerned itself mostly with disorder and
dysfunction, arguing that it did not have an accurate understanding of human potential.
• He emphasized how psychology successfully shows our negative s ide by revealing much about our
illnesses and shortcomings, but not enough of our virtues or aspirations.

Martin Seligman
• Seligman is an American Psychologist, educator, and author of self- help books. He is famous for
his experiments and theory of learned helplessness, as well as for being the founder of Positive
Psychology.
• His work in learned helplessness and pessimistic attitudes garnered an interest in optimism, which
led to his work with Christopher Peterson to create a positive side to the Diagnostic and
Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM).
• In their research, they looked at different cultures over time to create a list of virtues that are
highly valued and included it in ”Character strength and virtues” in the DSM: wisdom/ knowledge,
courage, justice, humanity, and temperance.

• In 1996 , he was elected President of the American Psychological Association and the central
theme he chose for his term as president was positive psychology. He wanted mental health to be
more than just the “ absence of i l lness” and ushered a new era that focused on what makes people
feel happy and fulfilled.
• Today he is the director of the Positive Psychology Center at the University of Pennsylvania.

Mihaly
• was born in Hungary in 1934 , and like many other people of that time, he was deeply affected by
the Second World War. He was stripped from his family and friends as a child and was put in an
Italian prison and it was there he had his first idea of working with flow and optimal experience.
• He had an affinity for painting, noting that the act of creating was sometimes more important
than the finished work itself. This led to his fascination with what he called the flow state, and he
made it his life’ s work to scientifically identify the different methods through which one could
achieve such a state.
• His studies gained much popular interested. Today he is considered one of the founders of
positive psychology.

Christopher Peterson
• Christopher Peterson was the professor of Psychology at the University of Michigan and the
former chair of the Clinical Psychology department.
• He was the co- author of Character Strengths and Virtues with Seligman and is noted for his work
in the study of optimism, hope, character, and well- being.

Influential Positive Psychology Researchers
• The following researchers deserve a special mention. However, there are so many positive
psychology researchers whose work is shaping the future of positive psychology.
Albert Bandura
• Albert Bandura’ s self efficacy theory originated from his social- cognitive theory. It relates to a
person’ s perception of their ability to reach a goal and the belief that one is capable of
performing it in a certain way in order to reach them. This concept has been of great impotence
and use in positive psychology.

Donald Clifton
• Seligman stated that Clifton followed a similar path that he did when he came up with Strengths-
based psychology. He studied successful individuals and wanted to know what they did right to
achieve top performance.
• His work gave employees solid recommendations on how to find a fulfilling career that is suitable
for them. He was honored in 2002 by the American Psychological Association with a Presidential
Commendation as the Father of strength based psychology and he has been called the
“grandfather of Positive Psychology”.

Deci and Ryan
• The theory of human motivation known as Self- Determination Theory was developed in 2000 by
Deci, professor in the Department of Clinical and Social Sciences at the University of Rochester,
New York, and Ryan, clinical psychologist and Professor at the Institute for Positive Psychology
and Education at the Australian Catholic University in Sydney, Australia.
• Their grounding work on self determination theory updated the hierarchy of needs originally
identified by Maslow and found that human motivation is founded in three major needs:
autonomy, competence, and relatedness (connecting to other people).

Diener
• Dr. Ed Diener, aka “Dr. Happiness”, is a leading researcher in Positive Psychology who coined the
term “ subjective well being ” as the aspect of happiness that can be measured scientifically. His
argument that there is a strong genetic component to happiness has led to a huge amount of
data studying the internal and external conditions of happiness and how one can change it.
• Diener even researched the relationship between income and well -being, as well as cultural
influences on well- being.
• His publications have been cited over 98 ,000 times and his fundamental research on the subject is
what earned him his nickname. He has worked with researchers Kahneman and Seligman and is a
senior scientist for the Gallup Organization.

Carol Dweck
• Dweck conducted research on the notion of growth vs. fixed mindset. It has been used with
parents, teams, students, entrepreneurs, and business leaders. It is a positive psychology tool that
is used widely and praised highly, bringing people more interest to the world of positive
psychology.

Al-Ghazali & Happiness
• Abu Hamid al- Ghazali (1058 -1111 A. D.) was not only one of the great Islamic philosophers, he is
also considered to be, after the Prophet Muhammad, the foremost authority on Islamic theology.
• What most people don’ t know, however, is that al- Ghazali wrote extensively on the topic of
happiness. Indeed, his monumental Revival of the Religious Sciences , which runs over 6000
pages and 4 volumes, was reprised as a shorter text in Persian, labeled the Alchemy of
Happiness.

• In this we see some of his core ideas: that happiness consists in the transformation of the self,
and that this transformation consists in the realization that one is primarily a spiritual being. The
ultimate ecstasy, al- Ghazali contends, is not found in any physical thing, but rather lies in
discovering through personal experience one’s identity with the Ultimate Reality.

The Alchemy of Happiness
• In the Alchemy of Happiness , al- Ghazali begins by writing that “He who knows himself is truly
happy.” Self- knowledge consists in realizing that we have a heart or spirit which is absolutely
perfect, but which has been covered with dust by the accumulation of passions derived from the
body and its animal nature.
• The essence of oneself is likened to a perfect mirror which if polished would reveal one’ s true
divine nature. The key to this polishing is the elimination of selfish desires and the adoption of a
contrary desire to do what is right in all aspects of one’ s life. As he writes, “the aim of moral
discipline is to purify the heart from the rust of passion and resentment till, like a clear mirror, it
reflects the light of God.”

• Such a task is not easy, thus it would seem that genuine happiness is not a state most people can
attain. Indeed, al- Ghazali emphasizes that only a few people have attained this supreme
happiness, which is the ecstasy of union with the divine. These people are the prophets, which
appear in all times and places, as messengers to remind mankind of their true purpose and their
ultimate goal.
• The prophets are those who have succeeded in cleansing their inner mirrors of all the rust and
dirt accumulated by bodily desires and comparisons with others. As a result, they can see in their
waking moments what other people only see haphazardly in their dreams, and they receive an
insight into the nature of things through an immediate flash of intuition.

• He points out that there are different faculties within the soul, and that a corresponding happiness
is connected with each faculty. Each part of the soul delights in that for which it has been
created. But the highest function of the soul is the perception of truth; hence it is the greatest
happiness one can obtain. Al- Ghazali uses an analogy to describe this; one would be much
happier to meet the King of a country than its Prime Minister. Similarly, one should be much
happier to discover the Ultimate Reality than some conditional lesser truth.

• In a similar vein, al- Ghazali writes that unhappiness is created by enslavement to desire and the
belief that one should satisfy only one’ s own desires (as governed by base instincts and
appetites). He maintains that everyone perceives, even in that bewildering state, that something
is amiss, that we are living an inauthentic life that needs correction.

Al- Ghazali teaches us the following about achieving true happiness:
• Happiness comes from Self- Knowledge, the knowledge that we have a heart or spirit that is
originally perfect but has become obscured by passions and desires.
• Happiness depends on our faculties: if we exercise our higher faculties (like Reason,
Imagination), we will be happier than if we exercise our lower ones (mere physical pleasures)
• There are examples in history of truly happy people, and they were “prophets” - people who have
attained a perfect union with Ultimate Reality.

• We are happy to the degree to which we can emulate these prophets
• We are all born with a “knowing pain in the soul,” which causes us to seek happiness, but most of
us seek substitute pleasures deriving from the body which cannot resolve a pain that is
essentially spiritual.

Al-Farabi’s concept of Happiness “Sa’ada”
• Although Alfarabi makes a distinction between earthly happiness and supreme
happiness, he makes no further mention of earthly happiness in the rest of his book.
Earthly happiness is necessary in this life for the attainment of supreme happiness in
the afterlife, yet it is clearly incomplete and secondary to supreme happiness.

• Happiness to Alfarabi is the absolute good. It is the good that is desired for its own
sake where there is nothing greater to achieve. Achieving happiness is the purpose of
l ife. Alfarabi makes happiness the reason for human existence. He expressly states that
God created us to achieve happiness, the ultimate perfection. To Alfarabi, anything that
helps a person achieve happiness is good and anything that obstructs a person from
achieving happiness is evil.
• Happiness is achieved when the soul of the person reaches perfection, in which it needs
no material substance to exist. One need not only comprehend and be conscious about
happiness; one must also desire happiness and make it the purpose of life. If one' s
desire for happiness is weak and one has a different purpose in life, the result will be
evil.

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