On positive psychology: my worries, views, suggestions and questions

Door: Coert Visser Gepubliceerd op 05 aug, 2010 in de rubriek Ongerubriceerd
Kennisbank onderwerpen: Oplossingsgericht managen

The first purpose of my book review of The Spirit Level, of a few months ago, was, of course, to inform about Richard Wilkinson’s and Kate Pickett’s work on the importance of equality. Briefly, this research shows that people in more equal societies are better off in many ways. The second purpose of my article was to offer a commentary on positive psychology. Part of my commentary is in the review itself but, thanks to some comments and questions by readers, part of it is in the comment section. Occasionaly, people ask me about my views on (the development of) positive psychology, so I thought it might be useful to summarize, in a separate post, what I said in the article.

In the article itself, I offer three worries:

1. I think, independent variables in positive psychology are usually too narrowly chosen by over-emphasizing strengths and virtues as possible causal factors of flourishing and focusing too little on contextual, situational, or structural factors.
2. Also, dependent variables are, in my view, often too narrowly chosen by focusing mostly on subjective well being and too a much lesser extent on flourishing in a broad sense. Flourishing goes beyond happiness or satisfaction with life by also focusing on the contribution and relatedness of individuals to the world around them. People who flourish are highly engaged with their families, work, and communities. They’re driven by a sense of purpose: they know why they get up in the morning.
3. I imply that positive psychology focuses too much on the individual outcomes and too little on outcomes at a system level (organizations, societies).

In the article, I conclude that for positive psychology to thrive, it needs to move beyond a somewhat narrow focus on happiness and strengths and take into account a broader perspective on thriving and its determinants.

In the comment section, I offer the following additional views, suggestions and questions:

Suggestions for broadening the focus of positive psychology:

1. Focus on building knowledge about thriving (/flourishing) while acknowledging that thriving is more than subjective well-being
2. Expand the focus on thriving of groups/ organizations/ communities
3. Put more focus on other determinants of thriving than strengths and happiness, in particular situational determinants
4. Focus more on an idiosyncratic, ‘try + learn’ and doing-what-works approach (as opposed to a high standardization, ‘plan + implement’ and strengths focus (this point is explained here: http://bit.ly/9ljdhF)
5. More actively seek cross-links with psychological research done outside the PP community.

Also, I ask readers to help me find specific empirical positive psychology studies that have been done in the last decade that:

1. have focused on organizational (or community) thriving broadly defined (using dependent variables other than only measures such as subjective well-being, work satisfaction, etc) and
2. have included independent variables other than individual measures (well-being, strengths, personality etc), particularly including situational factors (work design, organizational structure, pay distribution, etc)?

Tags: dependent, Equality, Flourishing, independent, positive-psychology, Strengths, the spirit level, thriving, variables, virtues

• Tweet