Positive psychology is the study of what makes people happy.Positive psychology is concerned with how people are happy, optimistic and feel a general well-being in all areas of life. Rather than focusing on what is wrong, such as mental illness, it seeks to understand and promote all that allows personal fulfillment:
At the first level, the areas of study of Positive Psychology are represented by the experiences of well-being and global satisfaction of life: from the perception of happiness and the existential flow condition, and the feelings of hope and optimism projected in the future.
The person is valued in its positive features :
- the bravery,
- perseverance,
- the wisdom,
- the talent,
- the ability to love and forgive,
- the ability to live aesthetic sensitivity and originality.
At the level of group and community life, the themes of inquiry move on civic virtues :
- active citizenship,
- altruism,
- sense of social responsibility and justice,
- tolerance,
- moderation,
- ethics of work
Advantages and Purposes of Positive Psychology
At the individual’s level, Positive Psychology enhances subjective experiences.
In perspective:
- Wellness
- contentment
- Satisfaction
In perspective:
- Flow – Flow experience
- Speed
Future prospects:
- Hope
- Optimism
Positive psychology therefore does not highlight the individual positive traits : ability to love and work, courage, interpersonal skills, spirituality, orientation to the future, talent, wisdom.
At the group level it focuses on civic virtues and characteristics that characterize a good citizen: responsibility, altruism, moderation, civilization, tolerance, and ethical work. Fundamental to this approach is the concept of prevention. The disease-based model that allowed work only on weaknesses was not helpful in suggesting effective theories on disease prevention. The need for a science, positive psychology based on strength and resilience, is increasingly imposed.
Let’s look at it briefly, before discussing them one by one in subsequent articles:
1. Wisdom and Knowledge
The human faculty of seeking and pursuing the discovery, the truth and the knowledge and connecting their experience and those of their kind to a wider meaning and meaning
2. Courage
Human capacity to act despite fear, overcoming and transcending it while facing the inevitable obstacles and adversity in pursuit of its goals and goals.
3. Humanity
It is Relation-ally fundamental human virtue. It able to connect, to desire good and to support with our actions, intentions and feelings other beings.
4. Justice
The human ability to seek and ensure maximum public good through the best forms of coexistence and respect for fundamental individual rights
5. Temperance
The human capacity to be “self-effacing” without being dragged and passively governed by instinctive impulses and excesses, directing and expressing our qualities and talents
6. Transcendence
It is the human faculty to go beyond the sense of limitation of one’s self, connecting to a wider and more profound reality.
The main critics of positive psychology
Positive psychology is an approach that is very marked by the culture of North America. It must therefore be seen whether it applies to other cultures. It is also a recent discipline that has yet to prove its worth at the theoretical level and in the reliability of its studies. Nevertheless, it begins to have solid foundations and carries a powerful message that whatever the circumstances of our lives, the subjective feeling of happiness is not just the result of chance.
