PRACTICAL APPLICATION OF

POSTIVE PSYCHOLOGY TO
PUBLIC POLICIES AND
PRACTICE
Arya. M.P.
 What is applied positive
psychology ??????
 Scientific study of the human
flourishing, and. an applied approach
to optimal functioning
 It has also been defined as study of
strengths and virtues enable
individuals, communities and
organizations to thrive
 Positive Psychology has experienced
extraordinary growth In past decade.
 Suggesting new strategies for
improving everyday life, health care
etc.
 According to Lomas, Hefferon, &
Ivtzan, the future of positive
psychology lies in recognizing it as an
intrinsically applied discipline
 central aim of this science is to
generate positive intervention, design
tools, activities, and practices
 as well as generate recommendations
to promote and enhance wellbeing in
every context that lends itself to its
applications
 Today positive psychology perspectives
are evident in many areas of human
endeavor. Some of those include:
education
public health

healthcare

work place
Positive psychology in
health
Tailoring positive psychology to treat
depressed individuals

 Scott
 What can positive psychology do for
Scott
 Traditionally equated mental health
with absence of mental illness
 A number of different therapies uses
aspects of positive psychology.
 Well being therapy

Giovanni Fava at University of

Bologana developed
Help to recover from depression and
other affective disorder by
focus on and promote the positive, as
well as alleviating negative aspects of
life.
 Much like CBT patient keeps journal to
keep track and recognize positive
events occur each day
 Ultimate goal to challenge and
eventually change negative ways of
thinking
 Positive psychotherapy
 Seligmen and colleagues developed
 by building positive emotions,
character strengths and sense of
meaning
 Uses combination of 12 exercises to
practice individually or in groups
 Using your signature strengths
 Three good things
 Gratitude visit
Integrating positive psychology
in practice
 Reverse the focus from negative to
positive
use techniques aimed at
shifting attention to more positive
aspects of life.
e.g. take a mental spot light each
night,
compile ‘I did it’ lists instead of
what need to be done
 Develop a language of strength
people who use their strengths
regularly will function better in life.
 Balance negative and positive
identify and foster the positive
for themselves and other in order to
maintain a balance to the negative
 Build strategies that foster hope
it increase the person’s ability to
deal with adversity and overcome a
challenge.
 By reducing cope of problem by
breaking down into components that
can be tackled one at a time.
 Identify skills and coping mechanism
that enable someone to overcome
particular challenge.
POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY
IN EDUCATION
 According to Seligman positive education
is response to gap between what people
want for their children and what schools
teach.
 Positive education wants to bring
positive psychology’s goals of well-
being and mental health support into
school setting
Happy teacher = Happy class
 Emotional learning
 Protective vehicle to prevent
problematic youth behavior and
promote mental health and well being
 Some activities for emotional learning
 Identifying personal sources of
happiness
 Expressing gratitude
 Free expression of different feelings
in movement, art, speech, and facial
expression.
 Describing happy memories
 Morning meeting
 Academic choice
Positive psychology in
work place
 Positive psychology can be used to
increase happiness and satisfaction
within the workforce.
 Many business leaders are starting to
acknowledge that instilling theses
psychological techniques in the work
place is imperative.
 PERMA in the work place
 Martin Seligman developed evidence
based model for wellbeing known as
PERMA,
Positive Emotions
Engagement
Relationships
Meaning
Accomplishment
Positive emotions
 Some organizations adopted these
ideas in innovative ways, by listing
‘appreciations as standing agenda’
 Individuals can nominate something or
someone for which they are grateful
 Eg; my gratitude is for Sarah. Last
week she stayed back to show me
how to complete my work sheet.
Engage
 Formula for building staff engagement
is to maximize extent to which people
are using and applying their strengths
 Staff meeting with an opportunity to
share success stories big and small
 Give people opportunity to share their
success
Create meaning

 Meaning refers to a purposeful

existence
 In work environment when there is a
shared sense of purpose staff are
more likely to feel satisfied with their
job.
 Adam Grant – work with call center
staff.
 When people see how their effort
have a genuine impact on the lives of
other, even mundane work become
more rewarding.
Accomplishment
 Result of realistic goals that are
supported by specific actions.
 Having accomplishment in work
critical to push ourselves to thrive and
flourish
 Can build achievement in people by
involving a person’s strength in future
discussions about organizational
goals.
 Asking strength based questions can
help employees feel respected and
valued.
 Tell about previous achievement which
you are genuinely proud.
 Which top strengths do you think helped
you achieve this impressive outcome
 By offering positivity, engagement,
connection, meaning and
acknowledgement, can create a
motivated work force where people
want to be there, and want to improve
the company bit-by-bit.
References
Nakamura,J., Csikszentmihalayi, &
Donaldson,S.I. (2011) Applied positive
psychology improving everyday life,
health schools, work, and society.
New York: Psychology Press