Module 1

Positive Psychology
• Martin Seligman & Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi define positive psychology as
“the scientific study of positive human functioning and flourishing on
multiple levels that include the biological, personal, relational, institutional,
cultural, and global dimensions of life.
• According to American Psychological Association (APA), Positive
Psychology is a field of psychological theory and research that focuses on
the psychological states (e.g., contentment, joy), individual traits or 
character strengths (e.g., intimacy, integrity, altruism, wisdom), and social
institutions that enhance subjective well-being and make life most worth
living
• According to Peterson ( 2008) Positive psychology is the scientific study of
what makes life most worth living.
• It studies human thoughts, feelings, and behavior, with a focus on
strengths instead of weaknesses, building the good in life instead of repairing
the bad, and taking the lives of average people up to “great” instead of
focusing solely on moving those who are struggling up to “normal”.
• Positive psychology focuses on the positive events and influences in life,
including:
1.Positive experiences (like happiness, joy, inspiration, and love).
2.Positive states and traits (like gratitude, resilience, and compassion).
3.Positive institutions (applying positive principles within entire organizations
and institutions).
History of Positive Psychology
• Positive psychology emerged during the late twentieth century as a branch of
psychology concerned with the scientific study of wellbeing and the ‘good life’.
• The roots of positive psychology stretch back to the ancient Greeks and Aristotle’s
concern with eudaimonia (often translated from Greek as happiness), intellectual and
moral virtues, and the good life. Also, some of the core elements of positive
psychology such as mindfulness, have roots in ancient Eastern spiritual practices.
• Originally, psychology developed from the investigation of the functions of the brain,
neurological system, cognition, and behavior and their role in the causation and
mitigation of psychopathology and mental illness. This is often referred to as
the disease model.
• Many of the twentieth-century psychological treatments for mental
health problems had roots in the treatment of traumatic psychological
injury of military personnel following the First and Second World
Wars (Pols & Oak, 2007).
• Yet some psychologists became concerned about these treatment
modalities, which required the therapist to act as an aloof expert,
rather than conveying empathy and compassion for their patient.
• During the 1950s and 60s humanistic psychology developed in response to
what the pioneers saw as the reductionist(the idea that complicated behaviors
and phenomena can be better explained by “reducing” them into small, simple
pieces. The goal of reductionism is to make sense of the world around us
rather than simply getting lost in the details.), positivist view of the mind as a
complex mechanism likened to a machine- a stimulus-response mechanism in
behaviorism
• Humanistic psychology championed the holistic study of persons as bio-
psycho-social beings. Abraham Maslow first coined the term “positive
psychology” in his 1954 book “Motivation and Personality.” He proposed that
psychology’s preoccupation with disorder and dysfunction lacked an accurate
understanding of human potential (Maslow, 1954).
• The branch of psychology termed positive psychology was
championed by Martin Seligman in 1998 when he served as President
of the American Psychological Society. The explicit goal was to
further investigate human potential to counter the dominance of
psychopathology and establish a science of human flourishing
(Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000).
 Founder: Martin Seligman
• Martin Seligman is a pioneer of Positive Psychology (the term itself was
coined by Abraham Maslow), not simply because he has a systematic
theory about why happy people are happy, but because he uses the
scientific method to explore happiness.
• Through the use of exhaustive questionnaires, Seligman found that the
most satisfied, upbeat people were those who had discovered and
exploited their unique combination of “signature strengths,” such as
humanity, temperance and persistence.
• Seligman’s conclusion is that happiness has three dimensions that can
be cultivated: the Pleasant Life, the Good Life, and the Meaningful Life.
• The Pleasant Life is realized if we learn to savor and appreciate such
basic pleasures as companionship, the natural environment and our
bodily needs. We can remain pleasantly stuck at this stage or we can
go on to experience the
• The Good Life, which is achieved through discovering our unique
virtues and strengths and employing them creatively to enhance our
lives.
• Consequently the final stage is the Meaningful Life, in which we find a
deep sense of fulfilment by employing our unique strengths for a
purpose greater than ourselves. Martin Seligman emphasizes that we
should take care of ourselves and nurture our own strength and at the
same time downplay individuality and emphasize sacrifice for the
greater purpose.
 Learned Helplessness
• In psychology, learned helplessness is a state that occurs after a person has
experienced a stressful situation repeatedly. They come to believe that they are
unable to control or change the situation, so they do not try — even when
opportunities for change become available.
• Born in 1942, Seligman is credited as the father of Positive Psychology and its efforts
to scientifically explore human potential. In Authentic Happiness (2002), he explains
that his journey towards this new field in psychology started off in a study on learned
helplessness in dogs.
• During the course of the study, he noticed that, in spite of numerous configurations,
some dogs would not quit and did not “learn” helplessness. This intrigued and excited
the self-proclaimed pessimist and he drew parallels between dogs and learned
helplessness with depression in humans (Seligman 2002, p. 20-23).
• This shaped his work, and he has since become one of the most often-cited
psychologists not only in positive psychology but psychology in general.
• Once a person having this experience discovers that they cannot control events around them, they lose motivation.
Even if an opportunity arises that allows the person to alter their circumstances, they do not take action.
• Individuals experiencing learned helplessness are often less able to make decisions.

• Three key features of Learned helplessness:-

1.becoming passive in the face of trauma

2.difficulty learning that responses can control trauma
3.an increase in stress levels
• In 1967, Prof. Seligman and Prof. Steven F. Maier first described their theory
of learned helplessness
• The researchers conducted studies on dogs, in which they exposed the anima
ls to a series of electric shocks.

• The dogs that could not control the shocks eventually showed signs of depre
ssion and anxiety. Those that could press a lever to stop the shocks did not.

• In follow-up research, the dogs that could not control the shocks in the first e
xperiment did not even try to avoid the shocks, despite the fact that they coul
d have done so by jumping over a barrier. They had learned to become helpl
ess.

• Many years later, however, Prof. Maier conducted neuroscientific research th

at suggested that the dogs did not, in fact, learn helplessness — instead, they
had not learned control.
 Impact on children
• Often, learned helplessness begins in childhood.
• When caregivers do not respond appropriately to a child’s need for help, the child may learn that they
cannot change their situation. If this occurs regularly, the state of learned helplessness may persist into
adulthood.
• For example, children with a history of prolonged abuse and neglect  learned helplessness and feelings
of powerlessness.

Some characteristics of learned helplessness in children include:

• low self-esteem
• low motivation
• low expectations of success
• less persistence
• not asking for help
• ascribing a lack of success to a lack of ability
• ascribing success to factors beyond their control, such as luck
In childhood, learned helplessness often presents itself at school. If a
child studies hard in order to do well in their schoolwork but ultimately
do poorly, they may feel helpless and hopeless.
Children may avoid learned helplessness by building resilience. Among
the many factors that can contribute to resilience are a positive
attachment to caregivers, humor, and independence.
 Impact on adults
• In adults, learned helplessness presents as a person not using or learning adaptive responses to
difficult situations.
• People in this state typically accept that bad things will happen and that they have little control
over them. They are unsuccessful in resolving issues even when there is a potential solution.
• Below are some examples of situations that can lead to learned helplessness in adults:
1. Continuing to smoke despite several attempts to quit may cause a person to believe that they
will always need to smoke.
2. Being unable to lose weight after making various dietary or lifestyle changes may cause a
person to believe it will never happen and give up trying.
3. Leaving a situation of domestic abuse can be very difficult. Some people having this
experience tend to leave before doing so for good. A person may believe they can never
escape the situation, even when help and support are available.
 4 Important Personalities linked with the field of Positive Psychology

1. William James
• William James was a philosopher, physician, and psychologist, and the first
educator to offer a psychology course in the United States.
• He was concerned about why some people seemed able to thrive and
overcome adversity, while others developed mental health problems. He
argued that understanding subjective experience is key to the investigation of
optimal human functioning.
• He combined pragmatic and functionalist perspectives to link mind and body
and investigate the objective and observable features of inner experience.
Many consider James to be America’s first positive psychologist (Froh, 2004)
because of his interest in whole person functioning and the full range of
subjective experience beyond the confines of psychopathology (Froh, 2004).
2. Abraham Maslow
• While the ‘third force’ of humanistic psychology played a vital role in providing
the foundational concepts of positive psychology, the greatest influence
was Abraham Maslow.
• In fact, the term “positive psychology” was first coined by Maslow, in his book
“Motivation and Personality” (Maslow, 1954). Maslow disliked psychology’s
preoccupation with disorder and dysfunction, arguing that it lacked an accurate
understanding of human potential.
• Maslow argued that while the former psychological approaches of psychoanalysis
and behaviorism revealed much about human shortcomings and mental health
problems, they neglected to investigate human virtues and aspirations (Maslow,
1954).
3. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
• Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi was born in Hungary in 1934 when, like many others, his family
was deeply affected by the Second World War.
• His father was appointed the Hungarian Ambassador to Rome, but when Hungary became
communist in 1949 resigned from his position and opened a restaurant. The regime
responded by stripping the family of their Hungarian citizenship, and the young Mihaly
dropped out of school to work in the family business (Nuszpl, 2018).
• Following these adverse experiences, Csikszentmihalyi developed an interest in
psychology after seeing Carl Jung give a talk in Switzerland on the traumatized psyches
of European people following the Second World War. His interest led him to migrate to
study psychology in the USA. The University of Chicago awarded him his PhD in 1965
where he became a professor in 1969.
• Csikszentmihalyi had a love of 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. He made it his
life’s work to scientifically investigate the different ways of achieving
flow as an expression of optimal human experience (Csikszentmihalyi,
1990).
• Csikszentmihalyi’s studies gained much popular interest and have
been applied widely to the study of creativity, productivity, and
happiness at both an individual and organizational level.
• In positive psychology, a flow state, also known colloquially as being in the zone, is the
mental state in which a person performing some activity is fully immersed in a feeling
of energized focus, full involvement, and enjoyment in the process of the activity.
Some signs that a person is in a state of flow include:
• Focus: It is not easy to distract people in flow from their task. They may not be
thinking about anything else. If a person or event interrupts someone in flow, they may
feel annoyed.
• Lack of self-consciousness: Flow is associated with a decrease in “self-referential
thinking,” which means that a person in this state is unlikely to be thinking about
themselves, their performance, or how others might see them.
• Enjoyment: People may enjoy the task, encouraging them to immerse themselves in it.
• Persistence: Some evidence suggests that being in flow can offset the frustration of a
difficult task, allowing people to keep going.
4. Christopher Peterson
• Christopher Peterson was Professor of psychology at the University of
Michigan and the former chair of the Department of Clinical
Psychology.
• He was the co-author of Character Strengths and Virtues with Martin
Seligman (Peterson & Seligman, 2004) and is noted for his work in
the study of strengths, virtues, optimism, hope, character, and
wellbeing.
 Assumptions of Positive Psychology
• A major assumption of positive psychology is that the field of
psychology has become unbalanced. (Simonton & Baumeister, 2005).
• Human goodness and excellence are as authentic as disorders and
distress and therefore deserve equal attention from mental health
practitioners. Its time to challenge the disease model (Maddux,2002)
• Human beings have the potential for good and that we are motivated
to pursue a good life (Linley & Joseph,2006)
 Goals of Positive Psychology
• To refocus on  the entire field of psychology.
• To find elements of positive psychology represented in so many different areas of
psychology, from physiological to clinical psychology.
• To restore balance within the discipline of Psychology which was too much
focused on negative aspects.
• To catalyze a change in psychology from a preoccupation only with repairing the
worst things in life to also building the best qualities in life.
• To improve understanding of positive human behaviors to balance the negative focus
of much mainstream research & theory
• To develop an empirically-based conceptual understanding and language for
describing healthy human functioning that parallels our classification and
understanding of mental illness
.
• To boost present well being.
• To prevent future problems.
• To make life worthwhile.
 Activity-Positive Relationships Intervention

This intervention is flexible and straightforward. It involves some

structured open-ended questions that students answer. The questions are
insightful, thought-provoking, and look something like this:
• Think of a family member you admire and mention why
• Mention one strength that your friend has
• Write about someone who has struggled in life and have come out of it
successfully
• For the person you mentioned above, write about the skills that you
think helped him fight stress and get his happiness back