Most psychologists believe it began in 1998, when Martin Seligman chose it as the subject for his term as president of the American Psychological Association, although the term traces its origins to Maslow in his 1954 book Motivation and Personality. Seligman emphasized that clinical psychology had been consumed solely by mental illness, echoing Maslow’s comments. Research in positive psychology could be traced back to 4 PA Linley et al. origins of psychology, as in the writings of William James on the healthy mind. Indeed, views reflecting humanism can be found in the work of William James, John Dewey, and G. Stanley Hall. William James argued that to thoroughly study optimal human functioning, one has to consider the subjective experience of an individual. Because of that belief, some psychologists consider James to be America’s first positive psychologist.
In his presidential address to the American Psychological Association in 1906, William James asked why some people were able to use their resources to the best of their ability and others were not. Positive psychology has common interests with parts of humanistic psychology and its emphasis on the fully functioning person, self-actualization, and the study of healthy individuals. Maslow lamented psychology’s preoccupation with disorder and dysfunction. The term first appeared in Maslow’s book Motivation and Personality. In this book, Maslow argues that psychology itself does not have an accurate understanding of human potential, and that the field tends not to raise the proverbial bar high enough for peak achievement.
The first summit took place in 1999. The First International Conference on the subject took place in 2002. In 2009, just last year, the First World Congress on the subject took place. As I mentioned earlier, this science finds its roots in the humanistic psychology of the 20th century. Earlier influences on him came from philosophical and religious sources. The ancient Greeks had many schools of thought. During the Renaissance individualism began to be valued. Utilitarian philosophers, such as John Stuart Mill, believed that moral actions are those actions that maximize happiness for the greatest number of people, and that an empirical science of happiness determines which actions are moral. Thomas Jefferson and other Democrats believed that life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are inalienable rights and warrant the overthrow of the government. The Romantics valued individual emotional expression and sought their true emotional self, which was not hindered by social norms.
To summarize and add more detail, most psychologists agree that its advent dates back to Martin EP Seligman’s 1998 presidential address to the American Psychological Association. Seligman realized that psychology had neglected two of its three pre-World War II missions: to help all people lead more productive and fulfilling lives, and to identify and nurture great talent. The advent of the Veterans Administration in 1946 and the National Institute of Mental Health in 1947 turned psychology into a healing discipline based on a disease model and disease ideology. Realizing this, Seligman used his presidency of the APA to initiate a shift in psychology’s focus toward a more positive science.
After his presidency of the APA (American Psychological Association), Martin Seligman recalled that the field has drifted by reiterating that psychology is also the study of strength and virtue and that treatment is nurturing the best there is inside us. Seligman’s presidential initiative was catalyzed by a series of meetings of scholars that could inform the development of positive psychology and the establishment of the Positive Psychology Steering Committee (Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Ed Diener, Kathleen Hall Jamieson, Chris Peterson, and George Vaillant). What followed was a Network, which later became the Center for Positive Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, the first Positive Psychology Summit, and a special issue of the American psychologist on positive psychology to mark the new millennium.
Since Seligman’s presidential address, there have been numerous positive psychology books, special journal issues, and the establishment of regional positive psychology networks that span the globe. In 2006, the first dedicated journal, The Journal of Positive Psychology, was published. Seligman joined the efforts of scientists who have become key players in the positive psychology movement. These actors include the Positive Psychology Steering Committee and the leaders of numerous positive psychology research centers, research groups, and fellows (Seligman, 2005). CR (Rick) Snyder edited the special issue of the Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology in 2000 and the influential Handbook of Positive Psychology in 2002.
Chris Peterson led the Values in Action project that led to the VIA Strengths and Virtues Ranking, which I studied in my previous assignment for this course. The winners of the prestigious Templeton Positive Psychology Awards were: Barbara Fredrickson, for her work on positive emotions in 2000, Jon Haidt, who worked on the positive moral emotion of elevation in 2001, and Suzanne Segerstrom, for her work on the beneficial effects of optimism. on physical health in 2002. Some of the financial donors are: the Templeton Foundation, the Gallup Organization, the Mayerson Foundation, the Annenberg Trust Foundation in Sunnylands and Atlantic Philanthropies. To conclude, this science also offered excellent opportunities for rapid scientific advances.
References
Seligman, MEP (2005). Positive Psychology Network Progress Report 2004.
