Positive Psychology

Key Takeaways

• Positive psychology can help you become happier by focusing on strengths and building the best parts of life.
• The PERMA model explains five important aspects of well-being: positive emotions, engagement, relationships, meaning, and accomplishments.
• Research suggests that spending money on others, focusing on gratitude, and finding a sense of purpose can increase happiness.

Positive psychology is one of the newest branches of psychology to emerge. This particular area of psychology focuses on how to help human beings prosper and lead healthy, happy lives. While many other branches of psychology tend to focus on dysfunction and abnormal behavior, positive psychology is centered on helping people become happier.

Positive psychology is designed to “complement and extend the problem-focused psychology that has been dominant for decades,” explained the late Christopher Peterson, author of “A Primer in Positive Psychology” and professor at the University of Michigan, in a 2008 article published in Psychology Today.

“Positive psychology is…a call for psychological science and practice to be as concerned with strength as with weakness; as interested in building the best things in life as in repairing the worst; and as concerned with making the lives of normal people fulfilling as with healing pathology,” Peterson wrote.

According to leading authorities in the field, Martin Seligman and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, positive psychology will help achieve “scientific understanding and effective interventions to build thriving in individuals, families, and communities.”

In order to understand the field of positive psychology, it is essential to start by learning more about its major theories, applications, and history.

Levels of Positive Psychology

Positive psychology is often divided into three levels:

• Subjective level: focuses on feelings of happiness, well-being, and optimism, and how these feelings transform your daily experience
• Individual level: combines feelings from the subjective level with virtues like forgiveness, love, and courage
• Group level: emphasizes positive interactions within your community, including virtues like altruism and social responsibility to strengthen social bonds

Positive Psychology and the PERMA Model

To better define well-being, which is a primary focus in positive psychology, Seligman developed the PERMA model. PERMA stands for five elements that contribute to well-being:

• Positive emotions, which involve experiencing optimism, gratitude for the past, contentment in the present, and hope for the future
• Engagement, which refers to achieving a state of “flow” during enjoyable activities and hobbies      
• Relationships, which focus on forming social connections with family and friends
• Meaning, which involves finding a purpose in life larger than yourself
• Accomplishments, referring to goals and successes

Uses

Positive psychology has various real-world applications including education, therapy, self-help, stress management, and workplace issues.

Using strategies from positive psychology, teachers, coaches, therapists, and employers can motivate others and help individuals understand and develop their personal strengths.

Some of the major topics of interest in positive psychology include:

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Impact of Positive Psychology

Some of the major findings of positive psychology include:

• Money doesn’t necessarily buy well-being, but spending money on other people can make individuals happier.
• People are generally happy.
• Some of the best ways to combat disappointments and setbacks include strong social relationships and character strengths.
• While happiness is influenced by genetics, people can learn to be happier by developing optimism, gratitude, and altruism.
• Work can be important to well-being, especially when people are able to engage in work that is purposeful and meaningful.

Potential Pitfalls

Positive psychology is often confused with positive thinking, and misconstrued as self-help tactics rather than research-backed theories. Positive thinking is a way of thinking ourselves into better behavior and greater resilience, rather than behaving our way into a different frame of mind. 

Positive psychology, on the other hand, is the scientific study of what makes people thrive. It focuses on behaviors that can lead to a more optimized frame of mind as well as on thought patterns that lead to more functional behaviors.

History of Positive Psychology

“Before World War II, psychology had three distinct missions: curing mental illness, making the lives of all people more productive and fulfilling, and identifying and nurturing high talent,” wrote Seligman and Mihaly Csikszenmihalyi in 2000.

Shortly after WWII, the primary focus of psychology shifted to the first priority: treating abnormal behavior and mental illness. In the 1950s, humanist thinkers like Carl Rogers, Erich Fromm, and Abraham Maslow helped renew interest in the other two areas by developing theories that focused on happiness and the positive aspects of human nature.

Here are a few more significant dates in the history of positive psychology:

• 1998: Seligman was elected President of the American Psychological Association and positive psychology became the theme of his term. Today, Seligman is widely viewed as the father of contemporary positive psychology.
• 2002: The first International Conference on Positive Psychology was held.
• 2006: Harvard’s course on positive psychology became the university’s most popular class.
• 2009: The first World Congress on Positive Psychology took place in Philadelphia and featured talks by Seligman and Philip Zimbardo.

Other important figures in positive psychology have included:

• Albert Bandura
• C.R. Snyder
• Carol Dweck
• Christopher Peterson
• Daniel Gilbert
• Kennon Sheldon

General interest in positive psychology has grown tremendously since the concept was introduced. Today, more and more people are searching for information on how they can become more fulfilled and achieve their full potential.

Verywell Mind uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read our editorial process to learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.

1. Psychology Today. What is positive psychology, and what is it not?

2. Seligman ME, Csikszentmihalyi M. Positive psychology. An introduction. Am Psychol. 2000;55(1):5‐14. doi:10.1037//0003-066x.55.1.5

3. Joseph S. Positive Psychology in Practice: Promoting Human Flourishing in Work, Health, Education, and Everyday Life. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons; 2015.

4. Ciarrochi J, Atkins PW, Hayes LL, Sahdra BK, Parker P. Contextual positive psychology: Policy recommendations for implementing positive psychology into schools. Front Psychol. 2016;7:1561.  doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01561

5. Dunn EW, Aknin LB, Norton MI. Prosocial spending and happiness: Using money to benefit others pays off. Current Directions in Social Science. 2014;(23)1: 41-47. doi:10.1177/0963721413512503

6. Harzer C, Ruch W. The relationships of character strengths with coping, work-related stress, and job satisfaction. Front Psychol. 2015;6:165. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00165

7. Martela F, Pessi AB. Significant work is about self-realization and broader purpose: Defining the key dimensions of meaningful work. Front Psychol. 2018;9:363. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00363

8. Boston Globe. Harvard’s crowded course to happiness.

By Kendra Cherry, MSEd

Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the “Everything Psychology Book.”

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