Foundations and Measurement of Positive Psychology

A set of vocabulary flashcards covering the historical development, key figures, theoretical models, and measurement frameworks of positive psychology.

Positive Psychology

The scientific and applied approach to uncovering people's strengths and promoting their positive functioning, often described as the study of what makes life worth living and what lies North of Neutral.

Three Missions of Psychology

Prior to the Second World War, psychology focused on: $1$) curing mental illness, $2$) making the lives of all people more fulfilling, and $3$) identifying and nurturing high talent.

Veterans Administration ($1946$)

One of two institutional developments that shifted psychology's focus toward pathology by allowing practicing psychologists to make a living treating mental illness.

National Institute of Mental Health ($1947$)

An institution whose creation led academic psychologists to focus on pathology because it provided grants for research into mental illness.

Victimology

Martin Seligman's term for the passive view of human beings as centers in which stimuli elicit responses or reinforcements strengthen behaviors, treating people as broken objects to be fixed.

Marie Jahoda

A social psychologist who in the $1950$s characterized mental health as a positive condition involving six characteristics, including self-acceptance, autonomy, and environmental mastery.

Illness Ideology

The embedded belief that human functioning is best understood through a framework of symptoms and categorical disorders, which James Maddux argued limits the focus on human strengths.

Categorical vs. Dimensional Models

The contrast between sorting behavior into rigid, deficit-based boxes versus viewing behavior on a continuum where extreme versions of adaptive traits (e.g., conscientiousness) might become perceived as disorders (e.g., obsessive-compulsive traits).

The Three Pillars of Positive Psychology

The structural framework of the field consisting of: $1$) positive subjective experiences, $2$) positive individual traits (character strengths), and $3$) positive (enabling) institutions.

VIA Classification

A system organizing $24$ measurable character strengths under $6$ cross-culturally recognized virtues: wisdom, courage, humanity, justice, temperance, and transcendence.

Enabling Institution

A social structure (like a school or family) that facilitates valued outcomes and the development of positive traits, though not functioning in a strictly deterministic or uniform way.

Subjective Well-Being (SWB)

Ed Diener's scientific synonym for happiness, defined as the combination of positive affect, a relative absence of negative affect, and general life satisfaction.

Process/Activity Theories

Theories proposing that happiness is generated by engaging in activities, such as Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's concept of flow, rather than just reaching a goal.

Genetic/Personality Predisposition Theories

Theories suggesting happiness is a stable trait, supported by findings that up to $40/$ of positive emotionality and $55/$ of negative emotionality are genetically based.

Hedonic vs. Eudaimonic Wellbeing

The distinction between localized pleasure and life satisfaction (hedonic) versus a life of meaning, virtue, and authenticity (eudaimonic), often expressed as Wellbeing $=$ Happiness $+$ Meaning.

Broaden-and-Build Theory

Barbara Fredrickson's model suggesting positive emotions expand momentary thought-action repertoires, which over time construct durable physical, social, and intellectual resources.

Undoing Hypothesis

The finding that positive emotions can act as a physiological antidote, accelerating cardiovascular recovery after negative emotional arousal.

Positivity Ratio

A mathematical proportion of approximately $3:1$ (three positive emotional experiences to every one negative) that Fredrickson and Losada identified as a predictor of human flourishing.

Psychological Well-Being (Ryff)

A eudaimonic model of functioning organized around $6$ dimensions: self-acceptance, personal growth, purpose in life, environmental mastery, autonomy, and positive relations.

Social Well-Being (Keyes)

The assessment of well-being through an individual's relationship to society, including social acceptance, actualization, contribution, coherence, and integration.

Flourishing vs. Languishing

States in the complete state model where individuals either show high levels across emotional, psychological, and social dimensions (flourishing) or low levels despite lacking a diagnosable mental illness (languishing).