EDUC10057 Lecture Notes - Lecture 11: Sati (Buddhism), Knowledge Integration, Positive Psychology
13 Jun 2018
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Lecture 11; The future of positive psychology
Positive psychology criticisms:
●has connotations about it that the work of other psychologists is ‘negative’
●is a luxury only for the privileged in our society - WEIRD
●assumes that “we must think positive thoughts, we must cultivate positive emotions & attitudes, must be happy,
healthy & wise” etc.
●not always paid sufficient tribute to its historical antecedents
●means different things to different people, not a clear, universally understood definition
●ignored the reality and benefits of negative emotions & experiences
●even the despot, the hedonist, and con man can all be counted happy if they have followed at least one pathway to
happiness
“The aim of positive psychology is to begin to catalyse a change in the focus of psychology from preoccupation only with
repairing the worse things in life to also building positive qualities” Controversial - has it reoriented back to building
strengths?
Positive psychology future:
●positive psychology built on former knowledge
●integration with other disciplines
some meta-analysis examine only interventions that explicitly reference positive psychology & that occurred after the formal
founding of the field - limitation - inconsistent approach with how positive psychology operates in both research & in
practice
positive psychology draws from previous moments:
●humanistic psychology
●community psychology
●virtue ethics
practices overlap with techniques:
●mindfulness (Buddhism)
●goal pursuit (cognitive therapy)
Arbitrary boundaries hinder science & impair ability of researchers, clinicians, and the general public to draw accurate
conclusions from the findings
Systems approach: strength-based lens of positive psychology + complex, holistic sense of SS desired systems change
→
that supports the wellbeing of social systems
Bioecological model of human development:
