Welcome to the age of happiness! Since Positive Psychology burst onto the scene close to 20 years ago, people are gaining a better understanding of happiness and personal fulfillment and that enhanced understanding is in part, rooted in science and academics. Or so ‘they’ claim.
What is ‘Positive Psychology?’
According to the Positive Psychology Center and the University of Pennsylvania:
Positive Psychology is the scientific study of the strengths that enable individuals and communities to thrive. The field is founded on the belief that people want to lead meaningful and fulfilling lives, to cultivate what is best within themselves, and to enhance their experiences of love, work, and play.
Thanks to the scientific and academic communities’ burgeoning interest in ‘happiness,’ we now know more than ever about what makes us happy, how we can proliferate happiness throughout society and how happiness directly impacts our mental and physical health.
But do we really know more than ever? In my personal experience, the more science tries to insinuate itself into something as subjective as ‘happiness,’ the more questions and uncertainty it creates.
On most levels, what constitutes being happy is different for each of us — after all, isn’t happiness a feeling or an emotional-based state of mind? So how can science really know anything about what makes people happy? According to Positive Psychology experts, the answer is clear-cut, because it’s not so much science, as it is psychology…
Happiness is a mental or emotional state of well-being, which is defined by pleasant or positive emotions ranging from a general feeling of contentment to intense feelings of joy.
My take-away from this is simple – being happy is having a general and consistent feeling of contentment with life and a sensation of feeling pleasant and upbeat more often than not. Being happy does not mean never having down days or never feeling sad — what it means is that despite having occasional bad days (or bad moods), one is able to bounce back with greater ease because they are overall, happy and content people.
The Positive Psychology Center elaborates on their three primary concerns of positive psychology, which are positive emotions, positive individual traits, and positive institutions:
- Emotions: Understanding positive emotion entails the study of contentment with the past, happiness in the present, and hope for the future.
- Traits: Understanding positive individual traits consists of the study of the strengths and virtues, such as the capacity for love and work, courage, compassion, resilience, creativity, curiosity, integrity, self-knowledge, moderation, self-control, and wisdom.
- Institutions: Understanding positive institutions entails the study of meaning and purpose as well as the strengths that foster better communities, such as justice, responsibility, civility, parenting, nurturance, work ethic, leadership, teamwork, purpose, and tolerance.
But isn’t “Positive Psychology” the same as “Positive Thinking?”
Apparently not, because experts in Positive Psychology are quick to distance themselves from ‘positive thinking.’ However, from what I’ve learned, they’re very similar, so it’s unclear why they want to make such a distinction. Are they ashamed of “positive thinking,” or, do they simply want to re-package it as more of a science-based practice of psychology?
So how is Positive Psychology unique from Positive Thinking? I don’t think that it is. We know that by nature, happy people tend to be positive thinkers who view things differently than unhappy people. Positive people (happy people) are more optimistic, solutions-oriented, lead more meaningful lives and, they practice habits that magnify their happiness, such as showing gratitude, smiling, helping, complimenting, etc.
The Positive Psychology Center tells us that their field is “founded on the belief that people want to lead meaningful and fulfilling lives, to cultivate what is best within themselves, and to enhance their experiences of love, work, and play.”
The commonly accepted understanding of Positive Thinking is that “Positive thinking is the process of creating thoughts that create and transform energy into reality – a mental and emotional attitude in which an individual focuses on the brighter side of life and expects good and favorable results. A positive person anticipates happiness, health and success, and believes he or she can overcome any obstacle and difficulty.”
Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t see a huge difference between the two, do you?
Positive Thinking is a Way of Life
Positive Psychology and Positive Thinking look to be the same thing on many levels. At the end of the day, happiness is not a thing you can buy or something you can get a prescription for. Happiness is the conscious realization and pursuit of those habits, life-goals, people, places, and mind-set that largely make you feel content in life. Happiness by nature is equated with positive thinking. A pessimistic person who speaks and acts in a negative manner can never really be happy because they’re saturated with pessimism — any feeling of happiness is often fleeting, as the pessimist sinks back into a state of constant agitation.
An optimist (positive thinker), isn’t always upbeat and eternally cheerful because that’s not realistic. The optimist is, however, more grounded and centered in positivity, so they’re more resilient in shaking off a bad mood or putting a bad day into the right perspective.
Professor Karen Pine and the non-profit “Action for Happiness” came up with the “Great Dream” synopsis of happiness and it sums it up nicely — in order to have happiness and contentment with your life, the following habits and traits are essential.
- Giving – do things for others
- Relating – connect with people
- Exercising – taking care of your body
- Appreciating – awareness of what you do and the world around you
- Trying Out – doing new things
- Direction – doing things towards a goal
- Resilience – bouncing back after something negative
- Emotion – being positive about what you do
- Acceptance – that we all have faults and that things go wrong
- Meaning – being part of something bigger
While we’re learning more about Positive Psychology, it’s important to see the close similarities with “The Power of Positive Thinking.” I am intrigued about Positive Psychology on the surface, but for me, good ole’ positive thinking and it’s clear, simple and effective methodology are proving to be as strong as ever.