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Assignment 1
Introduction
For so many years psychology was focused primarily on human problems. Finally, around
late 90s Martin E. P. Seligman formed a positive psychology network, his plan was to gather
researchers and professionals who were working on human strengths and positive attributes rather
than focusing merely on human problems (Diener, 2009). The objective of positive psychology is
to begin a shift in the focus in psychology from only repairing what is wrong in life to also building
positive qualities (Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi 2000). The author first outlines the field of
positive psychology, and discuss how and why this field became important. The author then
explains character strengths (one of the areas in positive psychology) in a nutshell and its impact
on human well-being, and discuss some of the research studies that focused on the prominence of
character strength on well-being complete with analysis of the research methods of these research
studies.
According to Gable and Haidt (2005), positive psychology is a relatively new field that
scientifically studies the conditions and processes that contribute to the thriving or optimal
functioning of individuals, groups, and institutions. Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi (2000) stated
that positive psychology focuses on the character strengths, virtues, constructive conditions, and
process that contribute to well-being and positive functioning rather than negative or self-
destructive behaviours.
Positive psychology is described the scientific study of normal human strengths and virtues
and nothing more (Sheldon and King, 2001). They also said that positive psychology is concerned
with finding out what works, what is right, and what is improving in the average person. It
explores the nature of the effectively functioning human being, to discover adaptations and learned
skills, which will assist the majority of people to live lives of dignity and purpose despite all the
Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi (2000) explained that before the World War II psychology
had three objectives: curing mental illness, making the lives of all people more productive and
fulfilling, and identifying and nurturing high talent. However after the war, situation changed the
face of psychology. It dealt with only distress, while the equally important task of making the lives
of all people more productive, fulfilling, and nurturing the exceptional were neglected. This
situation does have benefits, there were many findings in understanding of and therapy for mental
illness, for example, Seligman highlight at least fourteen previously incurable disorders that can
now be treated, cured, or reasonably relieved. Psychologys empirical focus shifted to assessing
and curing individual suffering ever since that period, causing the sacrifice of preventive aspect
of psychology. Sheldon & King (2001) has similar view that there is a predominant negative bias
in traditional psychology because most their attention is finding for fixes, this prejudice prevents
psychologists from observing many important human processes, outcomes, and strengths. What
psychologists have learned over past decades is that the disease model does not move psychology
closer to the prevention of these serious problems. This is where positive psychology became
prominent. Positive psychology, with its aim to understands the full spectrum of human experience
by building up what we know about human resilience, strength, and growth to integrate and
complement the existing knowledge base (Gable & Haidt, 2005) can fulfil the preventive aspect
of psychology. Even further, by focusing on four pillars of positive psychology, which are virtue,
meaning, resilience, and well-being, positive psychology can also present a balanced model that
emphasises the need to enhance the positives and manage the negatives (Wong, P. T., 2011).
Many studies have shown the contribution of positive psychology. One of them is the
Findings from the Nun Study conducted by Danner, Snowdon, and Freisen (2001), it was indicated
that nuns who write with more positive emotion in their autobiography in their early adulthood
have better survival in their late life compare to those who wrote with less positive emotion.
One of the areas in PP is Character Strengths. Yearley (as cited in Park et al., 2004)
that produce to a tendency to act, eager, and feel that involves the exercise of judgement.
Character strengths are not a singular thing, but rather plural that isgood character is
formed from a group of positive traits demonstrated in ones thoughts, feelings, and behaviour. It
is an honest activity that involves choosing virtue for itself and seeing a justifiable life plan (Park
et al., 2004). Character strengths include the more specific psychological processes or mechanisms
that define the virtues, those aspects of personality that are morally valued, also used to refer to
components of the multidimensionality of good character (Park & Peterson, 2009). There are
several strengths classification, for instance, StrengthsFinder, the Virtues project, the Values in
Action (VIA) Classification of Strengths, and Realise 2. They have distinct intervention
approaches and outcomes measures as they have different elements and objectives as well as their
strengths definitions and classification (D. Quinlan et al., 2011). There are 24 character strengths
comprised in VIA which fall under six broad virtue categories: wisdom, courage, humanity,
example, Park et al. (2004) investigation of the relationship between various character strengths
and life satisfaction using VIA. They discovered that hope, zest, gratitude, love, and curiosity are
heavily correlated with life satisfaction. While modesty and various intellectual strengths were
only weakly correlated with life satisfaction. They also discovered that character strengths and life
satisfaction has monotonic relationship and there is no evidence that life satisfaction will decrease
when someone have excess of character strengths. This is a very intriguing discovery. Nonetheless,
this finding still have potential to be biased. First reason, as samples were obtained from World
Wide Web, we cannot accurately judge how representative the samples to be generalised to any
target population might be. Second, participants may be unfamiliar with certain words on the
survey which can impact to inaccurate answers (Ganellen, R. J., 2007). Third, data was gathered
once, makes this finding lack of causal conclusion. Lastly, this research relied solely on self-report
measures. Although the obvious benefits of self-report measures, there is a risk in relying solely
on self-report (Diener, 2009). Future research can add other methods such as experience sampling,
Park et al. (2004) finding was supported by Park and Peterson (2009), they found that
among both middle school and college students, a set of character strengths like perseverance,
love, gratitude, hope and perspective help anticipate and influence academic achievement, as it
able to facilitates the process of learning. Furthermore, bravery and appreciation of beauty have a
strong role in recovery from illness, and spirituality is associated with a life of meaning and
purpose. These findings imply that the encouragement of particular strengths would not only make
young people better internally, physically and more socially connected but also help them do better
A research study, conducted by C. Proctor et al. (2011), testing the outcome of Strength
satisfaction and well-being of adolescent students, on 319 adolescents age 12-14, also supports
previous findings. They demonstrated that students who participated in character strengths-based
exercises significantly increased their life satisfaction compared to those who did not participate.
They also obtained higher scores on Positive Affects and self-esteem, and lower scores on
Negative Affects at post-test compared to students who did not participate in the program. This
study is very useful for schools to develop their curriculum so they can have not only happier
students, but also to improve students academic achievement (Park & Peterson, 2009). However,
the result too has potential to be biased. The reasons are: this study relied fully on self-report
measures to assess outcome, adding other objective measures can result in more accurate
conclusion; students were also informed that their survey data would be used for assessing the
program and materials, makes higher possibility that they manipulate their report; the research
used was quasi-experimental treatment-control condition design which made it harder to control
the variables. Lastly, as the study was conducted in Great Britain, it may be biased if we generalise
Positive psychology is nothing more than the scientific study of ordinary human strengths
and virtues (Sheldon and King, 2001). Positive psychology is not only as buffers against the
problems, stressors, and disorders of life, but also a necessity for human to optimise their full
potential to have a flourishing life. One of the areas in positive psychology is character strengths.
Character strengths are the base of optimal life-long development and flourishing, and has
significant implication for individual and entire society. Every human will face difficulties, it is
inevitable and nature of life, but by understanding their character strengths, it can help and ease
them to face those challenges. Character strengths also consistently and highly associated with life
satisfaction.
Positive psychologist still relies heavily on self-report measures, despite many benefits of
self-report measures, there are several drawbacks if we rely exclusively on this. Positive
psychologist also must use other methods such as behaviour observation, laboratory study or
Danner, D. D., Snowdon, D. A., & Friesen, W. V. (2001). Positive emotions in early life and
longevity: Findings from the nun study. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 80,
804813.
Diener, E. (2009). Positive psychology: Past, present, and future. Oxford handbook of positive
psychology, 2, 7-11.
Gable, S., & Haidt, J. (2005). What (and why) is positive psychology?. Review of General
Psychology, 9, 103110.
Ganellen, R. J. (2007). Assessing Normal and Abnormal Personality Functioning: Strengths and
Peterson, C., & Seligman, M. E. P. (2004). Character strengths and virtues: A handbook and
classification. New York: Oxford University Press and Washington, DC: American
Park, N., & Peterson, C. (2009). Character strengths: Research and practice. Journal of college
Park, N., Peterson, C., Seligman M. E. P., (2004). Strengths of Character and Well-Being.
Proctor, C., Tsukayama, E., Wood, A. M., Maltby, J., Eades, J. F., & Linley, P. A. (2011).
satisfaction and well-being of adolescents. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 6(5), 377-
388.
Quinlan, D., Swain, N., & Vella-Brodrick, D. A. (2011). Character strengths interventions:
Building on what we know for improved outcomes. Journal of Happiness Studies, 13(6),
1145-1163.
Sheldon, K. M., & King, L. (2001). Why positive psychology is necessary. American Psycholo-
Wong, P. T. (2011). Positive Psychology 2.0: Towards a balanced interactive model of the good
Wood, A. M., Froh, J. J., & Geraghty, A. W. (2010). Gratitude and well-being: A review and