Positive - Evaluating

Question 1

Strength - a shift in focus for psychology

Answer 1

• moves focus beyond explaining and treating disorder and illness to celebrating how our authentice strenghs can be developed, focus on the good things
• shifts attention from an interest in negative states to positive states
• recognises that people want to think about their future, understand that they have free will over emotions

Question 2

Strength - Applications

Answer 2

• applied in order to help individuals, organisations and communities flourish
• applied in education - USA, embracing positive psychology in curriculum, involve intentional activities to increase overall well-being.
• Quality of Life Therapy
• Mindfulness

Question 3

Strength - Free will approach

Answer 3

• unlike other approaches it doesn’t propose a determinist account of human behaviour
• based on the notion that individuals are neither pre-determined nor restricted. They have personal freedom to grow and develop signature strengths and virtues
• self-regulating, not victims of their past.

Question 4

Weakness - Not a new idea

Answer 4

• claims that positive psychology is a new approach to enhancing human behaviour is false
• First celebrated in 1950s-60s by Mslow
• Argue that people like Seligman ignore work of psychologists like Moslow who were the first to criticise existing approaches in psychology
• it is no unique.

Question 5

Weakness - Can happiness be measured?

Answer 5

• Defining happiness is challenging
• Everyone will have a different idea about what happiness means to them.
• can cause difficulties when trying to develop scientific measurements for subjective state of mind

Question 6

weakness - individual differences

Answer 6

• ignores individual and cultural differences