Introducing Psychology by Carol Ciccarelli

Author:Carol Ciccarelli [Ciccarelli, Carol]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-01-06T05:00:00+00:00

Research

Positive psychology has made massive strides in research and acceptance since its inception many decades ago. With the solid base of experimental methodology from their Behaviorism progenitors many positive psychologists have done amazing work in the identification of Character Strengths and in developing them. Everything discussed previously, from the list of Character Strengths and Virtues to the application of these findings has been run through the rigorous process of the scientific method. As researchers design these studies they are not doing so in an isolated bubble. This means often times funding and focus of research have competing interest. Positive psychology researchers though know that their particular focus can be applied to almost any situation in life and can improve living in most situations. For this reason the research conducted is often done so with an aim or focus on alleviating a mental or emotional issue. This fixing of problems is not what Positive psychology is about however, it is about helping people to flourish and get more out of an already good life. Despite this difference though, helpful conclusions can be drawn and activities and strategies developed to help an ailing person or a thriving person to advance. Just like any scientific endeavor this area of research can be divided into the applied research and basic research categories. The basic research was and is done to identify and examine the scientific truth behind the existence of the Character Strengths and Virtues. This research is also focused on verifying the efficacy of various Positive psychology theories and techniques. The applied research done on Positive psychology is to establish potential avenues for increasing well-being in life. Both of these types of research contribute greatly and equally to the advancement of the science.

Basic research will be discussed first as it initially laid the foundation and need for Positive psychology. In fact, it was basic research that Seligman was conducting when he discovered learned helplessness and developed the antithesis to those findings. An important study conducted to illuminate and define the Character Strengths used by Positive psychology. Before psychologists had generally accepted the twenty four strength model there were several that were competing for validity. In order to do this, researchers conducted two separate studies. In one study researchers used a sample size of over six hundred workers. These six hundred individuals were asked to complete surveys that were and inventory of their perceived personality traits and strengths. Each was given several different versions of these inventories and measures. Another study was also conducted but using less participants, about five hundred, and different character strength inventories. By having these workers completely different inventories purported to identify Character Strengths it was hoped to reveal any redundancy or overlap in these strengths. After analyzing the information gained by the researchers it was determined that of the twenty-four identified strengths there were only several that were overlapping with those from other inventories. Furthermore, because of the increased number and detail of strengths in the prevailing theory it was better at defining and providing validity to research results.

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