----- Original Message -----

From: [log in to unmask]">David Fryer

To: [log in to unmask]">[log in to unmask]

Sent: Sunday, October 28, 2007 7:05 PM

Subject: Re: positive psychology website

 

Dear John,

Thanks for taking the time and effort to do what I regard as a little gem of discourse analysis and make it available to us on the list. It must have taken some time but I much appreciate it myself and am sure others do too. Very thought provoking - I would like to see more of this sort of scholarship on the list!

David

 

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From: The UK Community Psychology Discussion List on behalf of John Cromby
Sent: Sun 10/21/2007 21:28
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: positive psychology

 

Currently, the top of Google's search hierarchy for 'positive psychology' is the University of Pennsylvania Positive Psychology Center (sic).

http://www.ppc.sas.upenn.edu/

 

The centre's director is Martin Seligman, seen by many people as the principal architect of positive psychology. So given its location at the core of the positive psychology enterprise and its purpose of providing a summary and introduction to positive psychology for the casual browser, then it seems reasonable to assume that what appears here is a fair picture of positive psychology – if not as it actually is, then at least as how its proponents would like it to be. So w ith this in mind, what picture of positive psychology does the website give?

 

First impressions are reasonably pleasing. The page is uncluttered, simple, with much use of white space. To the right there is a black and white image of a grand statue before an old building; this is seemingly a statue of Churchill (best known for his role as British Prime Minister during World War Two, rather less well known for praising Italian fascism and suggesting that machine guns be used against triking Welsh miners during the 1926 General Strike). On the left of the page are clickable buttons leading to various learning opportunities and advertising conferences and courses. But the page is centrally dominated by a block of text, the first line of which casts positive psychology as the 'scientific study of the strengths and virtues that enable individuals and communities to thrive'. Now these are laudable goals, and whilst some might question whether 'science' is the best or the only way to achieve them, on the face of it there is little here that any but the terminally churlish could disagree with.

 

The page goes on to spell out in more detail the 'three central concerns' of positive psychology: positive emotions, positive individual traits, and positive institutions. Positive emotions are temporally organised and produce, or consist of, 'contentment with the past, happiness in the present, and hope for the future'. Positive individual traits consist of 'strengths and virtues' such as 'courage, compassion, resilience, creativity, curiosity, integrity, self-knowledge, moderation, self-control, and wisdom', whilst positive institutions are those that foster 'justice, responsibility, civility, parenting, nurturance, work ethic, leadership, teamwork, purpose, and tolerance'.

 

With the flesh now beginning to adhere to positive psychology's bones, there is still little to actually disagree with but some peculiar absences are starting to become apparent. First, the list of positive emotions is rather sparse and homogenous, apparently excluding such states as indignation at prejudice and discrimination, fury at injustice and unwarranted violence or even sadness in the face of war, famine and exploitation. Positive emotions, in positive psychology, seem to be solely those with a pleasurable hedonic tone, rather than those that might be seen as positive in the sense that they provide appropriate and valuable motivation to change an unpleasant or unjust situation.

 

Second, the traits listed are, as so often in psychology, explicitly conceived of as 'individual', even though all of the capacities listed have marked relational dimensions and, in practice, must inevitably be variegated by the complexities of social life and mediated by material forces, social structurs and resources. Leaving this problem aside, though, just as with those emotions deemed the province of positive psychology, the range of traits is similarly strikingly homogenous. It seems, in fact, that these are just the ways of being that an individual might be expected to usefully adopt in order to subordinate her or himself to hierarchical relations, limited resources, constrained time. As a cluster we might expect such traits to characterise Christian martyrs or saints, to foster an intentional stance marked predominantly by humility and respect, quiet acceptance and cheerful endurance in the face of sometimes difficult conditions. In short, these are not the clusters of traits associated with people who fight back, who struggle, who strive for change: rather, these are much more like the traits of those who believe themselves to be already living the best of all possible lives in the best of all possible worlds, the traits of those who cannot see far enough beyond the confines of their own gated community or locked front door to ask just why it is that, these days, the gates and locks seem so absolutely necessary.

 

Third, with regard to the institutions of positive psychology this emerging preference for stasis rather than change, for humility and respect rather than righteous indignation and justifiable anger, is matched by an emphasis on institutions that foster justice (but not equality) and responsibility (but not rights), institutions that promote the work ethic (but not those that fight for better working conditions), institutions that promote 'tolerance' (but not those that question why tolerance should be necessary, or indeed whether it is always desirable).

 

These concerns then get further specified in more concrete terms at the bottom of the page, where some of the applied goals of positive psychology are spelled out. And as with the definition of positive psychology that precedes them, some of these goals are in themselves fine things (families and schools that allow children to flourish, communities that encourage civil engagement). Others, however, are less straightforwardly honourable: 'high productivity' might be welcomed by shareholders, but perhaps not by workers who are forced to work harder and longer in less safe conditions in order to achieve it. Similarly, the teaching and dissemination of positive psychology would only be positive things if we were already persuaded that the biases and preferences inherent within it were acceptable.

 

Now it is of course possible to attempt to dismiss this website as unrepresentative (its one website amongst many); as not providing appropriate evidence of what positive psychology is really like (for that we'd need journal papers, books, proper academic sources); even as being somewhat disconnected from the proper business of positive psychology (which is the province of experts and an applied business, a million miles away from the necessarily overly-simplistic statements discussed here).

 

But can the website be so unrepresentative when it is written and maintained by Martin Seligman's institution, if not by Seligman himself? Can it be so thoroughly disconnected from the academic work of positive psychology when one of its purposes is to promote the research, the conference and educational programs associated with it? And whilst it may indeed necessarily be overly-simplistic, it has close and intrinsic links with positive psychology, since it is the portal providing entry to positive psychology's premier institution.

 

It seems to me that, at the very least, the website shows us how positive psychology would like to be seen, even if it doesn't quite show us how it actually is. It therefore seems appropriate to consider the pattern of simplifications that can be seen on the website, and to ask what they tell us about the ways in which positive psychology is, or is not, compatible with community psychology.

 

J.

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___________________________________ COMMUNITYPSYCHUK - The discussion list for community psychology in the UK. To unsubscribe or to change your details visit the website: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/COMMUNITYPSYCHUK.HTML For any problems or queries, contact the list moderator Rebekah Pratt on [log in to unmask] or Grant Jeffrey on [log in to unmask]