How Do You Measure Flourishing? Your own, your peers, your students or a child with autism? The PERMA+ Theory is a framework developed by Dr. Martin Seligman, the founding father of positive psychology. PERMA+ stands for the essential elements of human flourishing: Positive Emotions, Engagement, Relationships, Mattering, Accomplishment and Health. Tracking your wellbeing overtime, just like other health indicators, can help enhance your self-awareness, and thus, your motivation to further progress in your wellbeing journey.
Wellbeing & PERMA+
What is Positive Psychology?
The 15 articles in this millennial issue of the American Psychologist discuss what enables happiness, the effects of autonomy and self-regulation, how optimism and hope affect health, what constitutes wisdom, and how talent and creativity come to fruition. The authors outline a framework for a science of positive psychology and the facts that allow individuals, communities, and societies to flourish.
Positive Psychology: An Introduction
A science of positive subjective experience, positive individual traits, and positive institutions promises to improve quality of life and prevent the pathologies that arise when life is barren and meaningless. The exclusive focus on pathology that has dominated so much of our discipline results in a model of the human being lacking the positive features that make life worth living. Hope, wisdom, creativity, future mindedness, courage, spirituality, responsibility, and perseverance are ignored or explained as transformations of more authentic negative impulses. The 15 articles in this millennial issue of the American Psychologist discuss such issues as what enables happiness, the effects of autonomy and self-regulation, how optimism and hope affect health, what constitutes wisdom, and how talent and creativity come to fruition. The authors outline a framework for a science of positive psychology, point to gaps in our knowledge, and predict that the next century will see a science and profession that will come to understand and build the factors that allow individuals, communities, and societies to flourish. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)
Seligman, M. E. P., & Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2000). Positive psychology: An introduction. The American Psychologist, 55(1), 5-14.
The Powerful Progress of Positive Psychology
The authors review recent developments in the field of positive psychology, including books, meetings, courses, and conferences, as well as psychological interventions that increase individual happiness. In testing 5 happiness interventions, they found that 3 of the interventions lastingly increased happiness and decreased depressive symptoms.
Positive Psychology Progress: Empirical Validation of Interventions
Positive psychology has flourished in the last 5 years. The authors review recent developments in the field, including books, meetings, courses, and conferences. They also discuss the newly created classification of character strengths and virtues, a positive complement to the various editions of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (e. g., American Psychiatric Association, 1994), and present some cross-cultural findings that suggest a surprising ubiquity of strengths and virtues. Finally, the authors focus on psychological interventions that increase individual happiness. In a 6-group, random-assignment, placebo-controlled Internet study, the authors tested 5 purported happiness interventions and 1 plausible control exercise. They found that 3 of the interventions lastingly increased happiness and decreased depressive symptoms. Positive interventions can supplement traditional interventions that relieve suffering and may someday be the practical legacy of positive psychology.
Seligman, M. E., Steen, T. A., Park, N., & Peterson, C. (2005). Positive psychology progress: Empirical validation of interventions. The American Psychologist, 60(5), 410-421.
Positive Psychology Supports Young People with Autism
This paper discusses various benefits of broadening positive psychology assessments and interventions for people with Autism Spectrum Conditions (ASCs). Further, it dives into two case studies of theoretical and practical implementation of The PERMA model and positive psychology principles, such as strengths and interests, for special education and care settings.
The Role of Wellbeing and Wellness: A Positive Psychological Model in Supporting Young People with ASCs
In the last 10 years sport psychology expanded its applicability in a variety of fields which have helped to address some of the challenges related to high level performance and sport competition. When we talk about performance in its wider sense, sport psychology is able to help develop a better understanding on how strategies can be adopted in improving general human performance levels. This includes increasing the knowledge of key concepts such as motivation, self-confidence and resilience. Furthermore performance in its wider sense helps in the understanding of the impact of stress and arousal and how these can affect both positively and negatively performance levels including appreciating individual differences as well as dynamics between groups of individuals. In this paper performance rather than solely be related to the field of competitive or professional sport has been discussed in people with ASCs and aims to explore how by adopting a positive psychological model in the formulation of individual assessments and subsequent interventions have led to improvement in individual skills, participation, engagement and ultimately quality of life. Positive psychological principles, such as the role of wellbeing and wellness, the PERMA Model has increased our understanding of human potentials, performance and wellbeing. The aim of this paper is to present and reflect on the applicability and benefits of adopting sport psychology models, the PERMA model and positive psychological principles in special education and care settings with the presentation and discussion of their theoretical and some practical implementation in two case studies.
Roncaglia, I. (2017). The role of wellbeing and wellness: A positive psychological model in supporting young people with ASCs. Psychological Thought, 10(1), 217–226.
