Contributions of positive psychology to peace: Toward global well-being and resilience.

Abstract

In this article, we analyze the relationship between positive psychology and peace psychology. We discuss how positive emotions, engagement, meaning, personal well-being, and resilience may impact peace at different levels, ranging from the personal and interpersonal to community, national, and global peace. First, we argue that an individual's positive experiences, personal well-being, and personal resilience, as defined in current positive psychology, may in fact contribute to personal and interpersonal peace but can also entail detrimental consequences for other individuals, communities, and nations. Second, we describe how peace psychology contains traces of positive psychology, especially with its focus on the pursuit of social justice. Third, reviewing and extending the concept of community resilience, we outline directions for further conceptual and empirical work in positive psychology inspired by peace psychology. Such work would do well to transcend positive psychology's current bias toward individualism and nationalism and to conceptualize well-being and resilience at the level of the "global community." This extended "positive peace psychology" perspective would have important implications for our understanding of how to overcome oppression and work toward global peace.

Calvinism, Gender Ideology, and Relational Spirituality: An Empirical Investigation of Worldview Differences

“…Eudaimonic approaches to spiritual formation emphasize selfawareness and growth in relational virtues as part of self-development (i.e., spiritual, cognitive, social, and emotional development; Shults & Sandage, 2006), in contrast to approaches that emphasize individualistic well-being (i.e., hedonic well-being). Some have called for defining well-being in ways that explicitly include a concern for relational virtues such as social justice commitment (e.g., Cohrs, Christie, White, & Das, 2013;Prilleltensky, 2012).…”

Does the recent intensification of nationalistic and xenophobic attitudes in Eastern European countries adversely affect public mental health?

“…It seems to us that such actions are possible. They result from the methods of ‘positive psychology’ and ‘positive psychiatry’ [5, 6], the principles of strengthening the local social capital [28–35] and the acquired knowledge of psychological regularities related to the formation of xenophobic attitudes, especially in children and adolescents [36–42]. These include: (1) specific publicist and cultural interventions (promotion of specific novels, movies) [43, 44] and (2) the promotion of certain already-developed software tools and social media e.g.…”

“…The question arises whether the described changes have an impact on public mental health [1–4] According to so-called ‘positive psychology’ [5] and ‘positive psychiatry’ [6], such transformations have an impact on the average state of health. A xenophobic attitude is accompanied by a higher incidence of anxiety, disputes by reason of the polarization of opinions, a sense of embarrassment and contradictions with so-called ‘Christian values’, adverse demographic perspectives, depression and reduced life satisfaction [7].…”

Addressing Violent Intergroup Conflict from the Bottom Up?

“…Building resources can prepare people for when the political opportunity structures change in the future. Resources, especially resilience, can also help people cope and adjust to extremely adversarial life circumstances (Cohrs, Christie, White, & Das, 2013). In societies with minimal opportunity structures, adjustment-and emotion-focused coping maybe the best and perhaps only way for people to survive (Folkman et al, 1986;Lazarus & DeLongis, 1983).…”