Positive Psychology and Philosophy of Social Science

Abstract

Many of the shortcomings of `positive psychology' seem to stem from its unreflectively perpetuating key assumptions of the very mainstream social science it censures for being too `negative.' Philosophical hermeneutics and related social theory perspectives allow us to identify and critically examine such assumptions, including a one-sided individualism and narrow instrumentalism. Hermeneutics allows us to make sense of the `disguised ideology' that imbues positive psychology and much modern social science, suggests that social inquiry is best seen as a kind of dialogic understanding, and may allow us to take the measure of deep human limitations without falling into cynicism or despair.

Happiness Research: A Review of Critiques

“…Scientism, in his rendering, ‘is a revival of the nineteenth‐century positivist faith that a reified “science” has discovered (or is about to discover) all the important truths about human life’ (Lears ). Displaying a naiveté for the long tradition questioning the application of natural science to human affairs and recognising immersion of human phenomena in history, culture and ideology, positive psychology promotes the notion that science can at last point the way to happiness for an undifferentiated humanity (Martin ; Richardson and Guignon ; Slife and Richarson ). Quoting Philip Rieff, Lears () argues the contemporary zeal for a science of happiness ‘epitomizes the “triumph of the therapeutic” […]: the creation of a world where all overarching structures of meaning have collapsed and there is “nothing at stake beyond a manipulatable sense of well‐being” ’.…”

The Eudaimonic and Hedonic Components of Happiness: Qualitative and Quantitative Findings

“…Within this framework new theories, constructs and interventions have been developed. As a relatively recent framework, however, positive psychology still has much to gain from new ideas, approaches and assessment instruments (Richardson and Guignon 2008).…”

Positive Psychology and the legitimation of individualism

“…By stating that obtaining happiness is the most important goal in life for all human beings (e.g., Diener, 2000;Seligman, 2011), PP also surrenders the worthiest purposes in life to a strong individualistic way of thinking, feeling, and acting in the world that turns personal flourishing into the most fundamental need and goal of all human beings. In this regard, and most importantly for this paper, several critical accounts have maintained that PP is based largely on the dominant Western ideology of individualism (Richardson & Guignon, 2008;Sundararajan, 2005). Specifically, it has been argued that PP uncritically assumes a strong individualistic bias that mirrors the anthropological and neo-utilitarian assumptions of neoliberalism )-for instance, as Becker and Marecek (2008a) point out, "individualism is a core but unacknowledged ideology that pervades positive psychology's ideas about persons, experience, and human action" (pp.…”