What (and Why) Is Positive Psychology? Shelly L. Gable University of California, Los Angeles Jonathan Haidt University of Virginia Positive psychology is the study of the conditions and processes that contribute to the flourishing or optimal functioning of people, groups, and institutions. In this brief introduction, the authors give examples of current work in positive psychology and try to explain why the positive psychology movement has grown so quickly in just 5 years. They suggest that it filled a need: It guided researchers to understudied phenomena. The authors close by addressing some criticisms and shortcomings of positive psychology, such as the relative lack of progress in studying positive institutions. The gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages the intel- ligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage neither our wisdom nor our learning neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country it measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile. (Kennedy, 1968) Robert F. Kennedy���s lament about the gross national product is analogous to positive psy- chology���s lament about what might be called the ���gross academic product��� of psychology. In January 2000, when Seligman and Csikszentmi- halyi edited a special issue of American Psy- chologist devoted to positive psychology, they claimed that psychology was not producing enough ���knowledge of what makes life worth living��� (p. 5). In the second half of the 20th century, psychology learned much about de- pression, racism, violence, self-esteem manage- ment, irrationality, and growing up under ad- versity but had much less to say about character strengths, virtues, and the conditions that lead to high levels of happiness or civic engagement. In one metaphor, psychology was said to be learn- ing how to bring people up from negative eight to zero but not as good at understanding how people rise from zero to positive eight. In just 5 years since that special issue, quite a bit has happened in what has become known as the positive psychology movement. Many ed- ited volumes and handbooks have been pub- lished (e.g., Aspinwall & Staudinger, 2003 Keyes & Haidt, 2003 Lopez & Snyder, 2003 Peterson & Seligman, 2004 Schmuck & Shel- don, 2001 Snyder & Lopez, 2002). Dozens of conferences have brought researchers together from all over the world. Numerous grants have facilitated the research of young investigators and created collaborations among researchers from many countries. Courses in positive psy- chology are springing up in scores of universi- ties and high schools. Those of us involved in positive psychology are often amazed at how fast the train has been moving. However, scholars who are not involved in positive psychology may be skeptical about both the cargo and the destination of the train. In this introduction, we would like to address those who are doubtful about positive psychol- ogy, or just unfamiliar with it. We relate our view of positive psychology, how we respond to some recent criticisms of the positive psychol- ogy movement, and where we think the field is going. Both of us are experimental social psy- chologists whose work happens to fall within the purview of positive psychology. We also co-run a yearly conference, the Positive Psy- chology Summer Institute, in which 20 graduate students, postdoctoral students, and assistant professors from all over the world and from all of the subfields of psychology are brought to- gether for 6 days to learn from each other and from a handful of more senior researchers. We are excited by the quality of the work we see each summer and by the caliber and diversity of Shelly L. Gable, Department of Psychology, University of California, Los Angeles Jonathan Haidt, Department of Psychology, University of Virginia. Correspondence concerning this article should be ad- dressed to Shelly L. Gable, Psychology Department, Uni- versity of California, 4560 Franz Hall, Box 951563, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1563. E-mail: gable@psych.ucla.edu Review of General Psychology Copyright 2005 by the Educational Publishing Foundation 2005, Vol. 9, No. 2, 103���110 1089-2680/05/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/1089-2680.9.2.103 103

the scholars who attend the summer institute and participate in other positive psychology ac- tivities. We would like to invite you to consider getting involved too, because if all goes well, positive psychology may not be around for much longer. If the positive psychology move- ment is successful in rebalancing psychology and expanding its gross academic product, it will become obsolete. What Is (and Was, and Is Not) Positive Psychology? Positive psychology is the study of the con- ditions and processes that contribute to the flourishing or optimal functioning of people, groups, and institutions. Defined in this way, positive psychology has a long history, dating back to William James���s writings on what he termed ���healthy mindedness��� in 1902, to All- port���s interest in positive human characteristics in 1958, to Maslow���s advocacy for the study of healthy people in lieu of sick people in 1968, and to Cowan���s research on resilience in chil- dren and adolescents (e.g., Cowan, 2000). How- ever, for reasons discussed later, the past half century has seen the study of the psychological aspects of what makes life worth living recede to the background, whereas studies on disorder and damage have taken center stage. The recent positive psychology movement grew out of rec- ognition of this imbalance and a desire to en- courage research in neglected areas. What are some neglected areas? A sampling of the research topics covered by the 60 scholars who have taken part in the Positive Psychology Summer Institute in the past 3 years1 provides a nice illustration of some of them. Many of the scholars are studying areas that were not truly neglected, such as attachment, optimism, love, emotional intelligence, and intrinsic motivation. But others are studying areas of human experi- ence about which there was very little published research before the year 2000, such as gratitude, forgiveness, awe, inspiration, hope, curiosity, and laughter (there are commonalities between tickle-induced vocalization in rat pups and youthful laughter in humans, highlighting the likely possibility of common underlying neuro- biological systems Burgdorf, 2001). Some are studying well-being or flourishing in unusual or understudied populations, including Latinos in the United States, South Asians in arranged marriages, elderly people with cognitive impair- ments, cancer patients, and people with schizo- phrenia (whose daily lives turn out to include about the same balance of positive and negative moments as those of nonschizophrenics Gard, 2001). Others are studying the psychobiological underpinnings of happiness and morality. Some are studying techniques to improve well-being, such as mindfulness meditation, journal writing, well-being therapy, savoring, and exposure to green spaces. If these research programs seem worthwhile and interesting and you agree that our field is better off with an understanding of flourishing to complement our understanding of despair, then you too may be a positive psychologist. However, positive psychology does not im- ply that the rest of psychology is negative, al- though it is understandable that the name may imply that to some people. In fact, the large majority of the gross academic product of psy- chology is neutral, focusing on neither well- being nor distress. Positive psychology grew largely from the recognition of an imbalance in clinical psychology, in which most research does indeed focus on mental illness. Research- ers in cognitive, developmental, social, and per- sonality psychology may not believe that things are so out of balance. However, even in these fields, we believe that there are many topics that can be said to have two sides, and although a great flurry of research occurs on the negative side, the positive side is left to lie fallow. For example, in the two areas with which we are most familiar, this imbalance is evident. In the field of close relationships, many studies have examined how couples respond to each other���s misfortune (e.g., social support) or bad relation- ship behavior (e.g., criticisms and infidelities), but little is known about how couples respond to each other���s triumphs (e.g., savoring positive events) or good relationship behavior (e.g., compliments and displays of affection see Reis & Gable, 2003). And there are volumes of work examining how couples and families resolve conflict but very few studies examining them having fun and laughing together. In the area of morality, there are thousands of published stud- ies on the negative moral emotions, the emo- 1 The first year of the summer institute was run by Dacher Keltner and Lisa Aspinwall. 104 GABLE AND HAIDT