Positive Psychology as Social Change
In recent times there has been growing interest in positive psychology. This is evidenced by the swell in positive psychology graduate programs, undergraduate courses, journals related to the topic, popular book titles on the topic and scholarly publicati
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Robert Biswas-Diener Editor
Positive Psychology as Social Change
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Editor Robert Biswas-Diener SE. Aldercrest Rd. 4625 97222 Milwuakie Oregon USA [email protected]
ISBN 978-90-481-9937-2 e-ISBN 978-90-481-9938-9 DOI 10.1007/978-90-481-9938-9 Springer Dordrecht Heidelberg London New York © Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011 No part of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher, with the exception of any material supplied specifically for the purpose of being entered and executed on a computer system, for exclusive use by the purchaser of the work. Printed on acid-free paper Springer is part of Springer Science+Business Media (www.springer.com)
Editor’s Foreword
If you were to bring all of the authors who contributed to this volume and put them in a single room they would argue. In part it is because some of them are, by nature, argumentative. The other reason is that there is not universal agreement about the science of positive psychology. There is no agreement about the best methods for defining and measuring elusive concepts such as happiness or empathy. There is not even total agreement about how to interpret the results of solid peer-reviewed studies. As Scollon and King point out in the opening chapter, psychologists once interpreted the modest correlations between income and subjective well-being to mean that “money does not matter all that much to happiness.” In more recent times, according to Scollon and King, scientists have looked at those same correlations and offered an interpretation of this relationship as being “always positive and robust.” And so it should come as no surprise that a wide range of academics, hailing from different disciplines and various cultures, might argue about how to best approach the science and application of positive psychology. What is more surprising and— to me at least—more inspiring, is the fact that, despite all the obvious differences, the scholars represented between the pages of this book share in common a desire to engage in a productive dialogue on the topic of the good life. In this way the authors are a reflection of positive psychology itself: Although we have differences and disagreements, we can band together for a higher purpose and work toward the greater good. For many years this dialogue on the good life focused heavily on personal well-being. This individualistic focus may be the result of the fact that positive psychology is deeply anchored in Western culture. The influence of classical Greek philosophy, the humanistic movement, and the predominance of North American scholars in the early days of modern positive psychology may have set the stage for a discipline that was primarily concerned with researching and intervening at the individual level. To some degree I think we can point to the influence of Ed Diener—my father—to explain the emphasis on individ
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