Flaws Of Positive Psychology

Supporting the thesis of positive psychology movement being fundamentally flawed, I would like to also evaluate this statement with the above concerns. Moreover, I would examine another fundamental flaw of positive psychology in relation to my view of meaning of life, which resonates with Viktor Frankl’s existential theory.

Philosophical Background Let me start with a question: How can one be so sure of other’s feelings and perception? Imagine one day you go shopping with your friend, when you picked up a dress with gold and white stripes and ask for your friend’s opinion, your friend shakes her head and says: “Blue and grey are so ugly!” Apparently, you and your friend are looking at the same dress. Yet apparently, you two perceive it as

How come one who has been so conscious of the mistake of others make the same one by trying to avoid it?

In my opinion, it has something to do with their assumption on the relationship between emotion and outcome. Over-simplifying again, positive psychologists subtly assume that positive emotion will lead to positive outcome, and vice versa. As a result, they suggested the “old-school” psychology failed to appreciate human motivation to thrive, and by focusing positive side of everything, positive outcome will eventually be attained.

In fact, positive emotions are not completely ignored by other psychologists; they are just not standing under the spotlight among everything else crucial to us. For example, Folkman (2008) incorporated the element of positive emotion in her stress and coping theory, alongside with appraisal, coping, and event outcome.

Positive psychologists are being self-contradicting if one takes their ontological perspective into account too. Proposing an objective human nature in general, they are adopting their own subjective perception on the world, in which everything is polarized and biased, failing to see the more holistic picture on human strengths, weaknesses, and genuine

In my opinion, meaningful happiness and gratitude emerge after one finds his/her meaning of life, instead of the other way round.

Conclusion

To sum up, positive psychologists, believing that the movement is not fundamentally flawed, suggest that there is objective human nature as well as individual nature. This implies that communication can be fostered and quantitative research strategies should be used. Also, they propose that discrete emotions can be attributed into positive and negative valence, while positive valence is beneficial to one’s own well-being. They also think that this movement is sound for its purpose of promoting a better well-being to all people in the world, leading them to a utopia.

On the other hand, psychologists, who agree that positive psychology movement is fundamentally flawed, believe that there is no objectivity when it comes to perception to the world. Furthermore, they think that all discrete emotions have their uniqueness and cannot be simply put into two valences. Lastly, they suggest that positive psychology movement is somehow not plausible because of their over-reliance on positive human qualities, neglecting a person as a