This is a 3000 word positive psychology article for publication in a peer reviewed journal. The paper must be edited and pass for publication. The references should be listed as 1,2,3, in the text and not as it is now done with names and dates.In the reference list they should be numerical and not alphabetical.
This article gives an understanding of Positive Psychology (PP) as an evolutionary discipline, Applied Positive Psychology (APP) as its arm of practice and Positive Psychology interventions (PPI) as the tools of trade. The paper further shows how PP relates to Epigenetics and offers a possible solution to the obesity crisis through four defined sections;
Background to Positive Psychology- Applied Positive Psychology and Positive Psychology Interventions (PP, APP & PPI)
Epigenetics The study of Epigenetics affecting present and future generations Genotypes to Phenotypes
Obesity The Obesity Crisis and how Epigenetics and PPIs can affect outcomes for present and future generations.
Positive Psychology Interventions (PPIs) To combat the obesity crisis
Finally implications and conclusions from the evidence are explored, along with onward looking possibilities for future research incorporating a multi-disciplinary focus.
Background to Positive Psychology, Applied Positive Psychology and Positive Psychology Interventions (PP, APP and PPI)
Positive Psychology emerged in its first wave in 1998 as an antitheses to psychology as usual which mostly focused on identifying and correcting dysfunction as its core purpose. Ref. Psychological distress being deemed actionable if meeting categorised and listed criteria set out in the manual of dysfunction, or as it is more commonly termed the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual DSM
Perhaps the inevitable consequence of focus on dysfunction, would eventually lead to the study of function as a natural progression of dyadic process addressed by Dr. Martin Seligman credited as the founder of modern day positive psychology ref. Dr Seligman and colleagues co-authored a positive focus manual designed to explore the possibilities of optimum function through Core Strengths and Virtues CSV (Peterson & Seligman, 2004) which sought to counteract the dysfunction focus.
Positivity and living a good life was not however a new concept having connections to the earlier 20th century discipline of humanistic psychology (Resnick et al., 2001).
The term itself, Positive Psychology is credited to the Psychologist Abraham Harold Maslow best known for his contribution to modern psychology with the Hierarchy of Needs (Maslow, 1943)
The new PP pioneers included Martin Seligman with his focus on authentic happiness (2002), Ed Diener with a reputation in the field of subjective well-being (1984), Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi eschewing the virtues of flow (1988), Barbara Fredrickson with her focus on positive emotions (2001), and Sonja Lyubomirsky and her work on the genetic and environmental components of happiness (2008) to name a leading few.
However just as in other scientific disciplines discovery involves theory change a continuous evolving process including observations, feedback, experiment, interpretation and re-interpretation of data which derive new results (Popper, 1963) thus PP had inevitably started to go through a similar process.
Positive psychology research and practice reached an era of criticising the very discipline as a whole, even questioning whether it had any validity or even a rationale to exist at all. (McNulty & Fincham, 2011).
The criticism levelled at PP had little effect on proponents such as Seligman who were driving forward and evolving the discipline with great enthusiasm into a worldwide movement. (ref)
Not all of the attention to the new discipline was flattering though, and some went even further to imply it could be detrimental to human life. (Ehrenreich, 2009) At an unfortunate time during which the USA increased involvement of its troops in foreign lands, Ehrenreich intonated PP interventions employed by the United States army were implicated in leading soldiers to their deaths. Buoyed up with what was termed false positivity and over estimation of their abilities a position which highlighted the value of negative emotions such as fear.
Further opposing views came from English professor Eric Wilson who put the case for those who wished to remain melancholics exploring this notion in his book . While he had no wish to romanticise clinical depression, the professor however argued for the inspirational motivational states that arise from melancholia. Worrying that they could be completely wiped out if we continue with the compulsion to treat every negative mood as bad. Further purporting that if such a state had prevailed historically we may never have been honoured with the works of such greats as Van Gogh, Keats or Beethoven. Wilson (2008)
Such considerations certainly make one appreciate just how complex, intertwined and multipronged are the workings of human emotions and their unique and subjective effects on the holder.
Getting to the middling point depends upon hitting both extremes of high and low and what emerges is a state that incorporates aspects of both. As an astute thinker put it creating a higher unity that transcends and yet preserves the truth of both extremes (Mills, 2000).
