The History of Positive Psychology
Positive psychology did not actually spring out of nowhere in the 1990s. The early roots of positive psychology go back more than 2,000 years to the study of virtue. Virtue was of great importance to ancient Greeks (άρετέ) and Chinese (德). Virtue meant fulfilling one's potential for excellence. Throughout the ages, religious figures continued to speak of how to attain the good life and higher purpose or meaning.
More recently within modern psychology, we can see an emphasis on the positive in the following programs:
- Studies of giftedness, genius, multiple intelligences (Terman, Gardner)
- Wellness promotion programs (Albee)
- Restriction-free schools like Summerhill (Neill)
- Studies of agency and self-efficacy (Bandura)
But the most important predecessor of positive psychology is probably the Humanistic Psychology of Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers in the 1950s and 1960s. Humanistic psychologists focused on what they called the self-actualizing tendencies of human beings. Self-actualization is the process of striving toward and fulfilling one's positive potentials.
In fact, if you take a close look at the humanistic psychology of the 1950s and 1960s, you will see an amazing resemblance to the concerns of positive psychologists of the 1990s. It is almost as if positive psychologists had rediscovered the wheel. You might even detect a bit of embarrassment and defensiveness amongst positive psychologists who try to emphasize how positive psychology is different from humanistic psychology. (Read what Peterson says on this subject in chapter 1). Regardless, these two schools of thought do not differ philosophically. Both focus on positive growth and the achievement of our highest potential. Where they differ, perhaps, is that modern positive psychology has spent far more energy conducting scientific research to better understand how to achieve positive growth and achievement of our potentials.