The Three Pillars of Positive Psychology
Positive psychology can be summarized succinctly by what Peterson calls the three pillars of positive psychology:
- positive experiences
- positive traits
- positive social institutions
Positive psychology is certainly concerned with positive experiences, what we ordinarily call pleasure and happiness. In the early days of positive psychology, the field sometimes caught flak for this from the media. Some said that studying happiness was trivial and sappy. They associated positive psychology with the inane smiley face we all know.
How can we do serious science on such silliness?
Another criticism positive psychologists sometimes heard was that people are already too wrapped up in the self-centered pursuit of pleasure. Why should psychologists encourage this self-indulgence? We will consider these criticisms of studying positive experiences when we get to chapter 3 of the Peterson text. For now, suffice it to say that positive psychology is not limited to the study of happiness; it is also concerned with positive traits and institutions.
Positive traits, include characteristics such as courage, kindness, curiosity, cooperativeness, and other virtues, values, interests, talents, and abilities. Positive psychology helps to show us how to discover, develop, and use our positive traits.
Finally, positive psychology is interested in social institutions that can help enable a good life. Studying positive social institutions such as friendships, marriage, family, educational systems, religion, and political and economic systems shows us how these institutions can improve the quality of human life.