Measures Of Positive Psychology

The book contributes to the vast field of research in psychometrics as well as to the growing field of positive psychology. It analyses the development and validation of several constructs of positive psychology like resilience, flow, mindfulness, spirituality, and intrapersonal and interpersonal strengths. The chapters discuss the test construction process and develop scales for constructs that are validated on the Indian population. In most Indian behavioral research, psychological tests from the West are employed without assessing psychometric properties in India. However, establishing validation of psychological tests in a new culture is necessary in order to claim results based on these tests. Hence, this book bridges this gap in positive psychology and its allied fields and develops and standardizes these scales for the Indian population. The new constructed and validated scales have undergone rigorous statistical screening. Psychologists, psychiatrists, and social workers interested in studying well-being in India and in understanding how to create psychometric scales for non-Western populations will find the book useful for their research.

This book is a primer for practitioners and researchers striving to incorporate the assessment of human strengths, resources, and fulfillment into their work. Contributors examine the scientific underpinnings and practical applications of measures of hope, optimism, self-efficacy, problem-solving, locus of control, creativity, wisdom, courage, positive emotion, self-esteem, love, emotional intelligence, empathy, attachment, forgiveness, humor, gratitude, faith, morality, coping, well-being, and quality of life. Vocational and multicultural applications of positive psychological assessment are also discussed, as is the measurement of contextual variables that may facilitate the development or enhancement of human strengths. This second edition includes a fully-updated research base, and extensive case studies that offer concrete examples of how clinical readers can use these tools in their practice.

Argues that happiness can be a learned and cultivated behavior, explaining how every person possesses at least five of twenty-four profiled strengths that can be built on in order to improve life.

"Character" has become a front-and-center topic in contemporary discourse, but this term does not have a fixed meaning. Character may be simply defined by what someone does not do, but a more active and thorough definition is necessary, one that addresses certain vital questions. Is character a singular characteristic of an individual, or is it composed of different aspects? Does character--however we define it--exist in degrees, or is it simply something one happens to have? How can character be developed? Can it be learned? Relatedly, can it be taught, and who might be the most effective teacher? What roles are played by family, schools, the media, religion, and the larger culture? This groundbreaking handbook of character strengths and virtues is the first progress report from a prestigious group of researchers who have undertaken the systematic classification and measurement of widely valued positive traits. They approach good character in terms of separate strengths-authenticity, persistence, kindness, gratitude, hope, humor, and so on-each of which exists in degrees. Character Strengths and Virtues classifies twenty-four specific strengths under six broad virtues that consistently emerge across history and culture: wisdom, courage, humanity, justice, temperance, and transcendence. Each strength is thoroughly examined in its own chapter, with special attention to its meaning, explanation, measurement, causes, correlates, consequences, and development across the life span, as well as to strategies for its deliberate cultivation. This book demands the attention of anyone interested in psychology and what it can teach about the good life.

This book provides an accessible and balanced introduction to positive psychology scholarship and its applications, incorporating an overview of the development of positive psychology. Positive Psychology: The Basics delineates positive psychology’s journey as a discipline, takes stock of its achievements and provides an updated overview of its core topics, exploring the theory, research and interventions in each. Launched as a rebellious discipline just over two decades ago, positive psychology challenged the emphasis of applied psychology on disease and dysfunction and offered a new, more balanced perspective on human life. From its foundations in the late 20th century to recent "second-wave" theories around the importance of recognizing negative emotions, this compact overview covers the key ideas and principles, from research around emotional wellbeing, optimism and change, to posttraumatic growth and positive relationships. The first jargon-free introduction to the subject, Hart introduces the reader to a range of issues, including self-regulation and flow, character strengths and virtues and positive relationships, concluding with a chapter on how interventions can affect happiness and wellbeing. Positive Psychology: The Basics is an essential resource for students, practitioners, academics and anyone who is interested in understanding the essence of a life well lived.

The Sandvik, Diener, and Seidlitz (1993) paper is another that has received widespread attention because it documented the fact that self-report well-being scales correlate with a number of other methods of measuring the same concepts, such as with reports by knowledgeable “informants” (family and friends), expe- ence sampling measurement, and the memory for good versus bad life events. A single factor was found to underlie measures using different methods, and a n- ber of different well-being self-report measures were found to correlate with the non-self-report measures. Thus, although the self-report measures of well-being are imperfect, and can be in uenced by response artifacts, they have substantial validity as shown by their correlations with measurements based on alternative methods. Whereas the Pavot and Diener article reviewed the Satisfaction with Life Scale, the Lucas, Diener, and Larsen (2003) paper reviews various approaches to assessing positive emotions. As we wrote in the chapter in this volume in which we present new measures, we do not consider any of the existing measures of positive affect to be entirely acceptable for measuring subjective well-being in the affect area, and that is why we have created and validated a new measure.

Everyone cares about positive emotion and what makes us happy. But do we really know both sides of the story about our most treasured feelings? This comprehensive volume provides the first account of the light and the dark sides of positive emotion, and how they can help us and sometimes even hurt us.

Remediating deficits and managing disabilities has been a central preoccupation for clinical psychologists. Positive Psychology, in contrast, is concerned with the enhancement of happiness and well-being, involving the scientific study of the role of personal strengths and positive social systems in the promotion of optimal wellbeing. Alan Carr's Positive Psychology has become essential reading for anyone requiring a thorough and accessible introduction to the field. This new edition retains all the features that made the first edition so popular, including: accounts of major theories and relevant research learning objectives chapter summaries research and personal development questions suggestions for further reading measures for use in research glossaries of new terms. The book has also been completely updated to take account of recent research and major advances, and includes a new chapter on Positive Psychotherapy, an extended account of research on character strengths and virtues, and a discussion of recent ground-breaking research on emotional intelligence. This new edition of Positive Psychology will prove a valuable resource for psychology students and lecturers, as well as those involved in postgraduate training in related areas such as clinical psychology, social work, counselling and psychotherapy.