Happiness Donut: A Confucian Critique of Positive Psychology.

Abstract

An empirically based version of the good life as proposed by positive psychology is a donut with something missing at the core-the moral map. This paper addresses ramifications of this lacuna, and suggests ways to narrow the gap between science and life. By applying an extended version of the self-regulation theory of Higgins to a cross cultural analysis of the good life as envisioned by Seligman and Confucius, respectively, this paper sheds light on the culturally encapsulated value judgments behind positive psychology, examines issues at stake in an empirically based version of the good life, and suggests, for future research, alternative approaches that may better fulfill the promises of positive psychology. HAPPINESS DONUT: A CONFUCIAN CRITIQUE OF POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGYPositive psychology has two versions, strong and weak. The weak version claims that we can benefit from studying the so far neglected "positive" attributes of life. Except for its overly simplistic polarization of the positive and the negative (see Solomon & Stone, 2002), this claim is rather innocuous. But at the same time it cannot be taken seriously as an innovation in science. If the whole thing is a matter of shuffling research agendas, then the pendulum is bound to swing back to the negative, when in the foreseeable future the positive side of the coin has generated silos of data. The strong version of positive psychology is more interesting, as it goes beyond another round of the pendulum.The strong version of positive psychology is best expressed by Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi in their definitive statement of the movement (2000), in which they urged "social and behavioral sciences" to "articulate a vision of the good life that is empirically sound" (p. 5). This claim is bold and innovative, but problematic. To the extent that * Thanks are due James R. Averill for his helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper.

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An Hermeneutic Analysis of Transpersonal Education: Policies, Principles and Practices

“…Although positive psychology and humanistic psychology may appear synonymous [22], Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi criticise humanistic psychology as lacking an empirical research tradition which they assert is required for any psychological approach, given the positivist nature of the psychology [23]. In defence of humanistic psychology, Taylor identifies a range of themes that have been empirically researched [24], while others have provided counterarguments against positive psychology, which relate specifically to the inherent value system adopted by positive psychology [25][26][27][28]. Leontiev provides an additional criticism, that positive psychology is more of an ideology, lacking a unified theoretical explanatory model [29].…”