I am interested to positive psychology, so I want to write about researches on positive psychology. Positive psychology focuses on human strengths and help people live better lives. One of popular Harvard open courses is Positive Psychology and I like how the professor discussed happiness. Positive psychology help people pay attention to good parts of human beings as psychologists usually focus on psychological disorders. For example, according to the textbook, people can be recovered even after suffering from severe psychological disorders and terrible events. At present, positive psychology has been a young but popular field. Various self-help books are selling all over the world and they tell people to consistently repeat positive self-help statement, such as "I am smart!" and "I did well!" However, some researches show that positive psychology is not so effective sometimes. A research done by University of Waterloo shows that people with high self esteem did not feel better about them after repeating positive self-help statements while the statements make people with low self esteem feel worse about themselves. So, I think topics related to positive psychology is worth researching. Maybe positive psychology is not so magical.
Way to Happiness
positive psychology is important. if it isn't important in some ways, it has to be in others. it can help people with negative outlooks on life become more positive, among other things. however, i do not think this is a flawless psychology. just because one thinks positively does not mean that they should be thinking positively. really, the best thing someone can do in some situations is think at a neutral level, rather than a positive or negative one.
I wonder if positive psychology can be used as a treatment instead of normal psychological help. I think it's generally known that people who think happy thoughts eventually tend to be happier, and if positive psychology becomes a more popular thing it could really change the way we view optimists and pessimists.
I think that there is potential for positive psychology to have an impact on the views of psychologists and the treatment they decide to use on their patients/clients, but I think there has to be more research with valid findings to really persuade anyone in the field of psychology that it is worth while. If scientific evidence could be provided to psychologists, I think they would be more likely to utilize some of the techniques and principles of positive psychology.
What I think was the downside of positive psychology was that some people function better as pessimists, and to take that away from them by being positive in their lives actually decreases their functioning and problem solving. Since they are always preparing for the worst, they are always over-prepared for the situation. It kind of seems to be a natural coping mechanism.