The 5 Founding Fathers and A History of

Positive Psychology
 Reham Al Taher, MSc, Psychologist

 20-11-2019

After the Second World War, the focus of psychology was on treating abnormal
behaviors and the resulting mental illnesses.

Dissatisfied with this approach, humanist psychologists, such as Abraham Maslow,

Carl Rogers, and Eric Fromm helped renew interest in the more positive aspects of
human nature.

This article contains:

 Inspiration in a Bed of Roses

 The Four Waves of Psychology

 The First Wave: The Disease Model

 The Second Wave: Behaviorism

 The Third Wave: Humanistic Psychology

 The Fourth Wave: Positive Psychology

 The Founding Fathers: Developing Positive Psychology

 Influential Positive Psychology Researchers

 References
Inspiration in a Bed of Roses
The story of Seligman’s epiphany in his rose garden—which started the movement
of positive psychology—has become somewhat a folk legend. This is how the
story goes:

Seligman’s daughter, who was 5 at the time, had been trying to get her father’s
attention when he turned around and snapped at her. Unhappy with this response,
his daughter asked him whether or not he remembered how she used to whine
when she was 3 and 4?

She told him that when she turned 5 she decided to stop – and if she was able to
stop whining, then he was able to stop being a grouch!

This revelation of developing what was right, rather than fixating on what was
wrong, sparked what Seligman would go on to promote during his career as APA
president—that we should teach our children and ourselves to look at
our strengths rather than our weaknesses (Seligman M & Csikszentmihalyi M,
2000).

Positive psychology can be viewed as the “fourth wave” in the evolution of

psychology, the first 3 waves being, respectively, the disease model, behaviorism,
and humanistic psychology.

This approach contrasts with how, in its early years (the second half the
19th century and the first half of the 20th), the practice of psychology focused mainly
on cure and treatment of psychic ailments, which is a decidedly negative focus.

Some of the greatest names in the early field of psychology were foundational,
such as Freud, Adler, and Jung. But over time, psychology began to acquire a
negative outlook and stereotype, with its focus on the darkest chambers of the
human mind and the near total exclusion of its sunlit highlands.

Positive psychology, as the name suggests, is psychology with a positive

orientation. What is the science behind what makes humans well?

It does not imply that the rest of psychology is unhelpful or all negative and, in
fact, the term “psychology as usual” has been coined to denote the rest of
psychology.

The Four Waves of Psychology

To understand the roots of positive psychology, we have to revisit the three waves
of psychology that came before that. After all, it was not until recently that the
field of psychology began expanding its research criteria to study what makes
people thrive, instead of what makes people sick.

The following three sections offer a brief summary of Western psychologies waves,
or movements, before introducing the fourth-wave that brings us to positive
psychology.

The 1st Wave: The Disease Model

During the second half of the 19th century and the early part of the 20th,
psychology was concerned with curing mental disorders, such as schizophrenia and
human complexes of various kinds (inferiority, power, Electra, Oedipus, etc.).

And why not? There has always been, and will perhaps always be, a significant
incidence of mental illness in all communities, irrespective of race or religion,
caste or creed.

The attempt of psychologists to cure these ailments was quite natural and laudable,
and the work of early psychologists, such as Sigmund Freud, Adler, and Carl Jung
was indeed very effective. (Note: It must be added here that of these pioneers, the
big 3 of Vienna as they were called, Carl Jung was perhaps the earliest
psychologist to recognize, and be troubled by, psychology’s negative focus).

Over time, this disease focus pushed psychology towards the dark recesses of the
human mind and away from the deeper well-springs of human energy and
potential. As highlighted by Martin Seligman, in his 2008 TED talk on Positive
Psychology, the negative focus of psychology resulted in three major drawbacks
for the field:

1. Psychologists became victimologists and pathologizers (they forgot that

people make choices and have responsibility);

2. They forgot about improving normal lives and high talent (the mission to
make relatively untroubled people happier, more fulfilled, more productive),
and;

3. In their rush to repair the damage, it never occurred to them to develop

interventions to make people happier.

The 2nd Wave: Behaviorism

B. F. Skinner of Harvard University was the originator, along with John B. Watson
and Ivan Pavlov, of the behavioral approach in psychology. Skinner believed that
free will was an illusion, and human behavior was largely dependent on the
consequences of our previous actions.

If a particular behavior attracted the right type of reinforcement it had a high

probability of being repeated, and if, on the other hand, the behavior resulted in
punishment it had a good chance of not being repeated (Schacter, Daniel L., and
Gilbert Daniel, 2011).

Skinner believed that given the right structure of rewards and punishments, human
behavior could be totally modified in an almost mechanical sense.

This theory undoubtedly has a lot of merits, particularly the idea of operant
conditioning—the influencing and eliciting desired behavior, through a
well-conceived reward system.

However, the manipulation of behavior that such a properly structured reward

system allows is open to gross abuse by autocrats and dictators in terms of
oppressing their subjects. And not just in society at large, but in the workplace as
well. J E R Staddon and Noam Choksy were among Skinner’s major critics
(Staddon, J., 1995; Chomsky, Noam 1959).

Furthermore, Skinner’s total rejection of free will is still disturbing. It goes against
all that human history stands for—the ultimate, and the enduring triumph of the
human spirit against overwhelming odds.

Criticisms of his theory notwithstanding, Skinner stands tall as a brilliant

psychologist and prolific writer. With 21 books and 180 articles to his credit, he
was voted the most influential psychologist of the 20th century in a 2002 survey
(Haggbloom, Steven J. et. al, 2002).

The 3rd Wave: Humanistic Psychology

This wave is known for its two major strands of thought – existentialist psychology
(Soren Kierkegaard, Jean-Paul Sartre) and humanistic psychology (Abraham
Maslow and Carl Rogers).

According to Sartre, every human being is responsible for working out his identity
and his life’s meaning through the interaction between himself and his
surroundings. No one else can do it for him, least of all a non-existent God. For
this reason, meaning is something truly unique to each person – separate and
independent (Jean-Paul Sartre, 1946).

One cannot quarrel with this strand of thought, particularly the responsibility of the
individual for his own destiny, but the underlying atheism is dampening.

What about people who cannot find their identity and their life’s meaning on their
own?

Uncontrollable anxiety would be inevitable, particularly in the absence of faith in a

supernatural being, an idea rejected by existentialism. This anxiety is recognized
in psychotherapy as “existential anxiety” and has been of major therapeutic
concern of many leading psychologists, particularly Victor Frankl, the originator of
logo-therapy.

There is a considerable divergence of views on the question of “What is life’s

meaning?” and, clearly, each individual needs to work it out for themselves, with
their own unique experience and surroundings.

Here is a very thoughtful quote from Kierkegaard, arguably the earliest exponent
of existentialism:

“What I really need is to get clear about what I must do, not what I must know,
except insofar as knowledge must precede every act. What matters is to find a
purpose, to see what it really is that God wills that I shall do; the crucial thing is
to find a truth which is truth for me, to find the idea for which I am willing to live
and die. (…) I certainly do not deny that I still accept an imperative of knowledge
and that through it men may be influenced, but then it must come alive in me, and
this is what I now recognize as the most important of all” (Kierkegaard, Soren,
1962).

The humanistic movement was about adding a holistic dimension to psychology.

Humanistic psychologists believed that our behavior is determined by our
perception of the world around us and its meanings, that we are not simply the
product of our environment or biochemistry, and that we are internally influenced
and motivated to fulfill our human potential.
Humanistic psychology emphasizes the inherent human drive
towards self-actualization, the process of realizing and expressing one’s own
capabilities and creativity. This approach rose to prominence in the mid-20th
century in response to the limitations of the disease model in fulfilling the human
desire for actualization and a life of meaning (Benjafield, John G., 2010).

The 5 basic principles or postulates of humanistic psychology are:

 Human beings, as human, supersede the sum of their parts. They cannot be
reduced to components;

 Human beings have their existence in a uniquely human context, as well as

in a cosmic ecology;

 Human beings are aware and are aware of being aware – i.e. they are
conscious. Human consciousness always includes an awareness of oneself in
the context of other people;

 Human beings have the ability to make choices and therefore have
responsibility;

 Human beings are intentional—they aim at goals, are aware that they cause
future events, and seek meaning, value, and creativity.

It is hard to miss the significant foundation that the humanistic approach has
provided for positive psychology.

The 4th Wave: Positive Psychology

As already pointed out earlier in this article, positive psychology is psychology
with a positive orientation, concerned with authentic happiness and a good life.

Humanistic psychologist Abraham Maslow maintained that psychology itself does

not have an accurate understanding of the human potential and that the field tends
not to raise the proverbial bar high enough with respect to maximum attainment.

He wrote:

“The science of psychology has been far more successful on the negative than on
the positive side; it has revealed to us much about man’s shortcomings, his
illnesses, his sins, but little about his potentialities, his virtues, his achievable
aspirations, or his full psychological height. It is as if psychology had voluntarily
restricted itself to only half its rightful jurisdiction, and that the darker, meaner
half” (Maslow, 1954, p. 354).

While the previous waves of psychology focused on human flaws, overcoming

deficiencies, avoiding pain, and escape from unhappiness, positive psychology
focuses on well-being, contentment, excitement, cheerfulness, the pursuit
of happiness, and meaning in life.

The humanistic movement wanted to look at what drives us to want to grow and
achieve fulfillment. However, even though their conceptual ideas of human nature
did influence the development of positive psychology, they are separate. While the
humanistic approach used more qualitative methods, positive psychology is
developing a more scientific epistemology of understanding human beings.

Psychology may be converging— finally—with the quintessence of the world’s

great religions. It may finally be discovering that the key to human evolution lies in
a fine blend of the mind and the spirit. It may, at last, be recognizing and accepting
the dark chambers of the human mind as well as its sunlit highlands.

Who are the passionate visionaries behind this fourth wave of psychology? Let’s
find out…

The 5 Founding Fathers: Developing Positive Psychology

In 1998, Martin Seligman was elected President of the American Psychological
Association and it was then that Positive Psychology became the theme of his term
as president. He is widely seen as the father of contemporary positive psychology
(About Education, 2013).

However, while most people see Seligman as the face of Positive Psychology, he
didn’t start the field alone and was not the first ‘positive psychologist.’

There have been many influencers which have contributed to this new era of
psychology.

1) William James
 James was a philosopher, physician, and psychologist,
and he was the first educator to offer a psychology
course in the United States. He argued that in order to
thoroughly study a person’s optimal functioning, one
has to take in how they personally experience
something, otherwise known as their subjective
experience.

He also saw the importance of combining both

positivistic and phonological methodology, which is
what many now refer to as ‘radical empiricism’
because he was interested in what was objective and
observable.

Despite this, many consider James to be America’s “first positive psychologist”

(Froh, 2004) because of his deep interest in the subjectivity of a person and
because he believed that “objectivity is based on intense subjectivity” (2004).

2) Abraham Maslow

While the entire 3rd Wave of Humanistic Psychology

played a vital role in providing Positive Psychology with
foundational concepts, there was no greater influence from
the approach then Abraham Maslow.

In fact, the term “positive psychology” was first coined by

Maslow, in his 1954 book “Motivation and Personality.”
Maslow did not like how psychology concerned itself
mostly with disorder and dysfunction, arguing that it did not
have an accurate understanding of human potential.

He emphasized how psychology successfully shows our negative side by revealing

much about our illnesses and shortcomings, but not enough of our virtues or
aspirations (Maslow, 1954, p. 354).

3) Martin Seligman

Seligman is an American Psychologist, educator, and author of self-help books. He

is famous for his experiments and theory of learned helplessness, as well as for
being the founder of Positive Psychology.
 His work in learned helplessness and pessimistic
attitudes garnered an interest in optimism, which
led to his work with Christopher Peterson
(mentioned below) to create a positive side to the
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental
Disorders (DSM).

In their research, they looked at different cultures

over time to create a list of virtues that are highly
valued and included it in their Character
Strengths and Virtues section in the DSM:
wisdom/knowledge, courage, transcendence,
justice, humanity, and temperance.

In 1996, he was elected President of the American Psychological Association and

the central theme he chose for his term as president was positive psychology. He
wanted mental health to be more than just the “absence of illness” and ushered a
new era that focused on what makes people feel happy and fulfilled.

Today he is the director of the Positive Psychology Center at the University of

Pennsylvania.

4) Mihaly Czikszentmihalyi

Czikszentmihalyi was born in Hungary in 1934, and like many other people of
that time, he was deeply affected by the Second World War. He was stripped from
his family and friends as a child and was put in an Italian prison and it was there he
had his first idea of working with flow and optimal experience.

He had an affinity for painting, noting that the act of creating was sometimes more
important than the finished work itself. This led to his fascination with what he
called the flow state, and he made it his life’s work to scientifically identify the
different methods through which one could achieve such a state.

Czikszentmihalyi’s studies gained much popular interested. Today he is considered

one of the founders of positive psychology.

5) Christopher Peterson

Christopher Peterson was the professor of Psychology at the University of

Michigan and the former chair of the Clinical Psychology department.

He was the co-author of Character Strengths and Virtues with Seligman and is
noted for his work in the study of optimism, hope, character, and well-being.
Influential Positive Psychology Researchers
The following positive psychology researchers deserve a special mention.
However, there are so many positive psychology researchers whose work is
shaping the future of positive psychology that they can’t all be mentioned in this
article. Check out our full list of Positive Psychology Researchers.

 Albert Bandura

Albert Bandura’s self-efficacy theory originated from his social-cognitive theory.

It relates to a person’s perception of their ability to reach a goal and the belief that
one is capable of performing it in a certain way in order to reach them. This
concept has been of great impotence and use in positive psychology.

 Donald Clifton

Seligman stated that Clifton followed a similar path

that he did when he came up with Strengths-based
psychology. He studied successful individuals and
wanted to know what they did right to achieve top
performance.

His work gave employees solid recommendations

on how to find a fulfilling career that is suitable for
them. He was honored in 2002 by the American
Psychological Association with a Presidential
Commendation as the Father of Strengths-based
Psychology and he has been called the
“grandfather of Positive Psychology” (Snyder,
Lopez, & Pedrotti, 2015, p. 66).

 Deci and Ryan

The theory of human motivation known as Self-Determination Theory was

developed in 2000 by Edward L. Deci, professor in the Department of Clinical and
Social Sciences at the University of Rochester, New York, and Richard M. Ryan,
clinical psychologist and Professor at the Institute for Positive Psychology and
Education at the Australian Catholic University in Sydney, Australia.

Their grounding work on Self-Determination Theory updated the hierarchy of

needs originally identified by Abraham Maslow and found that human motivation
is founded in three major needs: autonomy, competence,
and relatedness (connecting to other people).
 Ed Diener

Dr. Ed Diener, aka “Dr. Happiness”, is a leading researcher in PP who coined the
term “Subjective well-being” as the aspect of happiness that can be measured
scientifically. His argument that there is a strong genetic component to happiness
has led to a huge amount of data studying the internal and external conditions of
happiness and how one can change it.

Diener even researched the relationship between income and well-being, as well as
cultural influences on well-being.

His publications have been cited over 98,000 times and his fundamental research
on the subject is what earned him his nickname. He has worked with researchers
Daniel Kahneman and Martin Seligman and is a senior scientist for The Gallup
Organization.

 Carol Dweck

Dweck conducted research on the notion of growth vs. fixed mindset. It has been
used with parents, teams, students, entrepreneurs, and business leaders. It is a
positive psychology tool that is used widely and praised highly, bringing people
more interest to the world of positive psychology.

 Barbara Fredrickson

World-renowned author and researcher, Fredrickson made her first contribution to

positive psychology research with her theory on positive emotions, The Broaden
and Build Theory, which proposes that positive emotions are able to broaden
people’s minds, resulting in resources for experiencing well-being and resilience in
times of adversity. Since then Fredrickson has done extensive research and
produced 2 books.

Fredrickson currently acts as the Director of the Positive Emotions and

Psychophysiology Laboratory, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.