[007 Research Review | PERMA Series: 3] What is well-being, really? Since the 1980s, theoretical and empirical research in positive psychology has flourished. Previously, the field of psychology was closely focused on describing and quantifying mental illness – how to identify, measure, and treat psychological maladies. Not until groundbreaking work such as Csikszentmihalyi (1975) and Ryff (1989) did psychology shift its focus to understanding positive human functioning.
In positive psychology’s search for well-being, happiness, stress, and anxiety are treated as symptoms, which makes complete sense. Each emotion is an outcome that could rest on deeper aspects of character. But something interesting happens when we flip the equation and look at happiness, stress, or anxiety as feedback and useful information.
[006 Research Review | PERMA Series: Part 2]
In 1984, Ed Diener published his broadly referenced review of subjective well-being (SWB) as a theory and measure of human happiness. “Happiness,” he admits, is a fuzzy term. We use it in everyday life in many contexts, so Diener breaks it down into a theoretical construct with two distinct pieces.
