Festus Uwakhemen A. PhD
May 9,2023
Background of the Study
The virtue of their mindset naturally designs humans to be more concerned with negative activities and past occurrences. This form of instinct has created a challenge of the inability of individuals in society to naturally create their own happiness or state of ecstasy that scientific research works like those of Ott (2005) and Paxton (2002) has asserted as the pathway to authentic human development. Hence, it has become an issue that individuals going through some form of therapy or real-life situations cannot decipher the trend of happiness in their lives as they go from one daily activity to the next. As such, most often, people in therapy do not know what influences the happiness in their life from one event to the next. Positive psychology comes into the picture. It attempts to redirect an individual’s mental viewpoint away from the angle of negativity and channel that focus towards a more balanced view of seeing positive things in life’s events daily. The positive thinking of individuals in society is, according to Achor (2010), a necessary rudiment for human development. Therefore, positive psychology needs to be strategically implemented to ensure individuals’ development at a personal level and the society in general.
Description of the Subject Matter
Looking at human development from the viewpoint of its strategic application, the concept of development with respect to individuals and the general society can be said to be relative since it has been emphasized by scientists, economists and philosophers over the ages. The emphasis by learned scholars on the premise of human development has, according to Shah (2016), been all about its application in the society, especially as civilization advanced and became more organized coming into the 20th and 21st centuries. According to CFI (2015), human development should be an increase in the productive capacity or income which may mean just growth without human development, but major transformations in the socio-economic structures whose inequalities and rigidities resulting from outmoded systems have tended to inhibit all-sided and even human development of many third world societies. Human development means the process by which people become better off. It can also be defined as the process of improving the quality of all human lives. One of the three important elements often emphasized in consideration of the concept of human development and which is relevant to us in this paper is the creation of conditions conducive to the growth of people’s self-esteem through the establishment of social, political and economic systems and institutions. Human development has been defined as the widely participatory process of social and material advancement (including greater equality, freedom, and other values) for most people by gaining greater control of their environment.
Concept of Positive Psychology
One of the recently developed aspects of the human mind’s science is the branch known as Positive psychology. This aspect of psychological science emphasizes the way positive aura affects the life of an individual. According to McCutty et al. (2012), these positive influences are likely to include the strong points of a person’s character disposition, level of optimism, and internal self-esteem, amongst other positives that influence individuals’ lives in their social and physical environment. It lays emphasis on the positive influences in a person’s life. The conceptual basis of positive psychology is hinged on the ideology that a happy person is due to his state of mind and his or her emotional capacity. Therefore the concept of positive psychology is positioned by science to assist individuals in their search for genuine happiness from time to time through the ages, rather than just reminiscing the feeling of happiness during a particular past life.
The application of positive psychology transcends through social life into health therapy as individuals in need of therapeutic assistance in order to extract a great deal of excitement from their present predicaments in life could find the scientific concept and art of positive psychology extremely relevant for them; a majority of such individuals can redirect their mental focus towards concurrent positive thoughts and feelings rather than the negativities of the past post-therapeutic treatment.
TECHNIQUES USED IN POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY
According to HavardHealth (2008), the use of positive psychology techniques and skills in treating people by therapy is known as Positive psychotherapy. This is seen as a professional career and is premised on the perception that the construct and concept of happiness can be subdivided further into three less complex aspects, which are all constituents of the bigger element, happiness. These three sub-divisions can be effortlessly used in conjunction with the general idea of happiness to efficiently apply positive psychology to strategic human development for individuals at a personal level and for the society in a larger perspective.
Accordingly, happiness as a concept can be broken down into positive thinking, practical engagement and meaningful living. According to GoodTherapy (2018), the activities undertaken during the process of positive psychotherapy are initiated to activate one or all of these elements of happiness in an individual’s life. In essence, the skills and techniques implemented for this kind of therapeutic medical practice are targeted at enhancing the positive thinking perspectives and practical engagement position and meaning living disposition of individuals in society, since a happy person transcends into a vibrant and developed society. These skills and techniques implemented by positive psychotherapists are mostly physical activities that can sync with short memory and long memory units of the patients’ brain to achieve effectiveness. According to Azar (2011), one of these techniques is a daily exploration by using beeping devices or pagers that can serve as daily routine remembering devices for the patient to record their experiences over the course of a particular timeline. These records are usually reviewed by the therapist and analyzed using a form of long-term appraisal. The use of gratitude journals by individuals undergoing this form of therapeutic treatment is another technique utilized in positive psychotherapy to ensure that individuals can focus on only positive daily accomplishments rather than ruminating on the things they could not achieve. (Della Porta et al., 2010)
Theoretical Standpoints of Positive Psychology and Human Development Application
There are several theories and theoretical models that can be used to analyze the relationship between positive psychology and human development, especially from the standpoint of strategic application of positive psychology as a means of ensuring human development.
Seligman’s Positive Psychology Theory
According to the theory of positive psychology designed by Martin Seligman, the concept of well-being encompasses positive thinking. Self-actualisation is a trait that can be learned and transferred from one individual to another. Seligman’s principles emphasized high-level optimism as a source of increased productivity in various life fields, ranging from the military, medicine, sales, production, and teaching. The principle asserts that pessimism can be fought, and the strong points of humans can be focused on to bring the best out of individuals in order to better the world in general. (Seligman et al., 2006)
Peseschkian’s Positive Psychotherapy Theory
This theoretical model, which Dr Norssrat Peseschkian initiated, is of the opinion that the basic abilities of the human mind lie in its capacity of knowledge and love for the positives, as against the general tendency to be negative as envisioned by people in society. The theory asserts that these basic abilities lie in the mind’s unconscious region and require a deal of stirring up to be activated. (Cope, 2009)
Transformative Learning Theory
Transformative learning theory, as propounded by Mezirow (1981), and cited in Rad (2012), explains the procedure of constructing and appropriating original and reviewed explanation of how to define experiences in the world. In transformative learning, there is a cognitive process of effecting change in a frame of reference. Although it is recognized that critical emotional changes are often involved, these frames of reference define our view of the world. We tend to disregard ideas that do not align with specific concepts, associations, values, and other factors. Our frames of reference comprise two scopes; points of view and habits of mind. For mind habits, it includes ethnocentrism and tends to be rigid; it also influences our views. In contrast, points of view may change over time due to influences such as reflection, appropriation and feedback.
Target Audience
The audience targeted for this research study is the active working population of the United States located within its health sector, especially those working as psychologists, physiotherapists, psychotherapists, caregivers, private and general nurses, and medical practitioners offering one form of therapeutic treatment or the other.
METHODS
The research method that would be used in this study for the generating of data is the survey method of research. It will, however, be conducted in the form of semi-structured oral interviews and questionnaire administration. The data derived from a descriptive research is analyzed using descriptive statistical tools of frequencies and percentages that would reveal the various strategic ways positive psychology can be applied to ensure human development in the 21st century. This study’s sample technique is the stratified random sampling method, based on the research targeted at collecting data from various strata and segments of the United States health sector, ranging from staff in government-owned educational institutions to private schools and colleges. The data collected would be analyzed and presented with the cognitive content analysis. The analyzed data was then presented in the form of descriptive statistics in frequency distribution, mainly frequencies and percentages. The data will be largely presented in qualitative means, using content analysis to state observations and make inferences since the concept of positive psychology and human development is more like an abstract concept that requires a great deal of introspection and analytical efficiency.
RESULTS
With reference to the survey questions, the participants were assessed based on the relationship between positive psychology and human development. The constructs analyzed in this survey was to determine how positive psychology was used as an application to aid human development. In the course of analyzing the survey, it was seen that 55% of the respondents believed that positive psychology had a powerful impact on human development. In comparison, 25% believed it had a fair impact. The rest 20% suggested it had no significant impact as a way of application to aid human development. In all, most of the respondents were of the opinion that the factors affecting human development can be used as a strategic application to aid development and that the concept and practice of positive psychology can be applied as a strategic action to aid the human development of individuals and societies.
CONCLUSION
The unraveling of the human mind and its deep potentials is of great importance when dealing with human development, either at the individual or societal levels. To achieve a substantial level of human development that can be reckoned with, various principles can be strategically applied, and the effectiveness of these principles can also be tested. One of these principles is that of positive psychology, which analyses the mental faculties with respect to positive thinking that transcends into the creation of happiness for individuals. The study evaluates how positive psychology can be strategically applied to aid human development, pinpointing positive psychotherapy as a crucial application. The study results show that more than half of the respondents were of the opinion that positive psychology has a substantial positive impact on aiding human development as a means of strategic application. The study concludes by recommending positive psychotherapy in treating patients at psychiatry facilities, particularly those with mental disorders that can be considered not to be too chronic.
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