Concept

Positive psychology

Positive psychology is a branch of psychology that studies the conditions that contribute to the optimal functioning of people, groups, and institutions. It studies "positive subjective experience, positive individual traits, and positive institutions... it aims to improve quality of life." It is a field of study that has grown as individuals and researchers look for common ground on better well-being. Positive psychology began as a new domain of psychology in 1998 when Martin Seligman chose it as the theme for his term as president of the American Psychological Association. It is a reaction against past practices, which tended to focus on mental illness and emphasized maladaptive behavior and negative thinking. It builds on the humanistic movement by Abraham Maslow, Rollo May, James Martin, and Carl Rogers, which encourages an emphasis on happiness, well-being, and positivity. Positive psychology largely relies on concepts from the Western philosophical tradition, such as the Aristotelian concept of eudaimonia, which is typically rendered in English with the terms "flourishing", "the good life" or even "happiness". Positive psychologists study empirically the conditions and processes that contribute to flourishing, subjective well-being and happiness - often using these terms interchangeably. Positive psychologists suggested a number of factors may contribute to happiness and subjective well-being, for example: social ties with a spouse, family, friends, colleagues, and wider networks; membership in clubs or social organizations; physical exercise; and the practice of meditation. Spirituality can also lead to increased individual happiness and well-being. Spiritual practice and religious commitment is a possible source for increased well-being studied within positive psychology. Happiness may rise with increasing income, though it may plateau or even fall when no further gains are made or after a certain cut-off amount.

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Self-help or self-improvement is a self-guided improvement—economically, physically, intellectually, and emotionally—often with a substantial psychological basis. When engaged in self-help, people often use publicly available information or support groups, on the Internet as well as in person, where people in similar situations join together. From early examples in self-driven legal practice and home-spun advice, the connotations of the word have spread and often apply particularly to education, business, exercise, psychology and psychotherapy, commonly distributed through the popular genre of self-help books.
Popular psychology
Popular psychology (sometimes shortened as pop psychology or pop psych) refers to the concepts and theories about human mental life and behavior that are supposedly based on psychology and are considered credible and accepted by the wider populace. The concept is cognate with the human potential movement of the 1950s and 1960s. The term pop psychologist can be used to describe authors, consultants, lecturers, and entertainers who are widely perceived as being psychologists, not because of their academic credentials, but because they have projected that image or have been perceived in that way in response to their work.
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