Positive Psychology: Improving Function and Quality

Running head: PSYCHOLOGY ASSESSMENT
PSYCHOLOGY ASSESSMENT
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author’s Note:

1PSYCHOLOGY ASSESSMENT
The purpose of this essay is to provide a summary of a psychology research article and in
order to achieve that an article has been chosen. The title of the article is “What (and why) is
Positive Psychology?” and it was authored by Shelly L. Gable and Jonathan Haidt. The summary
of this article will be provided in the following sections.
The main theme of this article is ‘Positive Psychology’ and how the study of positive
psychology can help improve the function and quality of groups, people and organizations. In the
article, the authors, Gable and Haidt (2005) have reported that the use of positive psychology has
developed quite a lot over the last five years. Gable and Haidt (2005) have provided the famous
lamentation of Robert F. Kennedy about gross national product and suggested that it is analogous
with regard to positive psychology can be related as a gross academic product of psychology.
The author’s have also referred to the edited issue published by Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi
in the year 2000 which reported that the psychologist are not making enough effort about the
knowledge which can be implemented to make life easier for the individuals. They have also
presented the fact that quite a few investigation and research have been conducted on the area of
positive psychology. Although, authors have also pointed out that the not all psychologist are
agreed upon the benefits of positive psychology and there are few psychologists who remain
skeptical about this matter.
According to the authors, Gable and Haidt (2005), Positive Psychology is the study of
psychology which can be implemented to improve the function and quality of groups, people and
organizations. The studies of positive psychology have been neglected for years and have taken a
back seat over the past 50 years. They are many neglected are of positive psychology in term of
academic research. From the sampling of research published in the last sixty years or so, it is
very much evident that very little researches have been published on the area of forgiveness,