Positive Psychology’s A Priori Problem

• Published in: The Journal of humanistic psychology 2018-05, Vol.58 (3), p.313-342
• Main Author: Held, Barbara S.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Ambiguity; Fractured; Mathematics; Pathology; Positive emotions; Positive psychology; Psychological processes; Psychologists
• ISSN: 0022-1678; 1552-650X
• DOI: 10.1177/0022167817739409

The positive/negative distinction works well in many fields—for example, in mathematics negative numbers hold their own, and in medical pathology negative results are usually celebrated. But in positive psychology negativity should be replaced with positivity for flourishing/optimal functioning to occur. That the designation of the psychological states and processes deemed positive (good/desirable) and negative (bad/undesirable) is made a priori, independent of circumstantial particularity, both intrapersonal and interpersonal, does not seem to bother positive psychologists. But it should, as it results in conceptual muddles and dead ends that cannot be solved within their conceptual framework of positivity and negativity. Especially problematic is an ambiguity I find in positive psychologists’ a priori and a posteriori understandings of positivity and negativity, an ambiguity about constitutive and causal relations that pervades their science and the conclusions drawn from it. By eliminating their a priori dichotomy of positivity and negativity, positive psychologists might well find themselves in a better position to put back together the psychological reality that they have fractured in their ontologically dubious move of carving up psychological reality a priori into positive and negative phenomena. They then might find themselves better placed to “broaden and build” their own science of flourishing.