Felicidade e bem-estar na visão da psicologia positiva

Abstract

Positive Psychology studies the positive individual traits of human being to improve quality of life, prevent pathologies and promote health. According to Martin Seligman, it’s main author, genuinely experiencing its aspects can lead to well-being. It’s known that happiness is a subjective feeling and therefore so difficult to be defined. This research investigated how some aspects of this theory, such as: positive emotion, engagement, meaning, positive relationships, accomplishment, resilience and optimism, appear in people’s life experiences and how they define happiness. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 10 college students, men and women, aging between 20 and 28 years, following the qualitative research method. The participants were on the last year of graduation and answered the questionnaire by e-mail. As result, the studied aspects were found in the speech of participants, pointing their importance to happiness and well-being. It was also possible to study the definition of happiness through history and notice how the current societies were influenced by philosophers of the past and how the concept was changed until today’s definition, which received great influence of the Enlightenment thought of the eighteenth century