In plain language
Positive psychology programs — designed to build optimism, character strengths, and happiness — are spreading into classrooms all over the world. But critics have argued the movement can be coercive, can overemphasise positive states, and can teach children to avoid or suppress negative feelings. This review asked: are those criticisms valid, and how should policy regulate and evaluate positive education so it does not do more harm than good?
Reviewing the evidence, the authors conclude the criticisms have merit — but mainly for "content-focused" interventions that try to directly change the content of people's inner experience (make thinking more positive, boost optimism or grit) and that treat inner states as the direct cause of behaviour. As an alternative, they describe contextual positive psychology (CPP), illustrated through the DNA-V model of thriving, which builds three functional classes of behaviour — Discoverer (trial-and-error learning), Noticer (awareness of inner and outer experience), and Advisor (skilful use of language and self-talk) — all in the service of the young person's own values and vitality. In CPP, no thought or feeling is judged good or bad in advance; what matters is whether behaviour "works" for that person in their context.
The paper translates this into six concrete policy recommendations for schools, from empowering young people to clarify their own values (rather than having adults impose values on them) through to applying the same principles to whole social groups, not just individuals. The authors argue educators should look for the causes of behaviour in the environment and its interaction with the individual — young people are not "broken," and troubled behaviour is often an adaptation to a troubled context.
Key findings
- Criticisms of positive psychology (coerciveness, promotion of experiential avoidance, maladaptive pursuit of positive states) appear valid mainly for content-focused interventions that try to directly increase positive inner experience and treat it as the cause of action.
- The authors propose contextual positive psychology (CPP), which evaluates thoughts and feelings by their workability — whether they help a young person act on their values in their specific context — rather than labelling any inner state as inherently good or bad.
- The DNA-V model organises youth interventions around three functional behaviour classes — Discoverer, Noticer, and Advisor — used in the service of values and vitality, and provides a framework for understanding mindfulness, SEL, and CBT-based school programs.
- Six policy recommendations are offered: empower value clarification and value-consistent action; help young people navigate context with language; build noticing of inner and outer experience; encourage exploration to develop skills and resources; build perspective-taking on self and others; and apply all of these to social groups as well as individuals.
- Evidence cited shows value-affirmation exercises improve grades and reduce racial achievement gaps, and autonomy-supportive (non-coercive) school environments have clear benefits.
- The authors argue schools should locate causes of behaviour in the environment-person interaction rather than in supposed internal defects, countering the fundamental attribution error in education policy.
How to cite
APA
Ciarrochi, J., Atkins, P. W. B., Hayes, L. L., Sahdra, B. K., & Parker, P. (2016). Contextual positive psychology: Policy recommendations for implementing positive psychology into schools. Frontiers in Psychology, 7, 1561. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01561
BibTeX
@article{ciarrochi2016contextual,
author = {Ciarrochi, Joseph and Atkins, Paul W. B. and Hayes, Louise L. and Sahdra, Baljinder K. and Parker, Philip},
title = {Contextual Positive Psychology: Policy Recommendations for Implementing Positive Psychology into Schools},
journal = {Frontiers in Psychology},
year = {2016},
volume = {7},
pages = {1561},
doi = {10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01561}
}
Related work
- All publications by Joseph Ciarrochi (searchable, with free PDFs)
- Process-Based Therapy & Idionomic Analysis
Author: Joseph Ciarrochi (ORCID 0000-0003-0471-8100). Free copy hosted with permission for scholarly use. Please cite the published version via the DOI above.