In plain language
Since 2000, positive psychology has exploded, producing dozens of meta-analyses on interventions targeting strengths, gratitude, hope, mindfulness, meaning in life, passion, and more. But the field has a problem: researchers tend to treat each of these processes as separate from the others — and as unrelated to the “negative” processes studied in clinical psychology. The result is a fragmented landscape with no common language for understanding why interventions work.
This review paper proposes a unifying solution: the extended evolutionary meta-model (EEMM). The idea is that all psychosocial interventions — whether coaching, prevention, training, or therapy — can be organized in terms of context-appropriate variation, selection, and retention of processes, arranged across key biopsychosocial dimensions (affect, cognition, attention, self, motivation, overt behavior) and across psychological, biophysiological, and sociocultural levels of analysis. The authors review widely studied positive psychology constructs and programs and show how each fits within this framework, noting that seemingly unitary constructs such as mindfulness or strength spotting actually span multiple dimensions of the model.
Why does this matter? Because a shared, process-based framework lets practitioners personalize interventions rather than delivering fixed protocols — the paper’s conclusion is that interventions should start with the person, not the protocol. The authors also argue that evidence-based “kernels” organized this way could be taught to everyday helpers — coaches, educators, managers, mentors — greatly expanding who can support human flourishing.
Key findings
- Positive psychology processes of change are frequently studied in isolation from each other and from clinical psychology; the paper offers a comprehensive framework that crosses theoretical orientations and links positive and clinical processes.
- The extended evolutionary meta-model (EEMM) organizes processes of change in terms of variation, selection, and retention across biopsychosocial dimensions and psychological, biophysiological, and sociocultural levels of analysis.
- Widely studied positive constructs (e.g., strengths, gratitude, hope, mindfulness, self-compassion, meaning) can be sorted within the EEMM, giving the field a common language for intervention and research.
- Constructs that sound unitary, such as mindfulness or strength spotting, span multiple EEMM dimensions, meaning different programs using the same label may alter different processes and produce different outcomes.
- Whether a process is positive or negative for a particular individual depends on the person’s idiographic network of relations, not just overall group-level (nomothetic) expectations.
- A process-based approach could allow evidence-based intervention kernels to be taught to everyday helpers (coaches, educators, mentors, managers), expanding access to support for the many people who are languishing; the guiding principle is to start with the person, not the protocol.
How to cite
APA
Ciarrochi, J., Hayes, S. C., Oades, L. G., & Hofmann, S. G. (2022). Toward a unified framework for positive psychology interventions: Evidence-based processes of change in coaching, prevention, and training. Frontiers in Psychology, 12, 809362. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.809362
BibTeX
@article{ciarrochi2022toward,
title = {Toward a Unified Framework for Positive Psychology Interventions: Evidence-Based Processes of Change in Coaching, Prevention, and Training},
author = {Ciarrochi, Joseph and Hayes, Steven C. and Oades, Lindsay G. and Hofmann, Stefan G.},
journal = {Frontiers in Psychology},
volume = {12},
pages = {809362},
year = {2022},
doi = {10.3389/fpsyg.2021.809362}
}
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.