What's wrong with being positive?

Warren, Samantha ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3989-9098 2009. What's wrong with being positive? Garcea, Nicola, Harrington, Susan and Linley, Alex, eds. Oxford Handbook of Positive Psychology and Work, Oxford Library of Psychology, Oxford University Press, pp. 313-322. (10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195335446.013.0025)

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Abstract

This chapter critiques the underlying premises and potential effects of applying positive psychology (PP) in the workplace. It locates PP as a development of wider cultural (North American) trends toward greater emotionality, a need for fun and excitement in all spheres of life, and the “right” to happiness and conceptualization of selfhood as a project to be worked on through therapy and associated transpersonal activities. Denial of the cathartic value of so-called “negative” states and their role in the development of a healthy adult psyche are posited as challenges to the prima facie desirability of PP, as are the asymmetrical outcomes of encouraging positivity in employees. Organizations stand to gain considerably more than individuals from the PP movement and as such, the chapter suggests that PP represents a further appropriation/valorization of human qualities that should, perhaps, remain out of reach of the capitalist labor process. Furthermore, PP's claim to be moving psychology away from “deficit models” of behavior is questioned by drawing attention to the “discourses of improvement” that it is couched within.

Item Type:	Book Section
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Business (Including Economics)
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor > HD28 Management. Industrial Management
Uncontrolled Keywords:	emotion, emotional labor, positive psychology, spirituality, therapy culture, wellness
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
ISBN:	9780195335446
Last Modified:	28 Oct 2022 09:57
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/76237

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