If psychology is a body of knowledge about the inner workings of human beings and their relationships, every complex culture has developed a psychology of some form, including Western culture prior to 1879. The term ‘psychology’ had been in use for three centuries, and many books on psychology had been written before modern psychology was founded by the application of natural science methods (careful observation, measurement and controlled experiments) to the study of human phenomena. The discovery of a plethora of previously unrecognized natural features of human life easily justified this revolution in psychology. However, now, over a century later, we also know that many unique and complex psychological aspects of human beings were lost for a time to the field – ironically, because of the appropriation of natural science methods in psychology and the reductionism that that initially entailed – including cognition, action, the self, agency, character and the virtues. Consequently, an important theme in the history of modern psychology since then has been the modification of natural science methods and the development of human science methods by those in the field, so that unique and complex features of human life could be recognized as psychological. Positive psychology is an important part of that history.
Another advance has been the growing recognition that cultural assumptions affect the psychological formation of human beings, as well as their scientific investigation. Cultural psychology has found that many psychological phenomena (e.g. intelligence, narrative, emotion and motivation, psychopathology) are at least partially constituted by cultural factors (Kitayama & Cohen, Citation2007), and such research has begun to document the impact of culture on positive psychology phenomena, like character strengths (McGrath, Citation2015), especially happiness (Park, Peterson, & Ruch, Citation2009; Tov & Diener, Citation2007).
A worldview (WV) is the set of assumptions (beliefs, values, rules and practices) shared by members of a culture, subculture or scientific community, that guides implicitly their activity (DeWitt, Citation2010; Naugle, Citation2002). To the degree that such social groups are constituted by that set, it could be considered a ‘WV community’. Given research in cultural psychology, we might suppose that WV beliefs likewise affect the development and construal of many psychological phenomena (Johnson & Watson, Citation2012), including many topics of interest to positive psychology. There are, in fact, many WVs found throughout the world: naturalism (or materialistic monism) and its many variations today (including ‘hard-core’ naturalism, humanism, Marxism and most versions of post-modernism) assume that only material entities and processes exist; idealistic monism, understands reality to be fundamentally spiritual and considers the material world to be insubstantial (e.g. philosophical Hinduism and New Age thought); followers of polytheism and animism believe that, in addition to the natural order, the universe is populated by a variety of spiritual beings, some good and some bad, with varying degrees of power and influence over human affairs; and various kinds of theism, the most influential of which have been the so-called Abrahamic faiths (Judaism, Christianity and Islam), which recognize a fundamental ontological distinction between an all-good, all-powerful, personal Creator and a creation, which includes human persons made in God’s image.
Since its founding, modern psychology has been profoundly shaped by the worldview of naturalism, so that it has largely been taken for granted in the field. As a result, less consideration has been given to the impact of WV on the discipline or on human formation. This special issue presents positive psychology reflection and research which accords with the WV of Christianity. Linley and Leontiev (Citation2009) have argued that a comprehensive understanding of happiness and the good life requires not only philosophy and psychology, but also ‘sociology, ethnology, anthropology, economics, history, geography, and linguistics, amongst others’ (p. 257). Positive psychologists of a theistic stripe might add theology, while noting that each version of theism will have its own theology (not unlike the different versions of naturalism, which reflect various modifications of a naturalistic metaphysic). To introduce this issue perhaps a summary of some of the major theological assumptions of Christianity relevant to a positive psychology would be warranted.
Most distinctively, Christianity believes that God is tri-personal – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – and the creation is not God, but is fundamentally dependent on God for its existence and design plan. In addition, Christianity regards certain texts to have special epistemological authority and value, pre-eminently the Bible, and, depending on the Christian sub-tradition, select Christian literature. These texts provide a framework within which the Christian tradition as a whole lives, and moves, and has its linguistic being. Consequently, a number of the following articles make reference to the Bible and other Christian texts, as part of their evidentiary basis, when making epistemological claims about positivity. Charitable outsiders to the tradition might grant that this is a special kind of discourse analysis.
Being made in God’s image gives humans a very positive status, but also implies they exist for God, and not ultimately for themselves, and that the greatest human well-being is found in knowing and loving God. However, Christianity assumes (along with the other Abrahamic faiths) that humans now live in a false autonomy from their Creator, making reconciliation with God an enormous priority for human flourishing. Nevertheless, out of love for humanity, God became human, died and was raised from the dead to restore humanity to its divinely intended destiny. According to Christianity, the highest flourishing is called ‘salvation’, available to all who surrender their lives to Christ, and become, in spite of their flaws, divinely identified with him – children of God, holy and beloved, and capable of intimate communion with God, a relationship that will expand enormously in eternity, but can be increasingly experienced now through formative practices like worship, prayer, Bible reading, meditation and good therapy, by the promotion of the active receptivity of God’s goodness given to humanity in Christ and signified by the good given to all humans, along with the rest of creation. There are remarkable resources here for a positive psychology.
The impetus for this special issue was a conference entitled ‘Towards a Christian Positive Psychology’, held at Regent University on 18–20 October 2012 and sponsored by the Society for Christian Psychology (www.Christianpsych.org), at which a few of the following papers were presented. Opening the special issue, Ellen Charry, a noted Christian theologian, and Russell Kosits, a historian of psychology, reflect together about how positive psychology and Christian theology might overturn the current lack of communication between them and actually become friends, suggesting a number of ways in which they could benefit reciprocally from each other. Their collaboration, from their respective intellectual traditions, demonstrates some of the very virtues it extolls and shows how such transdisciplinary dialogue might proceed.
Many of the articles, by contrast, give more consideration to how differences in the assumptions embedded in mainstream positive psychology and relevant Christian WV beliefs might differentially affect positive psychology thought and practice. In the second article, Jonathan Pennington, a New Testament expert, and Chuck Hackney, a social/personality psychologist, plumb the teachings of Jesus Christ found in the Sermon on the Mount to consider their implications for a distinctly Christian positive psychology. Next, James Nelson and Brent Slife focus their attention on the understanding of the virtues that characterized the early Christian church. The following three papers, in different ways, seek to compare the system of virtues found in contemporary positive psychology and those of the Christian community. Psychiatrist–theologian Warren Kinghorn points out that, according to classical virtue theory, models of the virtues are necessarily shaped by and reflections of their social and political contexts. He then raises questions about the universality of the VIA classification scheme, showing how it reflects, to some degree, the modern liberal democratic context of its developers. The Catholic philosopher of psychology Craig Steven Titus summarizes the Catholic virtues tradition, particularly as it reached its zenith in the work of Thomas Aquinas, and demonstrates how that framework contrasts favourably with that of a leading positive psychologist; and Robert Roberts, a renowned virtues philosopher, focuses on temperance to illustrate how belief in God can profoundly alter the conceptualization of a virtue.
Using research methods developed by P. J. Watson to compare the impact of different communal assumptions on psychological research, Benjamin Andrews, Watson, Zhuo Chen and Ronald Morris investigate post-traumatic growth and show how the respective influence of the deep assumptions of different communities on such a topic can be documented empirically, while avoiding the problem of relativism. In the final article, working with a sample of self-identified Christians, Julie Exline, Todd Hall, Kenneth Pargament, and Valencia Harriott studied the benefits of religious/spiritual struggles and suggest their findings are compatible with the conclusion that Christian religious beliefs, perceptions and experiences had a positive impact on spiritual and post-traumatic growth.
It must be acknowledged that this special issue is characterized by more reflection and theory than research. Christian positive psychology – along with Christian psychology in general – is still in its infancy (if not its gestational period!), signified by the paucity of empirical work being done that operates from an explicitly Christian WV orientation. There are many complex reasons for this, but it is hoped that the reflection, theory and research which follow will inspire more research along these lines, and also encourage psychologists of other WV communities to do likewise, to contribute to the goal of an increasingly pluralistic and enriched field of positive psychology.
Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, KY, USA
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References
- DeWitt, R. (2010). Worldviews: An introduction to the history and philosophy of science (2nd ed.). Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell.
- Johnson, E. L., & Watson, P. J. (2012). Worldview communities and the science of psychology. In R. L. Piedmont & A. Village (Eds.), Research in the social scientific study of religion (Vol. 23, pp. 269–284). Boston, MA: Brill.
- Kitayama, S., & Cohen, D. (Eds.). (2007). Handbook of cultural psychology. New York, NY: Guilford.
- Linley, P. A., & Leontiev, D. (2009). Multiple dimensions of the good life: Introducing international and interdisciplinary perspectives. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 4, 257–259.10.1080/17439760902933641
- McGrath, R. E. (2015). Character strengths in 75 nations: An update. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 10, 41–52.10.1080/17439760.2014.888580
- Naugle, D. K. (2002). Worldview: The history of a concept. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans.
- Park, N., Peterson, C., & Ruch, W. (2009). Orientations to happiness and life satisfaction in twenty-seven nations. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 4, 273–279.10.1080/17439760902933690
- Tov, W., & Diener, E. (2007). Culture and subjective well-being. In S. Kitayama & D. Cohen (Eds.), Handbook of cultural psychology (pp. 691–713). New York, NY: Guilford.