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A Critique of Positive Psychology—or ‘The New Science of Happiness’
Author(s) -
MILLER ALISTAIR
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
journal of philosophy of education
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.501
H-Index - 41
eISSN - 1467-9752
pISSN - 0309-8249
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9752.2008.00646.x
Subject(s) - happiness , tautology (logic) , positive psychology , psychology , identification (biology) , social psychology , epistemology , personality , philosophy , autoepistemic logic , botany , multimodal logic , computer science , description logic , biology , programming language
This paper argues that the new science of positive psychology is founded on a whole series of fallacious arguments; these involve circular reasoning, tautology, failure to clearly define or properly apply terms, the identification of causal relations where none exist, and unjustified generalisation. Instead of demonstrating that positive attitudes explain achievement, success, well‐being and happiness, positive psychology merely associates mental health with a particular personality type: a cheerful, outgoing, goal‐driven, status‐seeking extravert.