Happiness and Well-Being from the Perspective of Positive Psychology

Positive Psychology is a theory that seeks to study the positive aspects of human beings with the aim of making people's lives more rewarding and preventing illness or promoting health. The aim of the research in this book was to investigate how the main aspects studied by this psychological approach, such as positive emotion, engagement, meaning, positive relationships, positive achievement, resilience and optimism, appear in people's accounts of their experiences and how they define happiness. Interviews were conducted with 10 university students, using the qualitative research method. It was also possible to study the term happiness throughout history and see how today's societies have been influenced by thinkers of the past and how the concept has changed to arrive at the definition that is used today, which was greatly influenced by the Enlightenment thinking of the 18th century. The results of the study show that all those interviewed seek happiness in their own way, but in accordance with the essential principles of the study, especially the connection with purpose, importance and positive feelings.