ABSTRACT
Interest in, and quantitative investigation of, well-being and related concepts has a fairly established history in psychology, predating the official birth of positive psychology (Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000) by quite a few years (e.g., see Bradburn, 1969; Fordyce, 1988). Nevertheless, and unlike anything seen before, positive psychology has turned well-being into a virtual industry, not only championing empirical methods to investigate it but also driving the development of evidence-based technologies (e.g., interventions) to enable people to live the “good life.” Nowhere is the centrality of well-being to positive psychology better articulated than by Seligman (2011, p. 13), who stated that in his view, “the topic of positive psychology is well-being … and … the goal of positive psychology is to increase flourishing” (emphasis added).
