Third wave positive psychology and positive communities
For this blog post I want to deviate away from focusing on the individual to reflect on what it might mean to apply a positive psychology intervention at the community-level. As a researcher and practitioner embedded in third wave positive psychology I’m moving towards asking questions about the impact interventions have on whole communities and not just the individual. This post will cover individual and community-level interventions by sharing what these are, and considering whether third wave positive psychology should care about positive communities and not just the individual.
Individual and community-level interventions
When Marty Seligman first started talking about positive psychology over twenty years ago he included positive communities. Currently positive psychology is said to be in its ‘third wave’ meaning it is now concerned with systemic and environmental factors. Yet for the most part we are still focused on the individual. At an individual-level a positive psychology intervention (PPI) aims to promote positive life experiences, such as flourishing, in the individual. Definitions differ but overall the individual is invited to experience such interventions as gratitude, strengths development, resilience growth, compassion, and meaning. Often the end game is to improve psychological or subjective wellbeing.
Some of these PPIs are likely to have a knock-on effect towards the people that surround the individual, and this ‘pay-it-forward’ outcome is an implicit expectation for PPI application. Yet recent criticism points out that PPIs are often undertaken by privileged members of the population, with little regard to whether a PPI might actually harm or disadvantage other people less fortunate. A personal vex of mine is the extensive use of young college students as participants in studies! So much of our empirical data is based on how these often privileged individuals react. If we instead think about the real balance of people within our communities we can instead work with ‘real’ people for whom we can have the biggest impact.
Community-level interventions are less often discussed and developed. They have been described as targeting civic virtue and institutions, such as collective responsibility and altruism in specific locations and services. These types of PPIs may be found in education, organisations, healthcare, or the local community itself, and aim to benefit the group and not just the individual. It inevitably involves political and economic outcomes when applying a PPI.
What would constitute a community-level intervention?
Many of the current PPIs still target individuals but as part of a group, such as in an organisation where a team of employees may spend time developing their collective strengths or undertake compassion-focused mindfulness activities. Very few of these types of interventions have an objective of improving the wellbeing of the whole group. In fact, often as a practitioner I see PPIs being used with a view to helping people cope with the dysfunction of the group. Very rarely do they address social conditions and fairness.
Positive education may be one place where positive psychology can start thinking beyond the individual by explicitly considering disadvantages in society, and actively discussing how PPIs might actually harm some populations. We need to discuss the power differentials between different groups and not assume that everyone will benefit from gratitude when some people have no voice in society. We could develop educational resources which explicitly recognise that there are disadvantages in society and our communities, not take a ‘neutral’ position, and look for ways to support all corners of society to be an active participant.
Part of this could be to work with whole communities to determine the community strengths and to shape the local area by highlighting the strengths that have been identified. Of course, taking a second wave and third wave approach means we also look at the barriers and toxicity in the community and ensure that the strengths work reduces the impact of these factors.
Another area to influence is public policy. How many of us read policy documents about wellbeing and vulnerable social groups, and ask what the big issues are facing our communities right now? What we could do is speak to the policy makers and think about how PPIs might help address some of the issues being faced. Even if you do not talk to policy-makers, is it possible to think about how a PPI might be scaled up to become a community-level intervention by working with community organisations to deliver courses and host workshops?
Why should positive psychology care about positive communities?
If we are to truly embrace diversity, social inclusivity, and do what I know we all want to do; make a real difference, then thinking about how our work and our PPIs are affecting not just the people we are working with but affecting (negatively) other people, is the first step towards a third-wave applied positive psychology and the beginning of a journey into developing community-level interventions.
Further reading
Davey, R. C.et al. (2011). The impact and process of a community-led intervention on reducing environmental inequalities related to physical activity and healthy eating- a pilot study. BNC Public Health, 11:697
Hillier-Brown, F.C. et al. (2014). A systematic review of the effectiveness of individual, community, and societal-level interventions at reducing socio-economic inequalities in obesity among adults. International Journal of Obesity, 38, 1483-1490
Montiel, C. et al. (2021). Fostering positive communities: A scoping review of community-level positive psychology interventions. Frontiers in Psychology
Proctor, C. (Ed.) (2017). Positive psychology interventions in practice. Springer
Ryff, C. D. (2022). Positive psychology: looking back and looking forward. Frontiers in Psychology
Worth, P. (Ed.) (2022). Positive psychology across the lifespan: An existential perspective. Routledge
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