Question

Martin Seligman and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi describe the basic tenets and philosophy of positive psychology. What do you see as the most significant similarities and differences between the perspectives of positive psychology and humanistic psychology? Why? Which of these perspectives do you believe most closely aligns with a Christian worldview? Support your position.

Answer 1

The most significant similarities between the perspectives of positive psychology and humanistic psychology are that they explore human happiness. Positive psychology is the study of how humans prosper in adversities while humanistic psychology is largely concerned with the quality of human experience (Froh, 2004). As such, they show similarities in addressing the cause of happiness in humans. They differ in that positive psychology uses a scientific approach to address the cause of happiness as a human behavior while humanism explores issues such as love, creativity, growth, self-actualization, peak experience, courage, and other related topics is it considered more of non-scientific approach. Between the two, humanistic psychology is the most closely aligned to Christianity worldview. This is because Christianity looks at humanhappiness as coming from within or is attached to human behavior. To Christians, love, growth, creativity, courage and other human attributes are considered the source of joy.

Part 2)

Christian worldview (also called Biblical worldview) perspectives to the framework of ideas and beliefs through which a Christian individual, group or culture interprets the world and interacts with it.