Introduction to Positive Psychology and Positive Personality Traits

Course description

This course explains the emergence of ‘positive psychology’ as a subfield in psychology. We explore the concepts of happiness and wellbeing and show you how to develop your emotional intelligence as a benign personality trait that makes human interactions more constructive. Sign up to learn how to ground an understanding of psychological theory in practical lessons about daily life to help you stay optimistic and bring out the best in yourself.

This course introduces you to important ideas in psychology and focuses on the importance of optimism and positivity. We go through various psychological theories and branches and delve into humanistic perspectives on the historical background of positive psychology. We then examine the research methods relevant to this field.

The course outlines Gordon Allport’s ‘trait theory of personality’, which focuses on building a healthy and mature adult personality. We examine Carl Rogers’ view of a rationally functional person fuelled by ‘positive regard’, which suggests that people crave admiration. The course then lays out Abraham Maslow’s famous ‘hierarchy of needs’ and goes through his ‘eight positive personality traits of self-actualizing people’.

Finally, we investigate how to develop character strengths and virtues and establish why this is important. We demonstrate the importance of character strengths in our daily lives and lay out the different classification of such strengths and virtues according to the doctrine of positive psychology. This course can help you understand the models of character strength and even develop your own. Sign up for this self-help course to learn how positive psychology can prompt practical changes and improvements to your daily life and interactions with others.