Introduction
Positive Psychology (PP) can be regarded as that discipline in psychology that focuses on positive experiences, positive emotions, positive personality traits and positive social interact- tions. PP has the aim of extending the present focus of psycho- therapy on negative aspects of human functioning to aspects that lead to happiness and a successful life. Seligman and Csik- sentmihalyi (2000: p. 5) define PP as follows: “The aim of positive psychology is to begin to catalyze a change in the fo- cus of psychology from preoccupation only with repairing the worst things in life to also building positive qualities”. Thus, the principle “fix what’s wrong” should be replaced by the principle “build what’s strong” (Duckworth, Steen, & Seligman, 2005).
Target Factors of Positive Psychology
Main variables on which PP focuses are happiness, subjec- tive well-being, and positive affect. These variables overlap to some extent and each is also a component of the others. Hap- piness can be regarded as the main goal of positive psychology and thus of psychological or psychotherapeutic interventions. Happiness is regarded as comprising self-experienced satisfac- tion with life and the relative amounts of positive and negative affect. It is close to the concept of subjective well-being (SWB). High SWB also arises from the experience of more positive than negative affect and a satisfaction with life (Andrews &