# The positive psychology movement and its application to culture

- **Episode:** [08](https://agents.truthliesandwork.com/episodes/08.md) (2022-08-23)
- **Type:** other
- **Tags:** positive psychology, culture, psychology
- **Time:** 4:05–5:44 (start 245s)
- **Listen:** [https://truthliesandwork.com/08?t=245](https://truthliesandwork.com/08?t=245)

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[4:05] Leanne Elliott: Yeah. So, I mean, in psychology, if you're reading anything psychology-based and you see the word positive, that comes from a movement called positive psychology, which was founded by a guy called Martin Seligman in the late '90s. He was a president of the American Psychological Association. His mandate at the time was to start to shift the mindset that psychologists were bringing to human behavior. So where the focus traditionally was on mental illness, maladaptive behaviors, negative thinking, and how we address those to a point where someone can function normally, in inverted commas, it builds more on the movements of humanistic movements and encourages an emphasis on the more positive aspects of how we can help people get from, from kind of surviving to thriving
[4:53] Al Elliott: So if I've understood that correctly, then the traditional thinking was more like a sticky plaster or a medicine or something to fix the problem, the ailment, whereas the positive work culture is more about how to eat healthily, how to take vitamins so that you don't get in that situation in the first place
[5:11] Leanne Elliott: Yeah, I mean, I guess as a, as a, as a Psychological school of thought is kind of going from, rather than just focusing all of our efforts on the problems and getting them to a point where they are then functioning, how do we actually start with what's functioning and make changes to make them thrive? So, if we're looking at that in an organisational culture perspective, maybe rather than necessarily focusing on perhaps very small areas of toxicity within your culture, it's putting your time and attention into those people who are currently functioning well within your business
[5:44] Al Elliott: Mm-hmm