Our laboratory is part of the research facility in Department of Humanities and Social Sciences in Indian Institute of Technology Jodhpur. This is a positive Psychology lab focusing on ‘OPTIMAL HUMAN FUNCTIONING’.  We work towards understanding, intervening and promoting well-being and excellence of human being. Currently, work in our lab is focusing on decision making, social cognition, and wisdom.

 

Green (2010) and many other suggestions that Positive Psychology is defined as the science of optimal functioning1, Its broad scientific inquiry into what enables humans to flourish. But as Lopez & Snyder, 2009, suggested that “Positive Psychology is scientific’ study of what makes life most worth living. It is a call for psychological science and practice to be as concerned with strength as with weakness; as interested in building the best things in life as in repairing the worst; and as concerned with making the lives of normal people fulfilling as with healing pathology”2. We consider optimal functioning to ‘take individually to the next from current level’. Traditionally, performance has been characterized as operating along a continuum, with dysfunctional performance positioned at one extreme and optimal performance positioned at the other (Kirk, 2001)3. Changes in performance may either bring those within a distressed population, which operate at or near the dysfunctional end of the spectrum, up to a normative baseline, or enhance the performance of those at the normative baseline moving them closer to the optimal region.

 

References:

 

1. Green, S. (2010). Applying the science of optimal human functioning for peak performance. Pathology Update Abstracts, 42(S1).

2. Lopez, S. J., & Snyder, C. R. (2009). Oxford handbook of positive psychology. Oxford University Press, USA.

3. Kirk, L. (2001). Peak performance in the ‘Game of life’. Biofeedback, 29(1), 8–10.