Llewellyn Ellardus Van Zyl - Theoretical Approaches to Multi-Cultural Positive Psychological Interventions

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Positive psychological interventions (PPIs) have emerged as popular mechanisms to facilitate the development of positive thoughts, feelings, and behaviors across functional discipline domains. In recent years, the applicability of PPIs has transposed the boundaries of clinical practice, into a wide array of complementary domains such as law, education, business, and even design sciences such as architecture. These interventions target the enhancement of positive psychological capacities (e.g., strength identification and use, high-performance learning, appreciative design, and job crafting) in order to not only improve individual functioning, well-being, and the treatment of various forms of psychopathology, but also enhance team functioning/performance, organizational growth, and community development. Albeit its importance, little research has been done on how the content of PPIs should be designed to be applicable to multi-cultural contexts. The purpose of this volume is to provide theoretical perspectives on and approaches to the development or enhancement of positive psychological capacities within multi-cultural contexts. Specifically, the aim is to present theoretical frameworks for the identification, development, and optimization of positive psychological capacities through a contemporary, multi-cultural, and multi-disciplinary lens.

This volume provides 24 seminal papers on approaches to the development of positive psychological capacities within multi-cultural contexts. The focus is on presenting cutting-edge theoretical advancements in the content of PPIs. However, it also addresses the unique focus which PPIs should have in order to be useful within multi-cultural contexts. The volume aims to provide a multi-disciplinary view of PPI frameworks, which is lacking in the current positive psychological lexicon.

Chapter investigates the motivational potential of job demands-resources interventions from both an organizational (top-down) and an employee (bottom-up) perspective and their effectiveness.

Chapter applies a positive psychology framework useful for counseling individuals toward healthy social identity development with the intersectionality of race and ethnicity with gender and disability.

Chapter explores the relationships between positive psychology, applied positive psychology, coaching, and coaching psychology. It draws lessons about how positive psychology interacts with kinship fields, and what it means to identify something as a positive psychology intervention.

Chapter provides a systematic literature review on multi-cultural BPPIs within organizational contexts and to present an overview of advances to date.

Through integrating the knowledge generated in the 24 chapters in this manuscript, it is clear that a profound amount of work has been done to professionalize the practical application of positive psychology during the last two decades. PPI research has evolved from its rudimentary beginnings in 2001, into a fully fledged subdiscipline of positive psychology. This subdiscipline merges the scientific curiosity of researchers, with real-world problems, in order to make a practical difference to the lives of individuals, teams, organizations, families, and societies. We hope that the 24 theoretical approaches in this book will provide consumers with practical guidelines on how to capitalize on the power of positive psychology.

As the editors of this manuscript, we would like to extend our appreciation to all those who were involved in making this publication possible. This manuscript is the end result of the collaboration between more than 100 individuals (49 authors, 48 reviewers, 2 editors, and a team at Springer) and two professional societies (the Center for Positive Organizational Scholarship and the Canadian Positive Psychology Association), emanating from various different countries, cultures, continents, etc., all in the name of the advancement of the science underpinning positive psychological interventions. Each chapter in this book makes a unique professional, scientific, and theoretical contribution to the discipline of applied positive psychology within multi-cultural contexts through the scientific works of the respective authors and the valuable investment of the independent, blind peer reviewers.

Firstly , we would like to acknowledge the investment of our reviewers. Each of the 24 chapters in this manuscript was subjected to an independent, double- (and in some instances a triple) blind peer-reviewed process. The reviewers not only aided in shaping the individual manuscripts, but also in enhancing the credibility and scientific quality of the overall manuscript. This book and the quality of its contents would not have been possible if not for the selfless investment of both the time and expertise of these reviewers. We would like to take the opportunity to extend our personal thanks and heartfelt appreciation to the following reviewers who participated in enhancing the quality of this manuscript: