How the Science of Well-Being is Evolving

Researchers explore the complexity of well-being at the 5th World Congress on Positive Psychology.



The field of positive psychology was born when researchers noticed that psychology was awfully negative—focusing on illness and suffering but mute on the topic of how to thrive and flourish.

Two decades later, you could say that positive psychology is moving past this dichotomy of positive and negative, toward a more nuanced perspective on the good life. at least, that was one of the themes at the international positive psychology association’s 5th world congress, a four-day conference held earlier this month that brought together more than 1,300 researchers, practitioners, students, and journalists in montreal, canada.