Flourishing is "when people experience positive emotions, positive psychological functioning and positive social functioning, most of the time," living "within an optimal range of human functioning." It is a descriptor and measure of positive mental health and overall life well-being, and includes multiple components and concepts, such as cultivating strengths,

subjective well-being Subjective well-being (SWB) is a self-reported measure of well-being, typically obtained by questionnaire. Ed Diener developed a tripartite model of subjective well-being in 1984, which describes how people experience the quality of their lives ...

, "goodness, generativity, growth, and resilience." Flourishing is the opposite of both

pathology Pathology is the study of the causes and effects of disease or injury. The word ''pathology'' also refers to the study of disease in general, incorporating a wide range of biology research fields and medical practices. However, when used in ...

and languishing, which are described as living a life that feels hollow and empty. It is a central concept in

positive psychology Positive psychology is the scientific study of what makes life most worth living, focusing on both individual and societal well-being. It studies "positive subjective experience, positive individual traits, and positive institutions...it aims t ...

, developed by Corey Keyes and Barbara Fredrickson. __TOC__

Theory

Definition

Flourishing is a "descriptor of positive mental health." According to Fredrickson and Losada, flourishing is living According to the Mental Health Foundation of New Zealand, flourishing According to Keyes,

mental health Mental health encompasses emotional, psychological, and social well-being, influencing cognition, perception, and behavior. It likewise determines how an individual handles stress, interpersonal relationships, and decision-making. Mental health ...

does not imply an absence of

mental illness A mental disorder, also referred to as a mental illness or psychiatric disorder, is a behavioral or mental pattern that causes significant distress or impairment of personal functioning. Such features may be persistent, relapsing and remitti ...

. Rather, mental health is a "separate dimension of positive feelings and functioning." Individuals described as flourishing have a combination of high levels of emotional well-being, psychological well-being, and social well-being. Flourishing people are happy and satisfied; they tend to see their lives as having a purpose; they feel some degree of

mastery A skill is the learned ability to act with determined results with good execution often within a given amount of time, energy, or both. Skills can often be divided into domain-general and domain-specific skills. For example, in the domain of w ...

and accept all parts of themselves; they have a sense of personal growth in the sense that they are always growing,

evolving Evolution is change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. These characteristics are the expressions of genes, which are passed on from parent to offspring during reproduction. Variation t ...

, and changing; finally, they have a sense of

autonomy In developmental psychology and moral, political, and bioethical philosophy, autonomy, from , ''autonomos'', from αὐτο- ''auto-'' "self" and νόμος ''nomos'', "law", hence when combined understood to mean "one who gives oneself one's ...

and an internal

locus of control Locus of control is the degree to which people believe that they, as opposed to external forces (beyond their influence), have control over the outcome of events in their lives. The concept was developed by Julian Rotter, Julian B. Rotter in 1954 ...

, they chose their fate in life instead of being victims of fate. Psychologist Martin Seligman, one of the founding fathers of happiness research, wrote in his book, ''Flourish'', a new model for happiness and well-being based on positive psychology. This book expounds on simple exercises that anyone can do to create a happier life and to flourish. ''Flourish'', is a tool to understand happiness by emphasizing how the five pillars of Positive Psychology, also known as ''PERMA'', increase the quality of life for people who apply it to their lives. According to Fredrickson and Losada, flourishing is characterized by four main components: goodness, generative,

growth Growth may refer to: Biology * Auxology, the study of all aspects of human physical growth * Bacterial growth * Cell growth * Growth hormone, a peptide hormone that stimulates growth * Human development (biology) * Plant growth * Secondary growth ...

, and resilience. Flourishing is related to the Aristotelian concept of

eudaimonia Eudaimonia (Greek: εὐδαιμονία ; sometimes anglicized as eudaemonia or eudemonia, ) is a Greek word literally translating to the state or condition of 'good spirit', and which is commonly translated as 'happiness' or 'welfare'. In wor ...

. According to a Neo-Aristotelian view, the concept of human flourishing offers a view of the human good that is objective, inclusive, individualized, agent-relative, self-directed and social. It views human flourishing objectively because it is desirable and appealing. Flourishing is a state of being rather than a feeling or experience. It comes from engaging in activities that both express and produce the actualization of one's

potential Potential generally refers to a currently unrealized ability. The term is used in a wide variety of fields, from physics to the social sciences to indicate things that are in a state where they are able to change in ways ranging from the simple re ...

. According to Keyes, only 18.1% of Americans are actually flourishing. The majority of Americans can be classified as mentally unhealthy (depressed) or not mentally healthy or flourishing (moderately mentally healthy/languishing).

History

"Flourishing" as a psychological concept has been developed by

Corey Keyes Corey Keyes is an American sociologist and psychologist. He is known for his work with positive psychology. Keyes currently teaches at Emory University in Georgia. Work Keyes works in the areas of complete mental health and methods for attaini ...

and Barbara Fredrickson. Keyes collaborated with

Carol Ryff Carol Diane Ryff is an American academic and psychologist. She received her doctorate in 1978. She is known for studying psychological well-being and psychological resilience. She is the Hilldale Professor of psychology at the University of Wiscon ...

in testing her

Six-factor Model of Psychological Well-being The Six-factor Model of Psychological Well-being is a theory developed by Carol Ryff which determines six factors which contribute to an individual's psychological well-being, contentment, and happiness.Seifert, T. A. (2005). The Ryff scales of p ...

, and in 2002 published his theoretical considerations in an article on ''The Mental Health Continuum: From Languishing to Flourishing''. qualified by Fredrickson as "path-breaking work that measures mental health in positive terms rather than by the absence of mental illness." Barbara Fredrickson developed the

broaden-and-build The broaden-and-build theory in positive psychology suggests that positive emotions (such as happiness, and perhaps interest and anticipation) broaden one's awareness and encourage novel, exploratory thoughts and actions. Over time, this broadened ...

theory of positive emotions. According to Fredrickson there is a wide variety of positive effects that positive emotions and experiences have on human lives. Fredrickson notes two characteristics of positive emotions that differ from negative emotions: # Positive emotions do not seem to elicit specific action tendencies the same way that negative emotions do. Instead, they seem to cause some general, non-direction oriented activation. # Positive emotions do not necessarily facilitate

physical Physical may refer to: *Physical examination In a physical examination, medical examination, or clinical examination, a medical practitioner examines a patient for any possible medical signs or symptoms of a medical condition. It generally co ...

action, but do spark significant

cognitive Cognition refers to "the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses". It encompasses all aspects of intellectual functions and processes such as: perception, attention, thought, ...

action. For this reason, Fredrickson conceptualizes two new concepts: thought-action tendencies, or what a person normally does in a particular situation, and thought-action repertoires, rather an inventory of skills of what a person is able to do. Previous

theories A theory is a rational type of abstract thinking about a phenomenon, or the results of such thinking. The process of contemplative and rational thinking is often associated with such processes as observational study or research. Theories may be s ...

emotion Emotions are mental states brought on by neurophysiological changes, variously associated with thoughts, feelings, behavioral responses, and a degree of pleasure or displeasure. There is currently no scientific consensus on a definition. ...

stated that all emotions are associated with urges to act in particular ways, called action-tendencies. According to Fredrickson, most positive emotions do not follow this model of action-tendencies, since they do not usually occur in life-threatening circumstances and thus do not generally elicit specific urges. Fredrickson proposes that instead of one general theory of emotions,

psychologists A psychologist is a professional who practices psychology and studies mental states, perceptual, cognitive, emotional, and social processes and behavior. Their work often involves the experimentation, observation, and interpretation of how indi ...

should develop theories for each emotion or for subsets of emotions. The broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions proposed by Fredrickson states that while negative emotions narrow thought-action tendencies to time tested strategies as handed down by evolution, positive emotions broaden thought-action repertoires. Positive emotions often cause people to discard time-tested or automatic action tendencies and pursue novel, creative, and often unscripted courses of thought and action. These positive emotions and thought-action repertoires can be seen as applicable to the concept of flourishing because flourishing children and adults have a much wider array of cognitive, physical, and social possibilities, which results in the

empirical Empirical evidence for a proposition is evidence, i.e. what supports or counters this proposition, that is constituted by or accessible to sense experience or experimental procedure. Empirical evidence is of central importance to the sciences and ...

and actual successes of a flourishing life. The concept has also been used by Martin Seligmann, the founder of positive psychology, in his 2011 publication ''Flourish''.

Measurement and diagnostic criteria

With the concept of flourishing, psychologists can study and measure fulfillment, purpose, meaning, and

happiness Happiness, in the context of Mental health, mental or emotional states, is positive or Pleasure, pleasant emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy. Other forms include life satisfaction, well-being, subjective well-being, flourishin ...

. Flourishing can be measured through self-report measures. Individuals are asked to respond to structured scales measuring the presence of positive affect, absence of negative affect, and perceived satisfaction with life. Participants are specifically asked about their emotions and

feeling Feelings are subjective self-contained phenomenal experiences. According to the ''APA Dictionary of Psychology'', a feeling is "a self-contained phenomenal experience"; and feelings are "subjective, evaluative, and independent of the sensations ...

s because scientists theorize that flourishing is something that manifests itself internally rather than externally. Keyes has

operationalize In research design, especially in psychology, social sciences, life sciences and physics, operationalization or operationalisation is a process of defining the measurement of a phenomenon which is not directly measurable, though its existence is in ...

d symptoms of positive feelings and positive functioning in life by reviewing dimensions and scales of

and, therefore, creating a definition of flourishing. To complete, or "

", the definition of what it means to be functioning optimally, or flourishing, diagnostic criteria have been developed for a flourishing life: # Individual must have had no episodes of major depression in the past year # Individual must possess a high level of well-being as indicated by the individuals meeting all three of the following criteria ## High emotional well-being, defined by 2 of 3 scale scores on appropriate measures falling in the upper

tertile In statistics and probability, quantiles are cut points dividing the range of a probability distribution into continuous intervals with equal probabilities, or dividing the observations in a sample in the same way. There is one fewer quantile ...

. ###

Positive affect Positive affectivity (PA) is a human characteristic that describes how much people experience positive affects (sensations, emotions, sentiments); and as a consequence how they interact with others and with their surroundings. People with high po ...

###

Negative affect Negative affectivity (NA), or negative affect, is a personality variable that involves the experience of negative emotions and poor self-concept. Negative affectivity subsumes a variety of negative emotions, including anger, contempt, disgust, g ...

(low) ###

Life satisfaction Life satisfaction is a measure of a person's well-being, assessed in terms of mood, relationship satisfaction, achieved goals, self-concepts, and self-perceived ability to cope with life. Life satisfaction involves a favorable attitude towards on ...

## High

psychological well-being The Six-factor Model of Psychological Well-being is a theory developed by Carol Ryff which determines six factors which contribute to an individual's psychological well-being, contentment, and happiness.Seifert, T. A. (2005). The Ryff scales of p ...

, defined by 4 of 6 scale scores on appropriate measures falling in the upper tertile. ###

Self-acceptance Self-acceptance is acceptance of self. Definition Self-acceptance can be defined as: * the awareness of one's strengths and weaknesses, * the realistic (yet subjective) appraisal of one's talents, capabilities, and general worth, and, * feelings ...

### Personal growth ###

Purpose in life The meaning of life, or the answer to the question: "What is the meaning of life?", pertains to the significance of living or existence in general. Many other related questions include: "Why are we here?", "What is life all about?", or "What ...

### Environmental mastery ###

Autonomy In developmental psychology and moral, political, and bioethical philosophy, autonomy, from , ''autonomos'', from αὐτο- ''auto-'' "self" and νόμος ''nomos'', "law", hence when combined understood to mean "one who gives oneself one's ...

### Positive relations with others ## High social well-being, defined by 3 of 5 scale scores on appropriate measures falling in the upper tertile. ### Social

acceptance Acceptance in human psychology is a person's assent to the reality of a situation, recognizing a process or condition (often a negative or uncomfortable situation) without attempting to change it or protest it. The concept is close in meaning to ...

### Social actualization ### Social contribution ### Social coherence ###

Social integration Social integration is the process during which newcomers or minorities are incorporated into the social structure of the host society. Social integration, together with economic integration and identity integration, are three main dimensions of ...

Major empirical findings

Positive emotional feelings such as moods, and sentiments such as happiness, carry more personal and

psychological Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries between t ...

benefits than just a pleasant, personal subjective experience. Flourishing widens

attention Attention is the behavioral and cognitive process of selectively concentrating on a discrete aspect of information, whether considered subjective or objective, while ignoring other perceivable information. William James (1890) wrote that "Atte ...

, broaden behavioral repertoires, which means to broaden one's skills or regularly performed actions, increase

intuition Intuition is the ability to acquire knowledge without recourse to conscious reasoning. Different fields use the word "intuition" in very different ways, including but not limited to: direct access to unconscious knowledge; unconscious cognition; ...

, and increase

creativity Creativity is a phenomenon whereby something new and valuable is formed. The created item may be intangible (such as an idea, a scientific theory, a musical composition, or a joke) or a physical object (such as an invention, a printed literary w ...

. Secondly, good feelings can have

physiological Physiology (; ) is the scientific study of functions and mechanisms in a living system. As a sub-discipline of biology, physiology focuses on how organisms, organ systems, individual organs, cells, and biomolecules carry out the chemical ...

manifestations, such as significant and positive cardiovascular effects, such as a reduction in

blood pressure Blood pressure (BP) is the pressure of circulating blood against the walls of blood vessels. Most of this pressure results from the heart pumping blood through the circulatory system. When used without qualification, the term "blood pressure" r ...

. Third, good feelings predict healthy mental and physical outcomes. Also, positive affect and flourishing is related to

longevity The word " longevity" is sometimes used as a synonym for "life expectancy" in demography. However, the term ''longevity'' is sometimes meant to refer only to especially long-lived members of a population, whereas ''life expectancy'' is always d ...

. In a 2022 study of intrusive thoughts and flourishing, Jesse Omoregie and Jerome Carson found that people who experience flourishing would usually experience minimal intrusive thoughts. Omoregie and Carson further concluded that flourishing is a variable that helps in the reduction of psychological problems such as anxiety, depression, and intrusive thoughts. The many components of flourishing elicit more tangible outcomes than simply mental or physiological results. For example, components such as

self-efficacy In psychology, self-efficacy is an individual's belief in their capacity to act in the ways necessary to reach specific goals. The concept was originally proposed by the psychologist Albert Bandura. Self-efficacy affects every area of human endea ...

, likability, and

prosocial Prosocial behavior, or intent to benefit others, is a social behavior that "benefit other people or society as a whole", "such as helping, sharing, donating, co-operating, and volunteering". Obeying the rules and conforming to socially accepted beh ...

behavior encourage active involvement with goal pursuits and with the

environment Environment most often refers to: __NOTOC__ * Natural environment, all living and non-living things occurring naturally * Biophysical environment, the physical and biological factors along with their chemical interactions that affect an organism or ...

. This promotes people to pursue and approach new and different situations. Therefore, flourishing adults have higher levels of motivation to work actively to pursue new goals and are in possession of more past skills and resources. This helps people to satisfy life and societal goals, such as creating opportunities, performing well in the

workplace A workplace is a location where someone Work (human activity), works, for their employer or themselves, a place of employment. Such a place can range from a Small office/home office, home office to a large office building or factory. For Indust ...

, and producing goods, work and careers that are highly valued in American society. Authors, Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey, in their book, An Everyone Culture, "argues that organizations do best when they build an environment that encourages constant personal development among their employees." This success results in higher satisfaction and reinforces Frederickson's Broaden and Build model, for more positive adults reap more benefits and, are more positive, which creates an upward spiral. Studies have shown that people who are flourishing are more likely to graduate from college, secure "better" jobs, and are more likely to succeed in that job. One reason for this success can be seen in the evidence offered above when discussing languishing: those that flourish have less work absenteeism, cited by Lyubomirsky as "job withdrawal." Finally, those that are flourishing have more support and assistance from coworkers and supervisors in their workplace. Flourishing has been found to impact more areas than simply the workplace. In particular community involvement and social relationships have been cited as something that flourishing influences directly. For example, those that flourish have been found to

volunteer Volunteering is a voluntary act of an individual or group freely giving time and labor for community service. Many volunteers are specifically trained in the areas they work, such as medicine, education, or emergency rescue. Others serve ...

at higher levels across

culture Culture () is an umbrella term which encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, customs, capabilities, and habits of the individuals in these groups.Tyl ...

s. Moreover, in terms of

social support Social support is the perception and actuality that one is cared for, has assistance available from other people, and most popularly, that one is part of a supportive social network. These supportive resources can be emotional (e.g., nurturance), ...

and relationships, studies have shown that there is an association between flourishing and actual number of friends, overall social support, and perceived

companionship The concept of interpersonal relationship involves social associations, connections, or affiliations between two or more people. Interpersonal relationships vary in their degree of intimacy or self-disclosure, but also in their duration, in t ...

Applications

The definition or

conceptualization In information science a conceptualization is an abstract simplified view of some selected part of the world, containing the objects, concepts, and other entities that are presumed of interest for some particular purpose and the relationships betw ...

of mental health under the framework of flourishing and languishing describes symptoms that can cooperate with intervention techniques aimed at increasing levels of emotional,

social Social organisms, including human(s), live collectively in interacting populations. This interaction is considered social whether they are aware of it or not, and whether the exchange is voluntary or not. Etymology The word "social" derives from ...

, and psychological well-being. Furthermore, as Keyes implies, in a world full of flourishing people, all would be able to reap the benefits that this positive mental state and life condition offers.

Education

Keyes mentions children as well as adults. He says that children are directly affected by maternal depression, and points out that the flourishing or languishing of

teachers A teacher, also called a schoolteacher or formally an educator, is a person who helps students to acquire knowledge, competence, or virtue, via the practice of teaching. ''Informally'' the role of teacher may be taken on by anyone (e.g. whe ...

and the effect on students have not been studied. Keyes also speculates that teacher retention may be associated with the students' frames of mind. Furthermore, if

students A student is a person enrolled in a school or other educational institution. In the United Kingdom and most commonwealth countries, a "student" attends a secondary school or higher (e.g., college or university); those in primary or elementary ...

can be made to flourish, the benefits to the education process are greater, as flourishing can increase attention and thought-action repertoires.

Engagement

Flourishing also has many applications to civic duty and

social engagement Social engagement (also social involvement, social participation) refers to one's degree of participation in a community or society. Definitions Prohaska, Anderson and Binstock (2012) noted that the term social engagement is commonly used to r ...

. Keyes believes that most people do not focus enough on those aspects of life and focus instead on personal achievement. Keyes suggests that people should provide encouragement to children, and adults, to participate socially. People that exhibit flourishing are engaged in social participation and people that are engaged in social participation exhibit flourishing. Therefore, he suggests that people should give their kids a purpose, which creates a sense of contribution and environmental mastery that enhances feelings of well-being and fulfilment.

Criticisms

The concept of flourishing is built on Fredrickson's broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions, but some researchers have suggested that there are other functions of positive emotions. Mackie and Worth propose that positive emotions diminish cognitive capabilities. They showed that when exposed to a persuasive message for a limited amount of time, subjects experiencing a positive mood showed reduced

process A process is a series or set of activities that interact to produce a result; it may occur once-only or be recurrent or periodic. Things called a process include: Business and management *Business process, activities that produce a specific se ...

ing as compared with subjects in a neutral mood. Others have suggested that positive emotions diminish the

motivation Motivation is the reason for which humans and other animals initiate, continue, or terminate a behavior at a given time. Motivational states are commonly understood as forces acting within the agent that create a disposition to engage in goal-dire ...

but not the capacity for cognitive processing. Flourishing is still a newly-developing subject of study and, more tests need to be done to fully define, operationalize, and apply the concept of flourishing; this lack of research is also one criticism of the concept of flourishing.

Notes

References

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Positive psychology Well-being