More recently, the positive psychology of Martin Seligman, Corey Keyes, Barbara Fredrickson, and others, have expanded and developed the notion of human flourishing.
Empirical studies, such as those of the Harvard Human Flourishing Program, and practical applications, indicate the importance of the concept and the increasingly widespread use of the term in business, economics, and politics.
"[1] According to Fredrickson and Losada, flourishing is living ...within an optimal range of human functioning, one that connotes goodness, generativity, growth, and resilience.
On the other hand languishing includes states of experience where people describe their lives as "hollow" or "empty" (Fredrickson & Lahoda, 2005).
[11] 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.
He is like a tree planted by water, that sends out its roots by the stream, and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit.” See also, Isaiah 44:4.
Hebrew Scripture also expounds on what could be called “anti-flourishing,” that is, the counterpart to flourishing on account of righteousness and Torah meditation: “The wicked are not so, but are like chaff which the wind drives away.”[26] Also: Ps 35:5, Job 21:18.
[27] This imagery is also utilized by John the Baptist to describe the eschatological work of the Messiah, who will judge the wicked and consign them to everlasting burning: “His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the granary, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”[28] As befitted his traditional education and upbringing, Jesus Christ utilized Hebrew flourishing imagery a number of times.
In one place, he compares different ways of receiving “the word” and responding with different kinds of flourishing: some receive it with joy but like plants with a shallow root system fall away in difficult times;[29] others are like “good soil” that “brought forth grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.”[30] Jesus Christ also compares union with him to be the source of flourishing: “As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me.
[34] This was manifested in a miracle in which Christ saw a fig tree “and found nothing on it but leaves only,” and so cursed it, such that it “withered at once.”[35] Thomas Aquinas, the Dominican Medieval theologian, uses “flourishing” language in metaphorical and analogical senses.
Nevertheless, St. Thomas, probably influenced by Grosseteste’s choice to translate Aristotle's eudaimonia in Latin as felicitas, and tended to use them as synonyms, though he more frequently used beatitudo, in order to mean the last end of human life, as it is explicit, for instance, in ST I-II, q.
There is also an imperfect beatitudo, which consists in the contemplation of God by natural reason[42] is a participation of the perfect one and is attainable also in this life,[41] and is the happiness of which Aristotle spoke.
[43] It is also relevant to note that, though identifying felicitas with natural contemplation of the divine, Aquinas acknowledges, following Aristotle, that some material goods are necessary aids for its attainment.
[45] Perfect human flourishing, according to Aquinas, consists in the direct contemplation of God and in loving Him, participating in His Trinitarian life.
For instance, in organized religious movements as the Ways of Great Clarity and of Complete Perfection, the attainment of immortality, based on the idea a person can emulate the eternal dao by never exhausting one's qi (vital energy), is particularly emphasized.
Moreover, Daoist de, usually translated as virtue, has not a moral dimension; in the case of human beings it indicates the qualities or dispositions that allow people to live a flourishing life.
[2] Keyes collaborated with Carol Ryff in testing her Six-factor Model of Psychological Well-being,[51] and in 2002 published his theoretical considerations in an article on The Mental Health Continuum: From Languishing to Flourishing.
[54][note 2] 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.
[62] In 2011, Seligman developed the PERMA-model, this model defines well-being in terms of five pillars: Positive emotion, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning, and Accomplishment (PERMA).
In the second phase of research eight additional items were added, which assess overall wellbeing, negative emotion, loneliness, and physical health, resulting in a final 23-item measure.
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.
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, 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.
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."
[72] The definition or conceptualization 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, and psychological well-being.
[73] 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.
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.
It is carried out by scholars at the Human Flourishing Program at Harvard and Baylor's Institute for Studies of Religion, in partnership with Gallup and the Center for Open Science.
[77] This program based at Johns Hopkins University, founded in 2015, and directed by Margaret S. Chisolm, aims at bringing the results of interdisciplinary research on health and human flourishing to an audience of both clinicians and clinicians-in-training.