Behavioral intervention technologies for positive psychology: Introduction to the special issue

摘要

Positive psychology was born in the twenty-first century and as such, has benefited from the substantial technological environment available to conduct research and advance psychological theory. Indeed, one of the first published studies of interventions stemming directly from the positive psychology movement (Seligman, Steen, Park, & Peterson, 2005) made use of Internet advertising and dissemination to test the efficacy of these strategies. Positive psychologists have also contributed to research in this space. For example, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, an intellectual leader in positive psychology, was influential in the development of experience sampling (Csikszentmihalyi & Larson, 1987), a technique that has increased in use with the possibilities afforded by text messaging and mobile applications.