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<p>Positive psychology changed how we think about mental health, yet its leading models still treat wellbeing as single sets of “preferred” traits or behaviours that are universally applicable. Recently, critiques have drawn attention to the field’s overreliance on these top-down frameworks that prioritize group-level averages and expert-defined constructs. Building on the comprehensive collation of critiques by van Zyl et al. (Journal of Positive Psychology, 19(2):206–235, 2024), this paper identifies a central unifying concern: that positive psychology has, in its pursuit of generalizability and standardization, marginalized the lived experiences of individuals. We argue that the field has drifted into a “science of averages” that can overlook, and at times harm, the very people it hopes to help. But rather than treating these critiques as isolated methodological or conceptual concerns, we argue that they signal the need for a paradigm shift – one that moves away from prescriptive models of wellbeing and toward a bottom-up, idiographic science that begins with the person. Drawing on advances in narrative methods, ecological measurement, and N‑of‑1 analytics, we outline the contours of a person‑centered alternative approach to wellbeing. Such an approach positions the person not as a data point within a population, but rather as the foundational unit of analysis in wellbeing science. Operating from this frame of reference, we propose nine foundational principles of this bottom-up approach and outline a six-stage methodological pipeline for constructing person-centred wellbeing models from rich narrative and contextual data. The approach begins with rich multimodal life data, moves through computational parsing and participatory sense‑making, and ends with precision interventions and cross‑case synthesis. We show how an idiographic turn addresses long‑standing concerns about cultural bias, methodological fragility, and the medicalization of wellbeing. The paper concludes with a call for renewed theoretical, methodological, and ethical commitments that can help redirect positive psychology toward a more inclusive, context-sensitive, and ecologically valid science of human flourishing.</p>

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Beyond Universal Prescriptions: Toward A Person-Centered, Bottom-Up Science of Wellbeing

  • 期刊论文

  • 发表日期：

    2025年6月13日

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  • Llewellyn E. van Zyl,
  • Bryan J. Dik

摘要

Positive psychology changed how we think about mental health, yet its leading models still treat wellbeing as single sets of “preferred” traits or behaviours that are universally applicable. Recently, critiques have drawn attention to the field’s overreliance on these top-down frameworks that prioritize group-level averages and expert-defined constructs. Building on the comprehensive collation of critiques by van Zyl et al. (Journal of Positive Psychology, 19(2):206–235, 2024), this paper identifies a central unifying concern: that positive psychology has, in its pursuit of generalizability and standardization, marginalized the lived experiences of individuals. We argue that the field has drifted into a “science of averages” that can overlook, and at times harm, the very people it hopes to help. But rather than treating these critiques as isolated methodological or conceptual concerns, we argue that they signal the need for a paradigm shift – one that moves away from prescriptive models of wellbeing and toward a bottom-up, idiographic science that begins with the person. Drawing on advances in narrative methods, ecological measurement, and N‑of‑1 analytics, we outline the contours of a person‑centered alternative approach to wellbeing. Such an approach positions the person not as a data point within a population, but rather as the foundational unit of analysis in wellbeing science. Operating from this frame of reference, we propose nine foundational principles of this bottom-up approach and outline a six-stage methodological pipeline for constructing person-centred wellbeing models from rich narrative and contextual data. The approach begins with rich multimodal life data, moves through computational parsing and participatory sense‑making, and ends with precision interventions and cross‑case synthesis. We show how an idiographic turn addresses long‑standing concerns about cultural bias, methodological fragility, and the medicalization of wellbeing. The paper concludes with a call for renewed theoretical, methodological, and ethical commitments that can help redirect positive psychology toward a more inclusive, context-sensitive, and ecologically valid science of human flourishing.