Poster Presentation 6th World Congress on Positive Psychology 2019

The Positive Adolescent: Applying A Developmental Perspective Utilizing Positive Psychology To Enhance Adolescent Wellbeing In Culturally Diverse Student Populations (#808)

Janet Schrager 1 , Sierra M Trudel 1 , Mara Stewart 1
  1. International Positive Psychology Association, Unionville, CT, United States

School systems in the United States house more than 48 million students, and because students spend 30 hours per week at school, this is an ideal environment to implement positive education.  Schools are instrumental institutions, which have a significant influence on child development. Teaching students positive psychology is an opportunity to promote positive citizenship. Utilizing the PERMA+ model, facilitators created curricula in order to foster positive emotions, emotional regulation, engagement, meaningful relationships, meaning and purpose, achievement, and physical and nutritional vitality in adolescents, in sum cultivating resilience. Curricula include social and emotional learning skills, positive behavioral interventions, and the application of character strengths with culturally diverse students. Included are socioeconomically diverse students, ages thirteen to twenty-one, attending private, public, and alternative high schools. Due to the limited research of positive education for adolescents and the interesting developmental stage adolescence presents, this population was selected. At this developmental stage of formal operations, adolescents work to develop abstract logic and reasoning. Positive psychology strategies, then, are implemented to promote the development of emotional regulation, empathy, authentic relationships, and perspective taking autonomously. Together, the presenters will provide compelling data and application of experiences from a variety of school settings.