Therefore, our aim was to detect, abstract and describe noted changes in focus, methods and worldview assumptions of PP over time, making the implicit explicit (cf.
Assumptions about the world, people, and proper methods to generate new knowledge, are typically implicit and need to be highlighted or detected and made explicit. Our line of argumentation will be reflected in the structure of this chapter (cf. We noted signs of changes over time and propose that three phases can be distinguished. The question is whether the same pertains to positive psychology, and if, or to what extent, changes can be noted in the development of thoughts in PP as shown in content focused on, methods used, and metatheoretical assumptions influencing focus and preferred methods, and in turn being influenced by context-also looking out for the African footprint. ( 2017) recently criticized psychology for the lack of attention to worldviews and recognition that these may differ in diverse contexts. Our methodological approach in this chapter is that of a purposive narrative and interpretative literature review with abstraction of broad trends (Onwuegbuzie & Frels, 2016). However, nowadays collectivist and individualist orientations across many world regions tend to exist side by side in urban areas with a collectivist orientation more prevalent in rural and poorer areas (Philips & Wong, 2017). Countries in Africa also have a shared collectivist orientation in which the individual is less important than the (in)group (Nwoye, 2017). Africa has an abundance of cultures rich in art, spirituality, caring and sharing. Positive psychology is only starting to make footprints in Africa, but the richness of African values already revealed imprints that make this context a fertile soil for well-being studies and flourishing of PP as a science-despite the prevailing existence of political strife, poverty and corruption. We will highlight how new developments in PP resonate with imprints from long existing African values. In this chapter, developments in PP will be indicated, and it will be argued that the understanding of well-being needs to be informed by insights gained from diverse contexts. Lately this picture started to change, enriching both psychology and positive psychology, but insights are still scattered. These insights mainly came from observed differences between the West and East Asian perspectives, and functioning in an African context was for a long time neglected. More voices iterate that culture fair models and indigenous studies are needed. However, science develops continuously and in more recent times the skewedness of these assumptions became clear. In the past, psychology and positive psychology (PP) in particular, had neglected the role of worldviews, culture and context largely in efforts to understand human behavior, and tended to assume that perspectives and findings from the West apply globally. The third wave suggests a move to “well-being studies”, instead of the disciplinary bound “positive psychology studies”-a butterfly leaving its cocoon. Harmonizing Western and African perspectives are indicated, and specifically also the understanding of well-being as harmony and harmonization.
The emerging third wave of PP is characterized by the acceptance of a strong relational ontology and trends towards contextualization, interconnectedness and post-disciplinarity. The second wave showed that PP needs to take context, culture and negative facets of human life into account for understanding the nature and dynamics of well-being. The first wave of PP focused on advocating for the positive in human functioning, many facets of well-being were differentiated in theory and empirical studies, while assuming a naturalist worldview and that findings from the West are globally applicable. Developments in PP over time are described, illustrating the importance of contexts and assumptions in understanding well-being, and how new assumptions in the third wave of PP resonate with old African wisdoms about interconnectedness as a core value in human lives. In this chapter we argue with reference to well-being research as manifested in positive psychology (PP) as a discipline, that contextual, metatheoretical and metadisciplinary perspectives need to be taken into account. For a long time, well-being research had been driven from a Western perspective with a neglect of cultural and contextual variables.
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