Edgar Cabanas

National University of Distance Education | UNED

La felicidad se ejercita, se enseña y se aprende: este es el mensaje que promueve la denominada ciencia de la felicidad. Según estos científicos, bastaría con aplicar sus técnicas para ser más productivos, saludables y crecer como personas, afirmando, además, que la buena vida está al alcance de cualquiera. Algo similar ofrece una multimillonaria i...

Research on lay conceptions of happiness is essential to determine what is investigated in happiness studies. Whereas psychological investigation has traditionally emphasized the importance of studying people's everyday conceptions and their relation to cultural and social factors to advance psychological theory, this line of research is still larg...

This paper aims to open a theoretical debate on the relationships between spatial design and emotional experiences in theme parks from a symbolic interactionist perspective. Whereas the interplay between emotions and space is fundamental to understanding the production and consumption of experiences at theme parks, this relationship has been insuff...

Disorientation is a versatile, multidisciplinary concept. Whether associated with its spatial meaning or its non-spatial, more metaphorical sense, various disciplines have used disorientation to describe a broad range of philosophical, cultural, and social phenomena in the last decades. However, the focus on the concept from an emotional perspectiv...

Purpose The aim of this research is to gain insight into the emotional impact and cognitive evaluations that these applications have on users from their own perspective. Design/methodology/approach Sentiment analysis methodology is used to analyze users’ comments and ratings, assess perceived benefits and determine the emotional impact these appli...

CrossFit is one of the fastest growing fitness phenomena of the last decade. Considered the largest fitness business today, CrossFit's widespread popularity has attracted increasing interest from a variety of disciplines. Despite this burgeoning scholarly attention, few analyses have focused on examining CrossFit's discourse of self-optimization an...

Positive education has gained increased interest and attention in the last decade. Born as an applied movement within positive psychology, positive education aims to introduce a positive approach to education to aid schools in promoting happiness , improving learning and performance, and reducing mental health problems among children and adolescent...

El interés generado por la “educación positiva” ha crecido de forma exponencial en las últimas dos décadas. Presentado como un nuevo movimiento científico llamado a sustituir enfoques tradicionales o remediales en materia de intervención educativa, el argumento principal del movimiento es que la felicidad y la enseñanza de habilidades positivas son...

Cabanas, E. y Sánchez, J.C. (2020). Becoming positive souls. The science of happiness from New Thought to positive psychology. En Nehring, D., China, M., Kerrigan, D., Cabanas, E. y Madsen, O.J. (eds.), The Routledge International Handbook of Global Therapeutic Cultures. London: Routledge.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxUDWQTyGtE El denominado “giro hacia la felicidad” ha ido permeando e introduciéndose con cada vez más fuerza en muy diversos sectores culturales, económicos y académicos en las dos últimas décadas. La educación, por supuesto, no está exenta de dicha influencia, hasta el punto de que enseñar felicidad, optimismo y...

Contemporary therapeutic ethos is tightly associated with the culture and industry of happiness. Positive psychology, presented as a revolutionary, scientific and universal ―and therefore ultimate― understanding of what human happiness is and how can be achieved, has played an essential role in this in the last two decades. Nevertheless, despite it...

The Routledge International Handbook of Global Therapeutic Cultures explores central lines of enquiry and seminal scholarship on therapeutic cultures, popular psychology, and the happiness industry. Bringing together studies of therapeutic cultures from sociology, anthropology, psychology, education, politics, law, history, social work, cultural st...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhUpj8gY4ao

Ζούμε σ’ έναν κόσμο που επιδιώκει πάση θυσία την ευτυχία. Το να είναι κανείς ευτυχισμένος έχει γίνει όχι μόνο σκοπός ζωής για πολλούς από εμάς, αλλά επίσης δικαίωμα και υποχρέωση, άλλη μία εκδοχή του αμερικανικού ονείρου – πράγματι, ποιος θα ισχυριζόταν ποτέ ότι θέλει να είναι και να παραμείνει δυστυχής; Ως αρωγός στην κατάκτηση αυτού του επιθυμητο...

Positive psychologists have spread the assumption that positive emotions stand both as cause and effect for adaptive and functional ‘psyches’, whereas negative emotions would stand for the opposite. From this perspective, positive emotions would advance active citizens, productive workers, and healthy and flourishing individuals, whereas negative e...

Glück lässt sich lernen. Das will uns die boomende Glücksindustrie weismachen. Und so explodiert seit den neunziger Jahren die Zahl der Glücksseminare, Glücksratgeber und Happiness-Indizes. Heute liegt es an uns selbst, negative Gefühle zu blockieren, uns selbst zu optimieren und Achtsamkeit zu praktizieren. Dann – so das Heilsversprechen – kommt a...

A indústria da felicidade, que movimenta milhões de euros, garante transformar os indivíduos em pessoas capazes de dominarem os seus sentimentos negativos, e de tirarem o melhor partido de si próprias por meio do controlo completo dos desejos improdutivos e dos pensamentos derrotistas. Porém, não estaremos perante um novo ardil que visa convencer...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWYAUSXbCfI&feature=emb_title La felicidad se ha convertido en la mayor -y en muchos casos única- aspiración de la mayoría de los seres humanos. Pero extrañamente, ese anhelo también la convierte en la causa de nuestra insatisfacción, pues nunca llegamos a sentirla como deberíamos o esperamos. El doctor en psicologí...

The imperative of happiness dictates the conduct and direction of our lives. There is no escape from the tyranny of positivity. But is happiness the supreme good that all of us should pursue? So says a new breed of so-called happiness experts, with positive psychologists, happiness economists and self-development gurus at the forefront. With the su...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twWZHK8OakE Happiness has become a far-reaching epidemic phenomenon of tremendous impact in advanced capitalist societies. In the last two decades, the preoccupation with individual well-being, positive emotions, and personal development has increasingly dominated therapeutic goals, managerial strategies, technocrat...

Viviamo in un mondo invaso dall’apparente felicità, a un livello tale che essere felici sembra essere diventato non solo un obiettivo di vita, ma un diritto e un obbligo. Non ci è concesso di fallire, e siamo condannati al successo e al benessere. Per aiutarci, alla fine degli anni Novanta è nata una nuova “scienza” dominata dalla psicologia positi...

The book offers a comprehensive critique of Positive Psychology (its scientific and applied weaknesses, its metaphysical historical origin, its political connection with neoliberalism) and an alternative view of happiness and human life made upon an alternative view of psychology as a science (and of the role of political issues in social sciences)...

Le bonheur se construirait, s’enseignerait et s’apprendrait : telle est l’idée à laquelle la psychologie positive prétend conférer une légitimité scientifique. Il suffirait d’écouter les experts et d'appliquer leurs techniques pour devenir heureux. L’industrie du bonheur, qui brasse des milliards d’euros, affirme ainsi pouvoir façonner les individu...

Positive Psychology (PP) has been firmly institutionalized as a worldwide phenomenon, especially in the last decade. Its promise of well-being has captured many people’s longings for solutions in times of significant social uncertainty, instability, and insecurity. The field, nevertheless, has been severely criticized on multiple fronts. This artic...

In this work we analyze some of the economic and organizational conditions that help to understand the cultural pervasiveness of the modern idea of happiness and its inherent intertwining with neoliberal ideology. Specifically, we argue that happiness-based repertoires and techniques provided by positive psychologists are reshaping both the meaning...

Happiness has become a new moral regime in neoliberal societies that defines what is right and wrong and stresses the insource of responsibility. More importantly, happiness stands out as a new model of selfhood that aligns with the neoliberal ideology of individualism and consumerism at the same time that legitimizes and rekindles this same ideolo...

Antecedents: Positive psychologists claim to have demonstrated a causal relationship between happiness and life success, with the former accounting for why people usually end up better off in life than others, especially at workplace. Method: In this paper we will analyse the role that happiness-based repertoires and techniques provided by positive...

The talk addresses the relationship between ethics, knowledge, and democracy in Dewey’s work from a new point of view. As it will be developed, there are three main and intertwined elements underlying his philosophical work. First, a certain ethics of (self) transformation —through which Dewey relates the concepts of virtue, discipline, and knowled...

Resumen En este artículo recurrimos a la cura mental del norteamericano Phineas Parkhurst Quimby (1802-1866) como ejemplo de práctica psicológica informal que, siendo previa a la psicoterapia formal moderna, contribuyó a establecer las condiciones de posibilidad para que esta última se desarrollase en el mundo occidental. Contextualizamos la labor...

In this paper, the psychological discourse about the subject pro-vided both by positive psychology and by self-help literature is compared. To specify the object of analysis we define a set of psychological categories and subcategories, to which we have dubbed as ―positive‖ individualism and which cultural and historical back-ground has been analyz...

En una de sus novelas más célebres, Los Buddenbrook, Thomas Mann decía a través de uno de sus personajes que puede que vivamos en el mejor de los mundos posibles, pero que, sin duda, vivimos en el peor de los imaginables. Lo primero lo decía irónicamente; lo segundo, simplemente lo afirmaba. Y es que basta con mirar a nuestro alrededor para comprob...

In the course of the twentieth century, and especially for the last three decades, medical, pharmaceutical and psychological technologies and repertoires have come to play an increasingly central role in providing explanations and ways of addressing deviant child behavior, mainly but not exclusively through the category of Attention Deficit Hyperac...

os modos de concebirnos como individuos, y de serlo, se han transformado profundamente a lo largo de la historia, tanto como los modos de ver el mundo, y de hacerlo. En Occidente, en particular, los cambios se han acelerado desde el Renacimiento y la Ilustración. A partir de la Ilustración la exigencia de au-tonomía y responsabilidad sobre los prop...

Positive Psychology is based on a particular model of the individual that was developed in the popular culture of the United States from the end of the eighteen century. This model, that we have called "positive" individualism, started with Emerson ́s Trascendentalism by defending, against puritanism, that the individual, as a part of Divinity, is...

os modos de concebirnos como individuos, y de serlo, se han transformado profundamente a lo largo de la historia, tanto como los modos de ver el mundo, y de hacerlo. En Occidente, en particular, los cambios se han acelerado desde el Renacimiento y la Ilustración. A partir de la Ilustración la exigencia de au-tonomía y responsabilidad sobre los prop...

Estudio del concepto contemporáneo de Felicidad, especialmente el proveniente de la cultura Norteamericana. La investigación se centra en: - La Historiogénesis del concepto de Felicidad en Norteamérica: raíces culturales, éticas y metafísicas, condiciones sociales, políticas y económicas en que se asienta y se desarrolla, contexto en el cual este c...