Making waves in the great ocean: A historical perspective on the emergence and evolution of wellbeing scholarship

Abstract

The past 150 years have seen remarkable advances in the study of wellbeing. To appreciate the value and significance of these developments, this paper offers a historical perspective on their dynamics, arguing that we have seen four great waves of wellbeing scholarship in the modern West. I begin by exploring the wave metaphor itself, and then propose that these waves have been unfurling in a Western cultural ‘ocean.’ As such, I then explore key historical currents that have shaped this ocean, including Greek philosophy, Christianity, the Renaissance, and the Enlightenment. From there, the narrative considers the emergence of the first wave (psychiatry and psychotherapy), second wave (humanistic psychology), and third wave (positive psychology). The paper concludes by suggesting we are seeing an emerging fourth wave of ‘global wellbeing scholarship,’ in which these Western waters are beginning to intermingle with other regional oceans (which have likewise progressed through their own developmental currents and waves), creating a more globally inclusive picture of wellbeing.

Full text

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Making Waves in the Great Ocean:
A Historical Perspective on the Emergence and Evolution of Wellbeing Scholarship
Abstract
The past 150 years have seen remarkable advances in the study of wellbeing. To appreciate
the value and significance of these developments, this paper offers a historical perspective on
their dynamics, arguing that we have seen four great waves of wellbeing scholarship in the
modern West. I begin by exploring the wave metaphor itself, and then propose that these
waves have been unfurling in a Western cultural ‘ocean.’ As such, I then explore key
historical currents that have shaped this ocean, including Greek philosophy, Christianity, the
Renaissance, and the Enlightenment. From there, the narrative considers the emergence of the
first wave (psychiatry and psychotherapy), second wave (humanistic psychology), and third
wave (positive psychology). The paper concludes by suggesting we are seeing an emerging
fourth wave of ‘global wellbeing scholarship,’ in which these Western waters are beginning
to intermingle with other regional oceans (which have likewise progressed through their own
developmental currents and waves), creating a more globally inclusive picture of wellbeing.
Key words: wellbeing; flourishing; humanistic psychology; positive psychology
Note. This is not the final version that appears in the Journal of Positive Psychology

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It is a real honour and privilege to contribute an article for this celebratory issue for Marty
Seligman alongside such an array of wonderful scholars. There is so much to admire and
respect in Marty’s work throughout his illustrious career, but above all I am drawn to his
bold, farsighted sense of vision. To propose and instantiate an entirely new field was a radical
and brilliant act, constituting an significant moment in psychology and global culture more
broadly. In that spirit, I would like to offer a historical perspective on the long collective
journey of humanity towards a better understanding of wellbeing. In so doing, we’ll celebrate
Marty as a seminal guide upon this great path, and positive psychology (PP) as one of the
major contributions to our progress along it.
To structure my narrative, I shall deploy a metaphorical device to which I’m often
drawn, and which is common in conceptualizing intellectual progress, namely ocean waves.
In particular, I suggest there have been four great waves of wellbeing scholarship in modern
times. The first is the formation of fields such as psychiatry and psychotherapy in the late 19th
Century, which were devoted to improving mental health, but from a negative ‘deficit-based’
perspective (alleviating mental illness). Second is the groundbreaking efforts beginning in
earnest in the 1940s by the likes of Abraham Maslow to focus attention on more positive
forms of wellbeing. Third, the creation of PP by Marty and colleagues, which emphasised the
scientific study of wellbeing, and moreover helped put wellbeing at the centre of academic
research and cultural discourse. Then, as we move into the 2020s and beyond, potentially the
signal development is movements towards a more globally inclusive approach to wellbeing
scholarship, an evolution that may constitute an emergent fourth wave.
Before we start, a brief note on terminology. I am using wellbeing as an overarching
multidimensional term for all the ways a person can be or do well (De Chavez et al., 2005).
Clearly, this covers myriad dimensions of human experience. At a minimum, we can follow
the common mind-body distinction, and differentiate between physical and mental wellbeing.
More expansively, we could also include social wellbeing, as reflected in the World Health
Organization's (1948) definition of health as “a state of complete physical, mental and social
well-being, and not merely the absence of disease and infirmity.” As we shall see, it can also
be helpful to conceive of each dimension as a spectrum, from a negative pole (indicating the
presence of illness), through a notional zero (the absence of illness), to a positive pole (the
active presence of health) (Keyes, 2002). Thus, we can conceive of wellbeing both in deficit-
based terms (e.g., the absence of physical or mental illness), and/or in asset-based terms (e.g.,
physically or mentally flourishing). In this paper, even though I will generically use the term

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‘wellbeing,’ I am specifically focused on the mental wellbeing spectrum (since the physical
spectrum is the province of fields like medicine, and is beyond the scope of this paper).
Below I will review each wave in turn. First though, we begin with a reflection on the
wave metaphor itself, followed by consideration of the historical context – the broader ocean,
as it were – in which these waves are situated.
Ocean Waves
Waves are a common metaphor for conceptualising progress in academia and beyond – as
reflected for instance in discussions of four waves of CBT (Callaghan & Darrow, 2015) or
feminism (Phillips & Cree, 2014). Indeed, my colleagues and I have deployed it to depict
developments in PP specifically, where we have identified three waves: the formation of the
field itself in the late 1990s; a second wave characterised by critiques of the foundational
notion of the ‘positive’ (Lomas & Ivtzan, 2016); and an emerging third wave involving a
movement towards greater epistemological complexity, particularly in terms of going
‘beyond the individual’ (Lomas et al., 2020). These iterations intersect to an extent with the
waves of wellbeing scholarship, although there are also points of divergence, as I’ll explain
below. First though, in this section, I’d like to explore the wave metaphor itself to see what it
can reveal in terms of the dynamics of thought development in academia and beyond.
One reason I am drawn to the wave metaphor is its dynamic, fluid, organic nature. For
instance, Wong (2011) pioneered the analysis of PP’s second wave, greatly influencing our
conception of it. However, he used the label PP ‘2.0,’ which could imply neat developmental
phases with clearly delineated boundaries. By contrast, my co-authors and I leaned into the
notion of PP as progressing through overlapping yet still differentiated waves. Indeed,
beyond that, the metaphor facilitates creative elaboration in further ways that I’ve found
helpful in reflecting on the dynamics of development in fields like PP. In that respect, we can
play imaginatively with the metaphor as a generative way to conceptualise such progress.
Let’s begin by picturing a vast ocean, which we’ll refer to broadly as Western culture.
This is one body of water among various other vast oceans on our planet. These oceans are
interlinked, with channels between them, and indeed form one truly great ocean of humanity.
However, we can also to an extent view these oceans as separate entities, and for the moment
we’ll focus on this ‘Western’ ocean. Then, later in the paper I will discuss the influx of ideas
into this from other oceans.
In terms of their substance, these oceans are essentially made of ideas – in the
broadest possible sense, including any kind of ‘sign’ that can be interpreted by humans. Here
I’m drawing on the field of semiotics, which is all pervasive, as essentially everything can be

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regarded as a sign (Lomas, 2019a). As Chandler (2017) explains, semiotics “embraces the
whole field of signification, including ‘life, the universe, and everything’” (p.xvi). We are
drenched, saturated in text, in that everything around us can be ‘read for meaning.’ As
Derrida (1987) wrote, there is “nothing outside the text” (literally, “Il n’y a pas de hors-texte”
– “There is no outside-text”). That is, texts do not only, or even primarily, involve discursive
language. Anything can function as a sign – from the way a smile suggests happiness, to a
rainbow signalling the end of a storm.
Let’s now imagine that these oceans are endlessly dynamic and full of movement.
Ideas bounce off and crash into each other constantly. Sometimes these energies build into
discernible and coherent ripples of thought and practice; from trends, fashions, and memes to
philosophies, disciplines, and schools of thought. Then, if a ripple is large and significant
enough, if it builds enough energy and momentum, we may deem it a wave. It would appear
that the dynamics of wave creation can take different forms, as we’ll see below. In some
cases, new waves may represent a paradigm shift – some kind of radical evolution or even
discontinuity within a body of thought and practice – as envisaged by Kuhn (1962). Other
instances though are perhaps best seen as a form of emergence; such waves do not exactly
‘overturn’ previous scholarship, in the way a paradigm shift usually does, but rather, in the
context of complex systems, build on existing foundations in new and unforeseeable ways
(Goldstein, 1999). In addition, both forms of dynamic change – paradigm shifts and emergent
evolution – can sometimes, though not always, be understood through the prism of Hegel's
(1812) analysis of dialectical change. This posits that development occurs through a process
of thesis (e.g., an argument), antithesis (a subsequent counter-argument), and then synthesis
(a higher unity that transcends both by preserving the best of each) (Mills, 2000). In any case,
whatever the dynamics, it is these waves which truly give shape and content to the ocean.
Now, what about people in this unfolding tableau? Well, we populate the ocean in
myriad ways, from beachgoers enjoying the shallows to adventurers advancing farther and
deeper into the water. People do not ‘belong’ to any particular ripple or wave. Rather, we
may be animated and moved by any and all passing waves, and indeed may even amplify
their energies. Some people may choose to harness and ‘surf’ the energies of a particular
wave or two. Others might prefer or be compelled to be passively moved by their passing
motion. Some may be struggling to tread water, finding themselves buffeted uncomfortably
by the shifting tides around them. Finally, people may contribute to and even create these
waves. As we splash around in the water of culture, our actions can energise passing waves.
Certain people may even make a significant enough impact that they generate a new wave

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themselves. In that respect, the impulse by Marty colleagues to form PP is one such instance
of creation.
To add one final dimension to the metaphor, beneath the relatively surface-level
phenomenon of waves, oceans also exhibit far deeper, slower, and longer-lasting forms of
movement. For real-life oceans, these include the cyclical ebb-and-flow of tides, patterns of
currents, and even the glacially slow changing contours of the ocean itself due to geological
factors (e.g., tectonic shifts). Similarly, in our great oceans of culture, academic waves span
relatively short periods of time, measured often in decades. However, beneath these we can
discern deeper currents of cultural evolution and change, lasting centuries and even millennia.
Perhaps these even started as a wave, but such were their power and momentum, they have
become relatively enduring features of the ocean. In that respect, before we consider the four
main waves of modern wellbeing scholarship, let’s reflect on some of the more foundational
ocean dynamics within which these waves took shape.
Ocean Currents
Modern wellbeing scholarship has mainly taken place within a Western cultural context. Not
exclusively, of course; indeed, non-Western scholarship is one of the driving forces behind
the emerging fourth wave, as we’ll explore below. However, contemporary academia has
tended to be Western-centric, influenced in particular by the cultural hegemony of the USA.
Danziger (1985) offered an influential analysis of these power dynamics using the metaphor
of centre and periphery. Prior to the Second World War were various centres of knowledge
and practice, including Berlin, Cambridge, and Chicago, as well as peripheral locations where
such knowledge/practice was reproduced. However, in the post-war period, the economic,
military, and cultural dominance of the USA meant that ‘American psychology’ was exported
globally, effectively becoming the sole centre. This has meant that concepts, priorities, and
methods associated with American psychology have come to dominate the field (Pickren,
2009). In turn, the contours of American psychology were shaped by the dominant cultural
values and traditions of the USA itself, such as a tendency towards individualism (Becker &
Marecek, 2008).
As such, to understand the context in which modern wellbeing scholarship emerged, it
is useful to first consider the deeper cultural currents that shaped perspectives on wellbeing in
America, and in the West more broadly. Of course, the potential number of relevant currents
is essentially uncountable and inexhaustible, given there is really no limit to how fine-grained
one makes the analysis, or how far back into history (and even unrecorded prehistory) one
pushes the narrative. Moreover, the USA is arguably without peer or precedent in its

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multicultural complexity and dynamism. As such, even though an ostensibly Western nation,
modern America has also been shaped by myriad non-Western currents and waves. Indeed,
from a critical perspective, the very notion of the 'West' – as usually juxtaposed with the
'East' – can be problematic. As Edward Said (1979) argued in his seminal text Orientalism,
not only do these generalizing labels obscure the nuanced heterogeneity of these vast
geopolitical arenas, but worse they have been harnessed in harmful ways, including attempts
to justify colonialism. Even so, the USA can still be meaningfully construed as Western, not
least because the country – or, at least, people with power and prominence – has often tended
to self-consciously see and define itself in that way. Furthermore, it has done so by explicitly
claiming and channeling the very currents discussed here, which has also sometimes involved
marginalizing voices who do not share these historical identities (Bhatt, 2004) – an invidious
process of exclusion which the new fourth wave is thankfully now redressing, as we shall see.
Indeed, part of what it means for a person or a country to self-identify as Western is to view
themselves as having been primarily shaped by these sources (Taylor, 1992). As such, it is
still a useful exercise to briefly review a few key currents frequently associated with the
formation of the West – even if each warrants a much more detailed treatment, and many
further currents could also have been mentioned – to at least provide an elemental sense of
how this cultural ocean has been shaped. To that end, I’ll touch upon four main eras: classical
Greece, early Christianity, the Renaissance, and the Enlightenment. These constitute currents
in that their energies are still reverberating through the ocean, shaping the contours of present
waves.
Our narrative begins in classical Greece during the so-called Axial age. In the long,
winding history of humanity, the development of thought stretches back many millennia into
unrecorded time. But there appears to have been a dramatic collective shift between the
eighth and third centuries BCE. This wasn’t precipitated by an individual genius, nor linked
to a single region. In multiple global locations, profound and unprecedented cognitive and
philosophical revolutions seemed to have occurred almost in parallel. Karl Jaspers (1949)
called it the Achsenzeit – the Axial age – signifying a world-changing time in the history of
our species when civilization truly turned on its ‘axis.’ The epochal ideas that emerged in this
era continue to flow as currents in the world’s cultural oceans. For instance, in China and the
Indian subcontinent emerged traditions like Taoism and Buddhism, which have been pivotal
in shaping the ‘Eastern’ ocean – and, as we’ll see below, are now filtering into the Western
ocean as dimensions of the fourth wave. Indeed, some such cross-pollination may have even
occurred during the Axial age, with trade between East and West also helping to spread ideas

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(Burkert, 2004). In any case, from the perspective of the Western ocean, the pivotal currents
set in motion during this age were centred on Greece. This region saw such an astonishing
effulgence of development across many areas of life – from philosophy to politics – that the
modern world still bears its imprints, as evinced by the Greek etymologies of those two terms
and many other modern concepts and practices. Indeed, there are so many dimensions to this
current, most of which are relevant to modern conceptions of wellbeing, that we lack the
space to even list the relevant ideas and names.
So, as an exemplar of the era’s enduring impact, I’ll just briefly mention Aristotle,
who among his peers has arguably had the strongest influence on contemporary scientific
thinking around wellbeing (Schwartz & Sharpe, 2006). Among his many contributions is his
pivotal distinction between hedonic and eudaimonic forms of mental wellbeing, which has
been central to modern theorising. He was disparaging of the former, as was he of most
people, who he deemed preoccupied with crude pleasures, condemning them as “slavish in
their tastes,” living a “life suitable to beasts” (1986, p.6). By contrast, he valorised the latter,
which refers etymologically to being blessed with a good daimon (a guiding spirit, or from a
modern perspective, one’s conscience). In that respect, it reflects ‘deeper’ forms of happiness
arising through self-cultivation, being described by Aristotle as the “activity of the soul in
accordance with virtue.” Moreover, perhaps the deeper message in his work, particularly in
reference to eudaimonia, is that wellbeing is to some extent within people’s control. Before
the Axial age, humankind had tended to regard wellbeing as being mostly outside human
control, dependent upon the vicissitudes of fates, and particularly – given the mythological
mindset of the age – on the grace and favour of the gods (Raphals, 2003). Indeed, this stance
has lingered to this day, especially in cultures that place less weight on individual agency and
more on ideas of interconnectedness (Ivanhoe, 2017). However, in various ways, luminaries
in the Axial age – from Aristotle in the West to Buddha in the East – began to suggest that
people can play at least some role in shaping their own wellbeing, which for Aristotle centred
on cultivating virtue.
The next significant chapter of the Western narrative is the emergence of Christianity.
As McMahon (2006) elucidates, ideas of wellbeing are central to its teachings. Consider, for
instance, the Sermon on the Mount, an oratory widely seen as the zenith of Jesus’ teachings,
the ‘essence of Christianity’ (Quarles, 2011), featuring such immortal lines as, “Blessed are
the pure in heart, for they will see God.” Of particular significance is the poetically repeated
central word. In the early Greek of the New Testament, this was makários, later translated
into English – via beātitūdō in Latin then béatitude in French – as blessed (from the Proto-

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Germanic blodison, originally meaning to consecrate). However, according to McMahon, an
equally suitable – even preferable – rendering is ‘happy’; not mere pleasure, of course, but
the deepest happiness possible. Even more significantly, these ideas were a revolutionary
paradigm shift, which in part explains their power and popularity, propelling the movement
to becoming the dominant religion in the Roman world. Even though Axial thinkers had
suggested people could exert some control over wellbeing, they tended to limit such agency
to select people, usually – reflecting wider biases of the age – wealthy men in particular
(Femenías, 1994). By contrast, Jesus’ vision was not only egalitarian, with the poor equally
able to find happiness through their actions and beliefs, but even more radically, such people
were more blessed than the rich and powerful. The subsequent institution of the church may
not have always upheld this ideal, but it was nevertheless a transformative notion which
shaped the modern world.
Another key milestone is the Renaissance. The context for its emergence is the so-
called Dark Ages, a period of European history from roughly 500 to 1200 CE. Its disparaging
coinage derives from Petrarch (1304-1374) to reflect a perceived near absence of independent
thought (juxtaposed with the subsequent ‘light’ of Renaissance humanism) (Mazzotta, 1993).
The term is misleading, as the era did include openness and creativity, particularly outside
Europe (Dagenais & Greer, 2000). However, Christianity had a hegemonic hold on European
thought during that time, and often despaired of the possibility of worldly happiness (with
important exceptions, such as Thomas Aquinas (Barad, 2007)). In The Misery of the Human
Condition, for instance, Pope Innocent III (1161-1216) bleakly wrote, “All [people’s] days
are full of toil and hardship.” However, in a process of dialectic, new modes of thinking were
emerging in contrast to such pessimism. There arose an optimistic humanism, characterised
by appreciation and even glorification of the potential and dignity of humankind, and the
possibility of finding happiness on earth. This began to take root in the 12th Century, with the
founding of the first universities, then flourished in 14th Century Italy, as epitomised by
Petrarch. Above all, the era was characterised by the re-discovery of the classical world as its
texts became more widely available, a process of ‘re-birth’ termed the ‘Renaissance’ by the
historian Michelet (1855). For instance, a celebrated event was the discovery in 1417 of
Lucretius's long-lost poem De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of the Universe). In this he
discusses the philosophy of Epicurus (341-270 BCE), who rejected ideas about an afterlife
and encouraged people to live well here-and-now; not in the self-indulgent way for which his
name is erroneously a byword today, but according to Stoic ideals of appreciating simple
pleasures (such as friendship), and cultivating ataraxia (a state of mind characterized by

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imperturbability and tranquility) (Striker, 1990). Thus, even while Christianity remained
hegemonic in Europe, secular ideas of happiness were becoming increasingly prominent.
Moving into the 16th Century, this burgeoning secularism began to generate new
modes of enquiry which became known as the Enlightenment. This age saw the stirrings of
empiricism, pioneered by Sir Francis Bacon and Galileo Galilei, who inaugurated the notion
that wellbeing could be influenced by scientific study of the world. Relatedly, a forward-
looking notion of progress took hold, marking the transition into Modernity (Tarnas, 2010).
Previously, the dominant Christian orientation had combined retrospective yearning for a
golden age (the Garden of Eden) with eschatological hope for future redemption (paradise).
But in the 17th century, driven by advancements in science, technology, and economics, a
powerful belief emerged in the linear, inexorable improvement of life, as later exemplified in
the 18th Century Encyclopaedia, with its overarching message was that happiness can be
found on earth, above all through truth and knowledge (Holley, 2015). Moreover, not only
were individuals encouraged to take this path, there were concomitant efforts to facilitate this
pursuit systemically. There arose the potent notion that society itself could be re-structured to
better enable flourishing, which propelled the revolutions in America (1776) and France
(1789), as reflected in the American Declaration of Independence enshrining the “unalienable
rights” to “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” Thus, the ‘perfection of society’ was
an essential component to finding happiness on earth. Indeed, modern political thinking is
still shaped by Enlightenment ideas, such as Utilitarianism, developed by Hutcheson (1725),
Mill (1863) and Bentham (1879). This denotes a family of consequentialist ethical theories –
where the ultimate moral arbiter of an action is its consequences – that aim to maximise
wellbeing. In Hutcheson's words, “The best action is the one that procures the greatest
happiness of the greatest numbers” (p.515). With such ideas we enter the modern age where
happiness becomes a scientific concern – with utilitarianism shaping hedonic concepts such
as life satisfaction – as we now see.
The First Wave: Psychiatry and Psychotherapy
Having traced some of the formative currents that set the context for the emergence of
wellbeing scholarship in the West, let’s turn to that scholarship itself. Essentially, its first
wave is the formalization of fields like psychiatry, psychotherapy, and psychology in the late
19th Centuries. Their roots stretch further back of course. Indeed, throughout human history,
cultures have identified, classified, and sought to treat problems that we might refer to today
as mental disorders (Simon, 1978). The fields themselves then emerged in proto form over
many centuries. In London, for instance, a monastic priory was founded in 1247 as a shelter

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for the sick and infirm, and from 1330 onwards was known as The Bethlam Hospital, with
evidence that it was treating ‘insanity’ as early as 1403, then serving exclusively as an asylum
for that purpose from 1676 (Killaspy, 2006). The 17th century also saw one of the first
modern texts on mental illness, Burton's (1621) The Anatomy of Melancholy. The year 1808
then marked the widespread establishments of public mental asylums in Britain after the
passing of the County Asylums Act, as well as the coining of ‘psychiatry’ – from the Greek
psyche (soul or mind) and iatros (healer) – by Reil (1808). The field is then regarded as being
fully established with the publication of the first major work by Kraeplin (1883), celebrated
as the ‘father’ of the field (Trede et al., 2005). Around this time psychotherapy was also
coming into being – initially just as a feature of psychiatry itself – with the term coined by
Dendy (1853). Meanwhile, psychology had been developed along similar trajectories. The
term itself is widely credited to the 16th century theologian Philip Melanchthon, coined from
Greek roots to denote the ‘study of the soul’ (Vidal, 2011). Its usage in a more psychological
sense was then popularised by Wolff’s Psychologia Empirica in 1737. But not until Wilhelm
Wundt founded his laboratory in 1879 did it assume the character of an experimental science.
It is fair to characterise these fields – especially psychiatry and psychotherapy – as
concerned with wellbeing. Here though arises an important issue around conceptualisation
which does not really get clarified until the second wave. A key insight of this second wave
was to view mental wellbeing as a spectrum – as mentioned above – spanning a negative pole
(presence of illness), through zero (absence of illness), to a positive pole (active presence of
health). However, this first wave focused almost exclusively on its negative territory. Indeed,
many key figures did not seem to regard it as relevant or amenable to their endeavours. Their
prerogative was predominantly to help people reach the relative neutrality of zero, reflected
in Freud’s famous remark that the goal of psychotherapy was simply to turn “hysterical
misery into ordinary unhappiness” (Breuer & Freud, 1955, p.308). There were important
exceptions, swimming against the current. For instance, William James' (1902) pioneering
work, The Varieties of Religious Experience, touched upon ideas and experiences which we
might now situate in the positive realm of the spectrum. On the whole though, the focus was
on alleviating mental illness. It was then the openness to explore more positive territory that
heralded the shift to a second wave. This first wave did not cease of course; psychiatry and
psychotherapy continue to flourish over a century later. Indeed, waves often do not dissipate,
but continue to unleash energies, and newer waves tend to not replace earlier ones, but rather
complement and augment them, as is the case with all the waves considered here.

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The Second Wave: Humanistic Psychology
From around the 1920s onwards, a new wave of scholars and practitioners began emerging.
Strongly influenced by humanism, they advocated a renewed focus on the positive potential
of humankind. In terms of the dynamics of wave creation, here we perhaps see an example of
the Hegelian dialectic, with this movement being in antithesis to the ‘negative’ focus of the
first wave. Its vision is beautifully captured by Maslow (1962), arguably the most influential
of these figures, in a quote which provides the foundation for the spectrum metaphor used
here (and which was subsequently embraced by PP): “It is as if Freud supplied us the sick
half of psychology and we must now fill it out with the healthy half”. Among the first
pioneers was Otto Rank, initially a protégé and then close colleague of Freud. However, he
broke away – and indeed was somewhat ostracized – with The Trauma of Birth (Rank, 1924).
The dispute turned on Rank elevating the person’s relationship with their mother to be of
primal significance in their subsequent development (with the infant’s anxiety at birth the
source of all subsequent anxiety), whereas for Freud the father was the crucial figure in this
process (per the Oedipal complex) (Kramer, 1995). Thereafter, they continued to diverge,
with Rank concentrating on ‘healthy’ developmental processes (in contrast to Freud’s focus
on psychopathology). For instance, in Will Therapy, Rank (1936) focused on the primal value
of the ‘creative will’: critiquing Freud for reducing creativity to a mere by-product of the sex
drive, he explored people’s own self-consciousness and agency in the creative process, and
above all their own individuation, moving “from creature to creator, in the ideal case, creator
of himself, his own personality (p.2). For Rank, psychotherapy should therefore centre on
creating a nurturing relationship space for clients to explore these individuation processes in a
process of creative collaboration (Wadlington, 2012).
In turn, Rank influenced Maslow and Carl Rogers, widely regarded as founders of
humanistic psychology. Rogers, for instance, attended a seminar convened by Rank in 1936,
and after said, “I became infected with Rankian ideas and began to realize the possibilities of
the individual being self-directing” (Kirschenbaum, 1979, p.95). Rogers (1951) proceeded to
create his person-centred therapeutic approach, which focused on helping people become
‘self-actualized,’ including by reaching a state of congruence (between their actual and ideal
self). His efforts were complimented by Maslow, who also helped develop the notion of self-
actualisation, taking inspiration from Goldstein (1940), who is credited with coining the term.
In that respect, Maslow established humanistic psychology as a ‘third force’ (or wave) in
psychology (as an alternative to the prevailing psychodynamic and behavioural paradigms).
He found particular inspiration in two mentors, the anthropologist Ruth Benedict and Gestalt

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psychologist Max Wertheimer, for whom he had special admiration and respect (Daniels,
1982). Their lives instilled a belief that human nature is fundamentally good (or at least, is
neutral), and contains the possibility of self-actualisation. To account for such possibilities,
Maslow proposed (1943) and developed (1962) his hierarchical conception of human needs
to explain how this process might unfold. In this way, a focus on the positive potentials of
humans emerged, aided by other key figures such as Jahoda (1958), who popularized the
notion of ‘positive mental health’ (in another allusion to the spectrum metaphor featured
here). However, as vital as these works were, they were mainly anchored in a therapeutic
context. But gradually, interest in wellbeing overflowed that arena and began attracting more
scientific interest, heralding a new third wave of scholarship.
The Third Wave: Positive Psychology
As the 20tth Century drew to a close, wellbeing scholarship became increasingly widespread
and scientific. The pivotal moment was the formal creation of PP by Marty and colleagues
upon his assumption to the presidency of the American Psychological Association in 1998
(Fowler et al., 1999). There had of course been ripples before this, creating an accumulation
of energies in this direction; after all, such developments do not emerge out of a vacuum. In
conceptualising mental wellbeing, PP has tended to follow Aristotle in differentiating two
main forms, hedonic and eudaimonic (even if this distinction has faced critiques; Kashdan et
al., 2008). Strikingly, many dominant measures used to assess these were developed prior to
PP’s formation. Hedonic wellbeing is often seen as comprising two components: cognitive
(an appraisal of life satisfaction or quality of life); and affective (positive emotions). With the
former, one of the earliest constructs is Cantril's (1965) Self-Anchoring Striving Scale, which
asks respondents to envisage a 10-rung ladder – whose base and top respectively represent
the worst and best possible life imaginable – and indicate where they stand. The item is still
widely-used, including in the annual Gallup World Poll (GWP), one of the most influential
worldwide surveys, with its results being the basis for the UN’s World Happiness Report
(Helliwell et al., 2020). Besides this, arguably the dominant measure for life satisfaction is
Diener et al.'s (1985) Satisfaction With Life Scale, for the affective dimension of hedonia is
Watson et al.'s (1988) Positive And Negative Affect Scale, and for eudaimonia is Ryff's
(1989) scale of Psychological Wellbeing.
As such, many pieces of PP were in place by the 1980s. However, the significance of
PP is that it put these pieces together and placed the resulting picture centre stage in the field.
The narrative is that, prior to PP’s emergence, ‘psychology as usual’ was primarily focused
on disorder and dysfunction, which I think holds true. Aspects of the field did focus on more

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13
positive forms of wellbeing, such as the ongoing tradition of humanistic psychology, and the
emergent concepts outlined above. But as a whole, the field did seem to look down upon
notions such as happiness and flourishing as not especially ‘serious’ or worthy of scientific
attention (Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000). Thus, it was significant when Marty used his
presidency to give these topics the weight and significance they deserved, and in doing so
truly unleashed this new third wave. In this instance of wave creation, here we perhaps see
two dynamics occurring. In relation to the dominant context of ‘psychology as usual,’ a
Hegelian dialectic seems to obtain, with PP as antithesis to the largely ‘negative’ thesis of the
field as it stood. However, in relation to the prior second wave of humanistic wellbeing
scholarship, it was more a process of emergence – PP augmenting the second wave, rather
than standing in oppositional tension. Specifically, this emergence involved widespread
harnessing of an empirical, scientific approach to wellbeing (as although this approach could
be found in the second wave, the emphasis was much more on the praxis of psychotherapy).
Indeed, this transition evokes the movement from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment. In
its therapeutic focus on self-actualization, the second wave seems to align more closely with
the humanist glorification of the former. By contrast, with its emphasis on the scientific
method, and the influence of philosophies such as utilitarianism – as reflected in constructs
such as life satisfaction – the third wave seems more akin overall to the spirit of the latter.
Within the context of PP, my colleagues and I have also identified developmental
waves that are internal and specific to the field itself. In the overall scheme of wellbeing
scholarship, PP is the vanguard of its third wave. In terms of PP itself though, its formation in
the 1990s of course constitutes its own first wave. Then, inspired by the likes of Held (2004),
Ehrenreich (2009), Wong (2011), and McNulty and Fincham (2012), we identified what
might be deemed a second wave of PP (Ivtzan et al., 2015), with similar observations also
made – albeit without the 'second wave' nomenclature – by Kashdan and Biswas-Diener
(2014). There are different ways of interpreting and understanding this wave, but it arguably
rests above all upon a fundamental critique of PP's foundational notions of positive and
negative (and see also Pawelski (2016a, 2016b) for an in-depth discussion of these concepts).
For instance, in deeming a phenomenon either positive or negative, there is a difference
between its valence (e.g., pleasant or unpleasant) versus its outcome (e.g., whether it helps or
harms wellbeing). Thus, one can observe seeming paradoxes in which positively- valenced
qualities can have negative outcomes, and vice versa. So, for instance, although they may feel
unpleasant, negatively-valenced emotions such as anger (Lomas, 2019a), sadness (Lomas,
2018c), and boredom (Lomas, 2017a) may nevertheless – under certain circumstances, and/or

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14
if handled skilfully – constribute to flourishing in some ways. One must note that PP’s
founders were aware of these nuances too. For instance, in 1990 Marty presciently pointed
out that we must be wary of the ”tyrannies of optimism” and be ”able to use pessimism’s
keen sense of reality when we need it” (Seligman, 1990, p. 292). However, this kind of
nuanced critique of the ‘positive’ needed to remain implicit initially, otherwise the field
would arguably not have got off the ground at all. However, once PP had been substantiated,
such ideas could be made more explicit, further energising the field. And, given that such
scholarship problematised and complexified the very conceptual foundation of PP – i.e., the
'positive' – we felt it constituted a significant enough development to warrant the label of a
second wave. However, this wave dynamic is internal to PP, with its impact and significance
mainly limited to this context. As such, it does not constitute a new wave in the overall
scheme of wellbeing scholarship, instead being more a ripple within its broader third wave.
By contrast, other colleagues and I have also more recently identified an emerging third wave
in PP itself (Lomas, Williams, et al., 2021). This does align with significant developments in
wellbeing scholarship, which in this broader scheme of evolution constitute a new fourth
wave, as the final section explores.
The Fourth Wave: Global Wellbeing Scholarship
In exemplifying and driving forward the third wave of wellbeing scholarship, PP could be
seen as being at the vanguard of this overall progression. Now though, significant
developments are occurring, not only in PP but in wellbeing scholarship more broadly, that
may constitute a whole new wave – which in the internal context of PP constitutes its third
wave, but which for wellbeing scholarship in general is thus a formidable fourth wave, one
we might call 'global wellbeing science.' With respect to PP specifically, my colleagues and I
suggested that whereas its second wave took issue with the first half of the label (the
‘positive’), numerous developments appear to be challenging its second half (‘psychology’),
thus constituting a third wave of the field (Lomas, Williams, et al., 2021). The first and
second waves of PP were predominantly focused on the individual. However, newer PP
scholarship is going beyond the individual – and moreover beyond psychology itself – in
various ways, as exemplified by Kern et al.’s (2020) notion of ‘systems-informed’ PP. As
such, one potential label for this new wave could be 'global wellbeing science' (as reflected,
for example, in the Centre for Positive Psychology at the University of Melbourne changing
its name in 2021 to the Centre for Wellbeing Science). These developments are characterised
by increasing epistemological complexity, including vis-à-vis: the focus of enquiry (e.g.,
greater interest in super-individual phenomena, such as systems); disciplines (e.g., becoming

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15
more interdisciplinary); methodologies (e.g., augmenting post-positivist quantitative analysis
with other paradigms and ways of knowing); and culture (e.g., becoming more global and
multicultural). Indeed, such is the blossoming complexity of these developments that even the
label 'wellbeing science' may be too narrow. Augmenting the burgeoning interest in
wellbeing across scientific fields is a similarly important and significant groundswell of
attention in the humanities, as exemplified and articulated by Tay and Pawelski's (2021) new
handbook and forthcoming series on the 'positive humanities.' As such, it seems desirable to
bring these varied fields together under the overarching term 'wellbeing scholarship.'
Furthermore, these dynamics reflect broader developments in wellbeing scholarship over the
last decade or so – and indeed, in psychology, academia, and even culture more widely – to
the point where this all adds up to a burgeoning fourth wave of such scholarship. Above all,
besides its interdisciplinary nature, what defines this wave is a movement towards thought
and practice becoming more global, in various ways.
As outlined above, the deep context for wellbeing scholarship throughout the 20th
century, and for psychology as a whole, has been its Western-centric nature. To use our
central metaphor, its waves have been rolling in the ocean of Western culture. But there are
of course other regional oceans, which have seen their own currents and wave formations
over recent decades, and indeed centuries and millennia. Now, in the context of wider socio-
political dynamics of globalisation, one might say that these waters are truly beginning to
intermingle, creating one great ocean. As a result, psychology – and interdisciplinary
wellbeing scholarship more broadly – is gradually becoming more globally inclusive and
decentralised (i.e., less Western-centric), although this journey is really only just beginning,
and much more progress needs to be made. This process is sometimes referred to, and
advocated for, as the 'decolonization' of academia, although what this term means and how it
should be enacted is a matter of debate (Barnes & Siswana, 2018). Nevertheless,
terminological issues aside, this movement towards inclusivity not only means being better at
conducting research in different regions (rather than restricting it to Western populations), but
also greater cross-cultural engagement and collaboration with people, cultures, ideas,
perspectives, and practices from around the world. It further means recognizing and
celebating the multicultural diversity within Western contexts such as the USA, including
giving a fairer hearing to people and groups and who may not see themselves as Western,
and/or who identify with and draw from other cultural sources (even if some also embrace a
Western identity), as seen for example in the paradigms of Indigenous American psychology
(Blume, 2021), African American psychology (Neville et al., 2008) and Asian American

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16
psychology (Nagayama Hall & Okazaki, 2002). Of course, even if we tentatively mark
our current moment as the emergence of this wave, its energies have building for decades, fed
by ripples of cross-cultural engagement over the years. Mindfulness is a good example. This
constitutes a powerful stream of energy which has gradually filtered into the Western ocean
over the past century, having been created in an Eastern ocean which of course has had its
own currents and waves over the centuries. Around a century or so before Aristotle was
cultivating ideas that would shape the West, Gautama Siddhartha developed the teachings
that would come to be known as Buddhism, including the practice of mindfulness (Gethin,
2011). Over subsequent centuries, Buddhism cycled through various waves, generating
different schools and lineages which continue to this day. These include: Theravada (School
of the Elders), the early Buddhist schools that stayed close to the original teachings (Crosby,
2013); Mahayana (Great Vehicle), which emerged around the 1st Century BCE, involving
philosophical elaborations upon these teachings (Williams, 2008); and Vajrayana (Diamond
Vehicle), which began to form around the 8th Century, and involved the development of
esoteric practices, such as tantra (Wedemeyer, 2013). Buddhism then began to filter into the
West around the mid-19th century, as technological advances enabled people from Eastern
cultures to travel or immigrate to Western countries, bringing Buddhist ideas and practices
with them. This also spurred interest among Western scholars, such as T. W. Rhys Davids,
who published an influential translation of Buddhist suttas (1881), and then coined the term
‘mindfulness’ as a rendering of the Pali term sati (1910). Thus, mindfulness has been
circulating in Western academia for over a century, though it was not until Kabat-Zinn's
(1982) groundbreaking Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction program that it began to exert a
significant impact. But now, almost 40 years later, its impact has been remarkable, with
literally hundreds of mindfulness interventions, and many thousands of studies, greatly
enhancing our understanding and promotion of wellbeing across many fields.
Thus, ‘cross-filtering’ between oceans has been steadily building over the past
century. However, these dynamics appear to have accelerated over recent years. A notable
point of departure in that respect is an influential article by Henrich et al. (2010) in Nature
pointing out that the vast majority of research in psychology – up to 90% by some estimates –
has been conducted by and on people in contexts that are ‘WEIRD’ (Western, Educated,
Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic). At issue is that most of the world is not similarly
WEIRD – even if we should not simplistically classify places as WEIRD versus non-WEIRD
(Ghai, 2021) – which raises questions around the validity and universality of such work. As
such, at that point, fields like psychology – including its wellbeing scholarship – were judged

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as overwhelmingly Western-centric. However, in light of such critiques, the dynamics now
appear to be changing. Hendricks et al. (2019) conducted a bibliometric analysis of
randomised controlled trials of positive psychology interventions, for example, and found
that although 78.2% of the 188 studies identified were conducted in Western countries, there
was “a strong and steady increase in publications from non-Western countries since 2012,”
indicating an encouraging “trend towards globalization” of wellbeing research (p. 489)
A significant example is Gallup. Founded in the US in 1935, it conducted its first
survey abroad in 1938, and gradually expanded its overseas reach, culminating in establishing
its annual GWP in 2005, surveying citizens in 160 countries. The poll usually includes
around 100 items, covering most aspects of life, including – most relevantly – wellbeing.
Specifically, it has generally focused on hedonic wellbeing, including both life satisfaction
(via Cantril's (1965) ladder item) and positive affect (via questions around positive emotions)
(Diener & Tay, 2015). Thus, with these efforts, wellbeing scholarship has already been taking
on global dimensions, collecting data across the world (rather than just in WEIRD contexts).
However, more recently, Gallup have gone even further in their global engagement, including
through two new projects with which I have had the privilege to become involved: partnering
with Wellbeing for Planet Earth (a Japan-based research and policy foundation) to create the
Global Wellbeing Initiative (Lambert et al., 2020); and a forthcoming Global Flourishing
Project with the Human Flourishing Program at Harvard University (VanderWeele, 2017).
Their impetus is the recognition that even though the GWP has assessed wellbeing
globally since 2005, its metrics for doing so could still be deemed Western-centric. That is,
measures like life satisfaction were fashioned in a Western context, informed by the values
and perspectives of the USA in particular. These include a tradition of individualism, for
instance, which had led to conceptualizations of wellbeing that emphasise the flourishing of
the individual – as opposed to, for instance, focusing on relationship or group dynamics,
which tend to be emphasised more in Eastern cultures (Joshanloo, 2014). It is not that
concepts such as life satisfaction lack global relevance; after all, people all over the world
understand and relate to the concept in the context of the GWP. However, the key issue is
whether they capture the full picture when it comes to wellbeing, or conversely, whether there
may be dimensions to wellbeing that are currently being overlooked since they are not widely
acknowledged in Western cultures. Indeed, the latter possibility is the premise of my own
personal project over recent years, a lexicography of so-called untranslatable words relating
to wellbeing (Lomas, 2016). These are words which lack an exact equivalent in English, and
so signify phenomena which have been largely overlooked by English-speaking cultures –

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and hence mainstream psychology, whose default language is English – but which have been
identified and labelled by another culture. Through this evolving project I’ve been trying to
expand and augment the nomological ‘map’ of concepts relating to wellbeing in psychology
by incorporating ideas from other cultures (Lomas, 2020). This has enabled the identification
of new conceptual nuances in 12 main categories, including positive emotions (Lomas,
2017a), ambivalent emotions (Lomas, 2017b), prosociality (Lomas, 2018a), love (Lomas,
2018b), character (Lomas, 2019d), spirituality (Lomas, 2019b), and eco-connection (Lomas,
2019c). Although still a work-in-progress, the project suggests that current conceptualizations
and theories of wellbeing – Western-centric as they tend to be – may be missing out on
important ideas and perspectives from other cultures.
In that respect, the two new projects mentioned above are aiming to provide a more
globally inclusive picture of wellbeing by constructively engaging with such perspectives.
The Global Wellbeing Initiative, initiated in 2019, involves developing items for inclusion in
the GWP that reflect non-Western perspectives on wellbeing (Lambert et al., 2020). The
initial focus has been on Eastern perspectives, and in that respect, six items were included in
the 2020 wave of the poll, covering topics such as balance and harmony, low arousal positive
emotions (e.g., calmness), and relationship to the group. These will then be augmented in the
2021 poll by items pertaining to connection to nature, vitality, spirituality, and mindfulness.
After that, the plan is to expand the scope of items still further to include perspectives from
other world regions. Overall, the analysis will allow us to see: the extent to which such items
complement existing wellbeing measures (e.g., life satisfaction); regional variation in the
endorsement and prevalence of such items; and which other factors in the GWP influence
such outcomes. Complementing this work is an ambitious Global Flourishing Project, which
has received $20 million in funding – mainly from the Templeton Foundations, but also from
Wellbeing for Planet Earth and other bodies – to conduct a comprehensive, longitudinal panel
survey of flourishing, involving over 200,000 people in 22 countries. This design, in which
participants will be tracked over time, will allow better analysis of causality than is provided
by the standard cross-sectional methodology of the standard GWP (which involves different
people each wave). More relevantly here, the project aims to create an expansive assessment
of flourishing by including items that are often overlooked in standard Western conceptions
of wellbeing but which are greatly valued globally, including some identified by the Global
Wellbeing Initiative, such as balance and harmony and low arousal positive emotions. In this
way, such projects are moving towards a much more cross-culturally inclusive and nuanced
perspective of wellbeing, and thus exemplify the fourth wave of scholarship identified here.

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19
In that respect, the Global Wellbeing Initiative aims to provide a more globally
inclusive picture of wellbeing by constructively engaging with such perspectives. This
includes developing items for the GWP that reflect non- Western ideas around on wellbeing
(Lambert et al., 2020). The initial focus has been on Eastern cultures, and in that respect, six
items were included in the 2020 wave of the poll, covering topics such as balance and
harmony, low arousal positive emotions (e.g., calmness), and relationship to the group. These
have then been augmented in the 2021 poll by items pertaining to connection to nature,
vitality, spirituality, and mindfulness. Consequently, the analysis will allow us to see: the
extent to which such items complement existing wellbeing measures (e.g., life evaluation);
regional variation in the endorsement and prevalence of such items; and which other factors
in the GWP influence such outcomes. Then, beyond this kind of item development and
analysis, the initative aims to foster meaningful conversations and collaborations with
partners across the globe in a spirit of friendship, reciprocal learning, coproduction, and
mutual enquiry (as opposed to, for instance, following outdated practices of studying other
cultures with an attitude of detatched empiricism and from a position of supposed expertise
and authority). The project therefore aims to generate a more cross-culturally inclusive and
nuanced perspective of wellbeing, and thus exemplifies the fourth wave of scholarship
identified here. Indeed, besides this initiative, many endeavours in this spirit are starting to
bud and blossom. Another good example is the newly-launched Global Flourishing Study, a
groundbreaking longitudinal panel survey – also involving Gallup, and led by the Human
Flourishing Program at Harvard University and the Institute for Studies of Religion at Baylor
University – involving 240,000 people in 22 countries (Crabtree et al., 2021). Together, these
kinds of endeavours will help us collectively develop a much deeper and richer understanding
of wellbeing.
Conclusion
This paper has sought to understand the significance, emergence, and evolution of modern
wellbeing scholarship. To that end, I proposed that there have been four main ‘waves’ over
the past 150 years. The paper began by exploring the wave metaphor itself, which is a useful
and imaginative way to conceptualize the dynamics of such developments. Drawing on this
metaphor, I then suggested that these waves have primarily been taking shape within the
cultural context of a Western ‘ocean,’ reflecting the overall Western-centric nature of fields
such as psychology. As such, I briefly reviewed some significant historical currents that have
helped form this ocean over the centuries, including Greek philosophy, Christianity, the
Renaissance, and the Enlightenment. The paper then addressed the four waves themselves.

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First came the instantiation of psychiatry and psychotherapy in the mid-late 19th century,
which focused on wellbeing from a negative deficit-based perspective (i.e., alleviating mental
illness). Then came the appearance of humanistic psychology in the early-mid 20th century,
where attention switched to more positive ideas of flourishing. Third, building on empirical
work from the 1960s onwards, the creation of PP at the turn of the millennium emphasised
the scientific study of wellbeing, and brought such scholarship centre stage in psychology.
The paper then concluded by proposing that we are now seeing an emerging fourth wave of
‘global wellbeing scholarship,’ in which the Western ocean is beginning to truly intermingle
with waves and currents from the world’s other vast oceans, thus creating a more globally
inclusive picture of wellbeing.
Moreover, beyond these already unfolding developments, one can try to speculatively
peer into the distance to discern potential ripples and waves over the horizon. In that respect,
one possibility for a future fifth wave - based on ripples that are already detectable - is a form
of 'cosmic' wellbeing scholarship, one that transcends the human-centric focus of the global
fourth wave to embrace the dizzying idea of non-human forms of wellbeing (Lomas, 2021d,
forthcoming). These could include natural life forms on earth (not only sentient organisms
but the biosphere as a whole), advances in artificial intelligence (with some commentators
predicting the emergence of silicon-based forms of consciousness), and even the radical
notion of extra-terrestrial intelligent life (whose existence many observers consider highly
likely, even if such beings have not yet visited earth). All these possibilities have implications
for wellbeing scholarship, both on their own terms, and with respect to our own human
wellbeing, not least because we shall need to coexist peacefully and sustainably alongside
these non-human life forms. And in the meantime, we have plenty to do in fully realizing the
promise of the existing four waves as we endeavour to better understand and promote the
wellbeing that everyone surely seeks and deserves.
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