Centro de Administração e Políticas Públicas

Project Title:
Happiness in Portuguese: positive and transformative studies and interventions

Start and End of Project:
January 2013 to July 2015

Chief Investigator:
Prof. Helena Águeda Marujo

Research Team:

Partners:

Summary:

The interest of studying human systems in a positive perspective, complementing a more traditional approach focused on the problems and attending needs, is recent in the Social Sciences and the Humanities.
The positive psychology movement, a subdiscipline dedicated to the study of the optimal human functioning, has precisely being developing theoretical models in positive human topics, while promoting interventions that optimize excellence and human virtuousness. Since it is devoted to the study of psychological and subjective well-being, it has been denominated the “Science of Happiness”.
In a vibrant movement of research and applications, that spread to all continents, and goes way beyond psychology – namely to economy, public policies, environmental sustainability, and others – this positive approach introduced in the last years a line of research that is progressively more interested in cultural differences. This has helped shadow light over the diversity that characterizes the conceptual models, and its applications to diverse human groups.

Therefore, the global aim of this project is two folded:

• to implement a research project that explores if it tis possible, and how, to produce and optimize positive changes in diversified human Portuguese systems, in particular in the most challenging;
• to study the particularities of the perception and experience of happiness as lived by Portuguese speaking people around the world.