Evidence-Based Positive Psychological Interventions in Multi-Cultural Contexts

Book excerpt: This volume presents clearly defined and described evidence-based positive psychology interventions (PPIs), which have been validated in multi-cultural contexts. It discusses validated PPIs which have been shown to have a significant impact in both clinical and real-world settings. From the late 1990s, there has been an upsurge in popular psychological “self-help” publications drawing from processes and principles of positive psychology. These publications are based on clinically validated PPI studies and translated in a “consumer friendly” manner. However, in these popular works the intervention methods are significantly altered from the original forms, and the contexts of the consumers are meaningfully different from those of the original study populations, the impact on outcome variables are often misinterpreted or over-inflated, and incorrect outcome variables are targeted. Original research articles also do not extensively discuss the content of the interventions, but merely present short descriptions of the PPI. As such, the intervention content cannot accurately be translated into practice. Hence, the need for this volume which discusses in depth how validated PPIs in various multi-cultural contexts work in both clinical and real-world settings.