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1. ABSTRACT

Purpose and Orientation: the purpose of this article it to review the journal written by Stewart I.

Donaldson & Ia Ko (2010): Positive organizational psychology, behavior, and scholarship: A review of the

emerging literature and evidence base, The Journal of Positive Psychology. According to the authors’,

the readers engaged in research, teaching and for private study are the major audiences of the article.

The authors uses peer reviewed publications published between 2001 and 2009 and they are interested

in research and scholarship about positive organizations that is in some way linked to, or result of,

positive psychology.

Therefore this article review tries to argue on positive psychology which is the basis of Positive

organization psychology, behavior, and scholarship.

Claim: the theory of positive psychology neglects cultural, social, economic, and situational context

issues and shall not be adapted to the existing Ethiopian socio-cultural system.

2. INTRRODUCTION

As an organizational behavior (OB) course student, any psychology theory catches the students’ eyes. It

is well known that there are a number of behavioral disciplines that contribute for OB. Psychology is

one of them. Its contribution to the field mainly focuses on individual level.

The field was named in 1998 by Martin Seligman in his role as president of the American Psychological

Society in response to the overwhelmingly disease or deficit-based model of psychology that had

emerged following the First and Second World Wars. He, and several other leading psychologists, felt

that the emphasis should be refocused to ensure that goodness and excellence received as much

attention as human flaws and inadequacies.

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Many studies had been taken to link positive orientations across education, public health, health care,

political science, leadership, management etc. The core concepts underpinning positive psychology

(Authenticity, self efficacy, Resilience, self fulfilling prophecy, appreciative intelligence) are introduced

to the field.

However, is it really positive thinking always has a positive effect for achieving organizational goal? Why

the field named as positive psychology? Employees can be motivated only in positive thinking? The

article will try to answer the aforementioned questions.

3. REASONS

Even though the journal under review mentioned a number of research undertaken on positive

psychology, the theory need to answer for the following questions before adhering to the society

we live in.

3.1. The tyranny of the positive attitude lies in its adding insult to injury: If people feel bad about

life’s many difficulties and they cannot manage to transcend their pain no matter how hard they

try (to learn optimism), they could end up feeling even worse; they could feel guilty or defective

for not having the right (positive) attitude, in addition to whatever was ailing them in the first

place.( Barbara S.,2001)

3.2. Positive psychology reinforces and is applicable only to the existing western socio-economic

system and value system. It is Euro-centric or Us-centric, especially emphasizing individualism,

capitalism and western definitions of happiness. (WCPP2015)

3.3. Positive psychology is ethnocentric and neglects cultural, social, economic, and situational

context issues. The west is superimposing its dominance on the rest of the world.
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3.4. Positive interventions manipulate clients and employees. People are made to feel good in order

to coerce from them certain outcomes. Happiness is a manipulative technique used to take

advantage of workers. ( Barbara S.,2001)

3.5. Positive psychology implies that the rest of psychology is negative. (WCPP2015)

3.6. Happiness is somewhat cannot be measured. (WCPP2015)

3.7. Positive psychology involves a number of chartered areas of psychology like clinical, counseling,

educational, forensic, health, neuropsychology, occupational, sport and exercise, and

teachers/researchers in psychology. This makes positive psychology somewhat wasting time

everyone’s time to engage employees in their work.

4. CONCLUSION

Research results many times are creating a wrong impression. Analyzing data incorrectly and making

incorrect interpretation or too much claim on results are common. Generalization claims are made

about human nature and the causes of happiness, often based on very few geographical areas. The

article under review considers research finding bases on largely on specific area and tries to link positive

orientation ( difficult to quantify) to various field. So it is very difficult to incorporate the findings

without further longitudinal and empirical evidences of our society.

5. REFERENCE

Barbara S. Held (2001). Stop Smiling, Start Kvetching: A 5-Step Guide to Creative Complaining

Critiques and Criticisms of positive psychology (WCPP2015)

Peterson, C. (2006). A primer in positive psychology. New York: Oxford University Press.

Stewart I. Donaldson & Ia Ko (2010): Positive organizational psychology, behavior, and

Scholarship: A review of the emerging literature and evidence base, The journal of

Positive Psychology. 5:3, pp. 177-191.

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