Most people strive for happiness, or subjective well-being (SWB), and a high quality of life (QoL) in all areas of their lives. To do so, many have to overcome adversity on a frequent basis. The field of positive psychology, which focuses on human strengths and positive emotions, not only offers people tools to help achieve optimal levels of subjective well-being and quality of life regardless of their circumstances, it also enables us to understand how people utilize such qualities as hope, optimism, resilience, interest, wisdom, altruism, religiosity and spirituality to best cope with adversity.
By exploring the latest research in subjective well-being and quality of life, this book shows how qualities of positive psychology interact in a wide variety of contexts in the everyday lives of people. It details evidence from children to the elderly, from marital to professional to school life, from healthy people to those suffering some sort of malediction. And the studies are presented by researchers from various parts of the globe, thereby offering an international and cross-cultural perspective to subjective well-being, quality of life and positive psychology.
