Flourishing

In positive psychology, flourishing is living "...within an optimal range of human functioning, one that connotes goodness, generativity, growth, and resilience." Flourishing is the opposite of both pathology and languishing, which are described as living a life that feels hollow and empty.

Flourishing is a positive psychology concept—a measure of overall life well-being that is important to happiness. Many components and concepts contribute to the overall concept of flourishing and the benefits of a life that can be characterized as flourishing. It incorporates many other concepts in the positive psychology field such as cultivating strengths, subjective well-being and positive work spaces.

Researchers have been interested in mental illnesses and their negative psychological consequences. However, many are coming to realize that studying positive psychological consequences and positive experiences is also beneficial. Barbara Fredrickson, who posited the broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions, has helped to discover the wide variety of positive effects that positive emotions and experiences have on human lives.

Previous theories of emotion stated that all emotions are associated with urges to act in particular ways, called action-tendencies. For instance, anger creates the urge to seek retribution or to attack, fear creates the urge to escape, guilt creates the urge to make amends for actions, etc. People do not necessarily act on these urges when they experience these particular emotions, but rather people's ideas about possible courses of action narrow to reflect these specific urges. These action-tendencies are not merely thoughts, but also manifest physiologically. For example, when someone is afraid, blood flow increases to major muscle groups and pupils dilate, preparing the body to flee. Emotions have adaptive value, such as mobilizing and preparing our minds and bodies during times of danger. The reflexive action-tendencies that are associated with emotions probably developed over the course of humankind's evolution.

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