Positive Psychology in latin american countries

CASTRO SOLANO, A.,

Filadelfia

Congreso; Second World Congress on Positive Psychology; 2011

International Positive Psychology Association

This paper aims to point out the expansion and development of positive psychology in Latin America. PP was first introduced in Argentina by Maria Martina Casullo in the past decade. In 2006, it was held the first PP Iberoamerican Meeting. These meetings involved the majority of Latin American countries, especially from South America. These meetings were the basis to identify the impact of PP in the southern region. We can point out three basic tendencies: 1) topics were mainly developed in relation to classical positive psychology constructs: psychological wellbeing, resilience, creativity, quality of life and human values. 2) In recent years there has been a growth of papers dedicated to the validation of instruments to study positive constructs; 3) there was a concern about positive interventions in many settings, but the programs were not consistently validated. 4) Many authors pointed out the need of cross cultural studies and emic versions of positive constructs, but PP constructs were taken as though they were etic