An experimental history of positive psychology

Abstract

The aim of this thesis is twofold: To give a historical account of the experiments and development of instruments needed for positive psychology to flourish, and to find a framework within which the epistemic status of another discipline can be assessed.

The narrative follows the operationalizations and measurements of happiness research in psychology. This narrative is then compared with the 'problem of nomic measurement', the feedback loop between theory and measurement, of the historical cases of the theory of temperature and the definition of water as H2O.