Psychological Selection and Optimal Experience Across Cultures

Antonella Delle Fave, MD specialized in Clinical Psychology, is professor of Psychology at the University of Milano, Italy. Her studies concern optimal experience and individual psychological selection, that is the lifelong process of differential replication and cultivation of activities and competencies. Her cross-cultural studies have produced the largest international data bank on these topics. On the basis of research findings, she has developed and supervised intervention projects in the domains of health and education, disability and social maladjustment. She is author of 120 articles and chapters in peer-reviewed books, author/editor of 10 books and 2 special journal issues, member of several Editorial Boards and Boards of Reviewers. She is presently President of the European Network of Positive Psychology (ENPP) and member of the Board of Directors of the International Positive Psychology Association (IPPA).

• Introduction.- Part I Theory and methods.- Chapter 1: Hedonism and eudaimonism in positive psychology.- Chapter 2: Biology, culture and human behavior.- Chapter 3: Psychological selection and optimal experience.- Chapter 4: Instruments and methods in flow research.- Chapter 5: The phenomenology of optimal experience in daily life.- Chapter 6: Optimal experience and meditation: Western and Asian approaches to well-being.- Part II Applications.- Chapter 7: Optimal experience across cultures.- Chapter 8 Work: A paradox in flow research.- Chapter 9: Free time: an opportunity for growth, recreation, or stagnation.- Chapter 10: Relationships: safe harbor for flow explorers.- Chapter 11: Education, learning and cultural transmission.- Chapter 12: Optimal experience and religious practice.- Chapter 13: Acculturation and optimal experience.- Chapter 14: Flow and health: a bio-psycho-social perspective.- Chapter 15: Psychosocial maladjustment and mimetic flow.- References.- Epilogue.

From the reviews: "This book will have much interest for the general reader. It contains extensive detail about a wide range of cultural experiences. Moreover, the research results and data analyses are easily understood through tables and clear explanations. The volume will be of particular interest to those researchers and theorists working in the emerging field of positive psychology. Those working in the specific areas covered in the final eight chapters will also find much material to stimulate ideas for further research." (John M. Davis, PsycCRITIQUES, Vol. 57 (20), May, 2012)