POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY AND EXTERNALIZING STUDENTS IN A SEA OF NEGATIVITY WILLIAM R. JENSON, DANIEL OLYMPIA, MEGAN FARLEY,AND ELAINE CLARK University of Utah Students with externalizing disorders make up from three to five percent of the population in public school classrooms and are some of the most difficult students to manage in an educational setting. Behavioral excesses and deficits exhibited by these students are a major factor in poor retention rates for new teachers while the students themselves have the highest school drop out rates and experience some of the most restrictive educational settings of any disability. The authors of this article draw upon recent theoretical and applied work in the study of optimism to describe several essential elements of positive psychology and optimal functioning that may be unavailable or lacking in the lives of these students. A variety of factors intrinsic to the nature of these students, as well as environmental and interpersonal factors, are described. These factors often place these students in a “sea of negativity” with minimal opportunities for positive edu- cational experiences or personal relationships. Vigorous debate concerning the effects of positive reinforcement on motivation, academic functioning, and other variables also continues. How- ever, recent advances in proactive behavior management strategies (i.e., positive behavioral support, whole school management /discipline, etc.) are promising, despite a lack of sufficient data to draw firm conclusions. The authors describe several student, teacher, and classroom programs that provide empirically based strategies to promote positive successful experiences and high rates of praise for students with externalizing behavior disorders. Without components of positive psychology it is very likely that schools will continue to lose these students, and at a significant cost to society down the road. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Positive psychology and optimal life experiences are often what we want for our families and ourselves, but they tend to be elusive and difficult to obtain for many students with disabilities. This is especially true for students with externalizing or disruptive disorders. Labels commonly applied to externalizing students include behavior disordered, seriously emotionally disturbed, conduct disordered, oppositional defiant disordered, and attention deficit hyperactivity disordered (Gelfand, Jenson, & Drew, 1996; Quay & Hogan, 1999). These disabilities are called externalizing because the characteristic behaviors are directed to and affect other people that are external to the student (Gelfand et al., 1996). Typical externalizing behaviors include noncompliance, aggres- sion, inattention, impulsivity, arguing, and rule breaking, all of which are directed at the people who surround and interact with the students (e.g., educators, parents, and peers). As a function of the aversive quality of these negative behaviors it is all too easy to overlook the impact on the internalized psychological state or well being of these students. It can be inferred indirectly from the higher rates of depression, substance abuse, school drop out, and poor out- comes in early adulthood that the lives of externalizing students are far from optimal (Patterson, Reid, & Dishion, 1992). Given the accumulation of evidence supporting tenuous and marginal outcomes for these students, it is clear that we need to look at more options, including those offered by positive psychology. Flow, Competence, and Optimism Flow and competency are two linked concepts relating to well-being, happiness and self- esteem. Flow is a concept characterized by Csikszentmihalyi (1990) as an optimal experience This Project was supported in part by: US Office of Education, Leadership in High Incidence Disabilities Personnel Preparation Grant, H325H010082. Correspondence to: William R. Jenson, Ph.D., 327 MBH Hall—1705 East Campus Center Drive, Department of Educational Psychology, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84112. E-mail: jenson@ed.utah.edu Psychology in the Schools, Vol. 41(1), 2004 © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI: 10.1002/pits.10139 67