Paul T. P. Wong

Paul T. P. Wong (April 1, 1937 – October 21, 2024) was a Canadian clinical psychologistCollege of Psychologists of Ontario. (2013). Paul T. P. Wong. Retrieved from https://members.cpo.on.ca/public_register/show/1252 and professor. His research career has gone through four stages, with significant contributions in each stage: learning theory, social cognition, existential psychology, and positive psychology. He is most known for his integrative work on death acceptance,Wong, P. T. P., Reker, G. T., & Gesser, G. (1994). Death Attitude Profile – Revised: A multidimensional measure of attitudes toward death (DAP-R). In R. A. Neimeyer (Ed.), Death anxiety handbook: Research, instrumentation, and application (pp. 121-148). Washington, DC: Taylor & Francis. meaning therapy,Wong, P. T. P. (2015). Meaning therapy: Assessments and interventions. Existential Analysis, 26(1), 154-167. and second wave positive psychology (PP 2.0).Wong, P. T. P. (2011). Positive psychology 2.0: Towards a balanced interactive model of the good life. Canadian Psychology, 52(2), 69-81. He has been elected as a fellow for both the American Psychological Association and the Canadian Psychological Association.

Wong is the Founder and President of the International Network on Personal Meaning and Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Existential Psychology and Psychotherapy. With more than 300 publications in journals and book chapters, his major books are the two editions of The Human Quest for Meaning: A Handbook of Psychological Research and Clinical Applications (1998) and The Human Quest for Meaning: Theories, Research, and Applications (2012), as well as The Handbook of Multicultural Perspectives on Stress and Coping (2006).

Wong was adjunct professor at Saybrook UniversitySaybrook University. (2016). Paul Wong. Retrieved from http://www.saybrook.edu/faculty/byname/Paul_Wong/ and Professor Emeritus of Trent UniversityTrent University. (n.d.). Psychology faculty. Retrieved fromhttp://www.trentu.ca/psychology/Faculty.htm and Trinity Western University.Trinity Western University. (2015). Paul Wong. Retrieved fromhttp://twu.ca/directory/faculty/paul-wong.html At the latter, he was the Founding Director of the Graduate Counselling Psychology Program. He also taught at the University of Texas at Austin, York University, and the Graduate Division of the University of Toronto. He died in October 2024.

Personal life and death Wong was born in Tianjin, China in 1937 and migrated to Hong Kong in 1948. He came to Canada as an international student in 1961, earning his B.Th. from the Toronto Bible College (now Tyndale University College and Seminary) in 1964 and B.A. in Honours Psychology from Carleton University in 1967. In 1970, he earned his Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Toronto.

Wong's career straddles two domains: psychology and Christian ministry. He first served as the Founding Pastor of the Chinese Gospel Church in Toronto in the early 1960s, and then started the Peterborough Chinese Christian Fellowship in the 1970s while teaching at Trent University. He was involved in resettling the boat people in the 1980s. Afterward, he founded the graduate program in counselling psychology at Trinity Western University in the early 1990s. During his tenure, he started a neighbours-together program and received a Cultural Harmony Award from VanCity for his community outreach.

Wong died on October 21, 2024, at the age of 87.

Research Wong's research career has covered several domains in psychology: learning theory, social cognition, existential psychology, and positive psychology.

Learning theory Wong's first decade of research in the area of animal learning focused on how to develop persistence in animals in spite of frustration or pain. Through a variety of intermittent reinforcement and punishment schedules, he taught animals persistence in overcoming prolonged failure.Wong, P. T. P. (1977). A behavioral field approach to instrumental learning in the rat: I. Partial reinforcement effects and sex differences. Animal Learning & Behavior, 5(1), 5-13. doi:10.3758/BF03209123Wong, P. T. P. (1995). A stage model of coping with frustrative stress. In R. Wong (Ed.), Biological perspectives on motivated activities (pp. 339-378). Norwood, NJ: Ablex.Wong, P. T. P. (2006). The positive psychology of persistence and flexibility. Positive Living Newsletter. Retrieved from http://meaning.ca/archives/presidents_columns/pres_col_feb_2006_persistance-and-flexibility.htm This series of research provided an animal model of the positive psychology of optimism and grit as well as the empirical basis for his deep-and-wide hypothesis of negative situations.Wong, P. T. P. (2012). Toward a dual-systems model of what makes life worth living. In P. T. P. Wong (Ed.), The human quest for meaning: Theories, research, and applications (2nd ed., pp. 3-22). New York, NY: Routledge. His research on persistence has also led to Rosenbaum's development of learned resourcefulness.Rosenbaum, M. E. (1990). Learned resourcefulness: On coping skills, self-control, and adaptive behavior. New York, NY: Springer.

Social cognition In the area of social cognition, Wong's main contribution was the demonstration of spontaneous attribution, both causal and existential.Wong, P. T. P., & Weiner, B. (1981). When people ask "Why" questions and the heuristic of attributional search. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 40, 650-663.Wong, P. T. P. (1991). Existential vs. causal attributions. In S. Zelen (Ed.), New models, new extensions of attribution theory (pp. 84-125). New York, NY: Springer-Verlag. As well, Wong demonstrated that internal and external control are two separate dimensions rather than opposite poles on the same continuum.Wong, P. T. P., & Sproule, C. F. (1984). Attributional analysis of locus of control and the Trent Attribution Profile (TAP). In H. M. Lefcourt (Ed.), Research with the locus of control construct: Limitations and extensions (Vol. 3, pp. 309-360). New York, NY: Academic Press. This finding later led to the development of the dual-system model of adaptation and the dialectical approach to positive psychology.Wong, P. T. P. (2009). Chinese positive psychology. In S. Lopez (Ed.), Encyclopedia of positive psychology (Vol. 1, pp. 148-156). Oxford, UK: Wiley Blackwell.Wong, P. T. P. (2016). Chinese positive psychology revisited. International Journal of Existential Psychology and Psychotherapy, 6(1).

Wong's main contribution to stress and coping research is the resource-congruence modelWong, P. T. P. (1993). Effective management of life stress: The resource-congruence model. Stress Medicine, 9, 51-60.Wong, P. T. P., Reker, G. T., & Peacock, E. (2006). The resource-congruence model of coping and the development of the Coping Schema Inventory. In P. T. P. Wong, & L. C. J. Wong (Eds.), Handbook of multicultural perspectives on stress and coping (pp. 223-283). New York, NY: Springer. and the Stress Appraisal Measure (SAM).Peacock, E. J., & Wong, P. T. P. (1990). The Stress Appraisal Measure (SAM): A multidimensional approach to cognitive appraisal. Stress Medicine, 6, 227-236. Wong also made the case that effective coping needs to be a part of positive psychology in his second wave of positive psychology (PP 2.0).Wong, P. T. P., & Wong, L. C. J. (Eds.). (2006). Handbook of multicultural perspectives on stress and coping. New York, NY: Springer.Wong, P. T. P., Wong, L. C. J., & Scott, C. (2006). Beyond stress and coping: The positive psychology of transformation. In P. T. P. Wong, & L. C. J. Wong (Eds.), Handbook of multicultural perspectives on stress and coping (pp. 1-26). New York, NY: Springer.

In the area of positive aging and dying, Wong redirected the concept of successful aging from an emphasis on physical and biological factors to a psychological and spiritual orientation.Reker, G. T., Peacock, E. J., & Wong, P. T. P. (1987). Meaning and purpose in life and well-being: A life-span perspective. Journal of Gerontology, 42, 44-49.Reker, G. T., & Wong, P. T. P. (1988). Aging as an individual process: Towards a theory of personal meaning. In J. E. Birren, & V. L. Bengston (Eds.), Emergent theories of aging (pp. 214-246). New York, NY: Springer.Wong, P. T. P., & Watt, L. (1991). What types of reminiscence are associated with successful aging? Psychology and Aging, 6, 272-279.Reker, G. T., & Wong, P. T. P. (2012). Personal meaning in life and psychosocial adaptation in the later years. In P. T. P. Wong (Ed.), The human quest for meaning: Theories, research, and applications (2nd ed., pp. 433-456). New York, NY: Routledge. Wong also developed the Death Attitude Profile-Revised (DAP-R), which includes three kinds of death acceptance as positive ways to cope with the reality of death.Wong, P. T. P., Reker, G. T., & Gesser, G. (1994). Death Attitude Profile – Revised: A multidimensional measure of attitudes toward death. In R. A. Neimeyer (Ed.), Death anxiety handbook: Research, instrumentation, and application (pp. 121-148). Washington, DC: Taylor & Francis.

Existential psychology Wong developed a pluralistic and integrative known as meaning therapy.Wong, P. T. P. (2012). From logotherapy to meaning-centered counseling and therapy. In P. T. P. Wong (Ed.), The human quest for meaning: Theories, research, and applications (2nd ed., pp. 619-647). New York, NY: Routledge.Wong, P. T. P. (in press). Integrative meaning therapy: From logotherapy to existential positive interventions. In P. Russo-Netzer, S. E. Schulenberg, & A. Batthyany (Eds.). To thrive, to cope, to understand: Meaning in positive and existential psychotherapy. New York, NY: Springer. Based on Viktor Frankl's logotherapy,Wong, P. T. P. (2002). Logotherapy. In G. Zimmer (Ed.), Encyclopedia of psychotherapy (pp. 107-113). New York, NY: Academic Press.Wong, P. T. P. (2014). Viktor Frankl's meaning seeking model and positive psychology. In A. Batthyany, & P. Russo-Netzer (Eds.), Meaning in existential and positive psychology (pp. 149-184). New York, NY: Springer.Wong, P. T. P. (2016). Logotherapy. In A. Wenzel (Ed.), The SAGE encyclopedia of abnormal and clinical psychology. New York, NY: Sage. meaning therapy also incorporates cognitive behavioral therapy,Wong, P. T. P. (1997). Meaning-centered counselling: A cognitive-behavioral approach to logotherapy. The International Forum for Logotherapy, 20(2), 85-94. positive psychotherapy,Wong, P. T. P. (2010). Meaning therapy: An integrative and positive existential psychotherapy. Journal of Contemporary Psychotherapy. 40(2), 85-99. and research findings on meaning and purpose.Wong, P. T. P., & Fry, P. S. (Eds.). (1998). The human quest for meaning: A handbook of psychological research and clinical applications. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.Wong, P. T. P. (Ed.). (2012). The human quest for meaning: Theories, research, and applications (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Routledge. Wong's main conceptual contribution to meaning therapy is identifying four components of meaning: Purpose, Understanding, Responsible Actions, and Enjoyment/Evaluation (the PURE model). Meaning therapy interventions focus on self-transcendence, such as reframing bad situations into some larger meaningful context and pursuing some life goal that is larger than oneself.Wong, P. T. P. (2016). Self-transcendence: A paradoxical way to become your best. International Journal of Existential Psychology and Psychotherapy, 6(1). Retrieved from http://www.drpaulwong.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Self-Transcendence_A-Paradoxical-Way-to-Become-Your-Best-2016-Aug-15.pdf Currently, he is a Virtue Scholar of the collaborative working group on Virtue, Happiness, and the Meaning of Life,Virtue, Happiness, and the Meaning of Life. (2015). Scholars. Retrieved from https://virtue.uchicago.edu/page/scholars funded by the John Templeton Foundation.

Positive psychology 2.0