Authentic Happiness by Martin E.P. Seligman, 1857883292, Lowest Book Price Finder

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A book that shows happiness should not just be your goal, but your duty...

I was drawn to this book having read the chapter about it in Tom Butler-Bowdon's 50 Psychology Classics. I had never heard of 'positive psychology' before, but its aims - to increase the happiness of 'normal' people, rather than cure the psychoses of 'ill' people - has definite appeal.

Authentic Happiness suggests that happiness should not just be a goal in itself merely because it makes us feel good - but also that it has an evolutionary advantage. I've long been aware of the way in which as negative mood can aid evaluation of a situation, but I'd never thought that when we are happy we would have the advantages of creating an expansive, tolerant and creative mindset. In short these positive feelings maximise the social, intellectual and physical benefits life has to offer.

But how do we achieve such happiness? As ever, that's the million dollar question. One of the answers is through optimum experiences which Mihaly Csikzentmihalyi calls 'flow'. Indeed it is one of Seligman's characteristic flourishes he relates the story in which he rescues Csikzentmihalyi. Make no mistake, there's a lot of information to digest in Authentic Happiness, indeed I'm looking forward to re-reading it to get even more out of it. Yet while it is academically thorough, Seligman adds personal touches which make the book much more easy to digest.

The later stages of the book will be of particular interest if you have children. Fittingly Seligman has a optimistic view of human nature. He has his own ideas of how we can achieve transcendence and how we can all part in the evolution of the human race, but you'll have to read "Authentic Happiness" to find out what these are.

I can't say I agreed with everything that Seligman had to say - and I'm not really one that enjoys filling out questionnaires, though if you are you'll be in form heaven here - but this is one of the books I find myself recommending to other people and can see myself returning to again and again.

Positive Psychology

I attended a Positive Psychology conference some years ago, and Martin Seligman was one of the speakers. He founded the movement of Positive Psychology and opened up my mind to the power of the brain in relearning thought patterns and behaviour in order to start achieving the life that I always dreamed of. He is an incredible and inspiring man. Buy his books.

Could I be happy, more often?

Self confessed pessimist Professor Martin Seligman has over 50 years of “…mostly wet weather being in his soul.” He wants to share his discovery that happiness is within the readers’ power and not the result of good luck or genes.

He introduces ‘Positive Psychology’. The concept has three themes and associated written tests (many may be taken on-line):
* Positive emotion - its effect on satisfaction with the past, optimism about the future and happiness in the present
* Strengths and virtues, and
* How the reader’s increased insight might be deployed in work, love, parenting and personal satisfaction

Seligman tells how his five-year-old daughter argued if she could stop whining - so could he! He then read a paper on how positive emotion generates greater creativity in fulfilling aspirations. Seligman realised “…a positive mood... bouys... (so) detect not what is wrong, but what is right”, reminiscent of Kurt Wrights work.

Seligman develops a Happiness formula, H=S+C+V:

* ‘H’ - enduring level of happiness

* 'S' - set range, effectively our genetic predisposition

* 'C' - circumstances, a factor potentially affecting us most, but not the case in practice.

* ‘V’ – Voluntary Variables, the most crucial factor relating positive emotion with the past, present or future.

Gratitude and forgiveness are key factors affecting our opinion of, and satisfaction with, the past. An exercise is described where undergraduates expressed gratitude to an invited guest for affecting something important in their lives. The examples are powerful. Seligman doesn't pretend we can forget or suppress bad memories. He describes how forgiving allows a victim to free themselves from the past, facilitating the possibility of greater life satisfaction.

The degree to which we believe events are temporary or permanent significantly affects our expectation about the future. Although I learned my outlook was at least a little optimistic, Seligman comments such an appraisal might come at the expense of being less realistic! He recommends the ‘ABCDE’ model for when we are accusing ourselves of some perceived failing or deficiency. The approach is to dispute and then dismantle negative self-talk. The reader is offered a seven day ‘ABCDE’ template, so that adverse inner dialogue can be recognised, recorded and disabled.

For present happiness, the author defines two states:

* "The pleasures… have clear sensory and strong emotional components…” They can be bodily e.g. touch, sight, sound, smell or taste
* The gratifications include any of the above, however the distinctions are they "…last longer, involve quite a lot of thinking and interpretation, do not habituate easily and are undergirded by our strengths and virtues…These are activities not necessarily accompanied by feelings at all".

Positive Psychology classifies “just twenty-four strengths …The last time anyone bothered to count, in 1936, more than eighteen thousand words in English referred to traits.” Surprisingly, this ignores Cattell’s work, which subsequently identified 16.

Three criteria define strengths, they are:
* valued in almost every culture
* valued in their own right - not just a means to an end
* malleable

The author argues some of the twenty-four strengths are deeply characteristic, defining these as "Signature Strengths", believing "the highest success in living and the deepest emotional satisfaction comes from building and using your Signature Strengths".

Seligman contends these strengths fit six core virtues occurring across most cultures; Wisdom and knowledge, Courage, Love and humanity, Justice, Temperance, Spirituality and transcendence.

He adds, to live the ‘good life’ is about using your Signature Strengths everyday, but admits sometimes undertaking tasks he’s good at, yet which leave him feeling drained and less authentic. Myers Briggs knows we sometimes use our less preferred skills, without enjoying them.

80+ pages are devoted to answering the implied question "So now you know your strengths, what are you going to do with them"? In my view he is not a pioneer in this particular area.

Seligman highly rates Csikszentmihalyi, definer of ‘flow’, recognised by several features especially, a sense of time standing still and our sense of self vanishing.

Seligman says to increase flow:

* Identify your Signature Strengths
* Choose work that lets you use them every day
* Recraft your present work
* When employing, choose those with Signature Strengths to mesh with the work you give them
* As a manager, allow employees to recraft (within bounds) their work.

While Csikszentmihalyi calls the states attached to flow as ‘enjoyments’, Seligman prefers ‘gratifications’, it plays down the emotional aspects.

The narrative on love follows a familiar pattern; case studies, a questionnaire, vast cross-referencing, in-depth research and statistics. Seligman identifies what he regards as a most surprising outcome “… children of stable marriages are more interested in long-term relationships than are the children of divorce” - I wasn’t surprised!

The Professor exudes dry humour - “I did something I don't recommend to you; I read …all the major marriage manuals. This is a depressing task for a positive psychologist…about how to make a bad marriage more tolerable.”

He suggests two summary love principles “You must not scrimp on the attention you pay to the person you love... (and) the quantity is crucial.”

I was intrigued with Mrs Seligman’s work on raising children, (especially as a parent and co-author of ‘The Coaching Parent’). In a self-effacing journey, she doesn't disappoint, providing at least eight techniques for building positive emotion. The ‘strengths test’ for children, similar to the adult version, can be used by any child aged about seven plus.

Concluding, the author invites us to live a ‘meaningful life’.

* The good life “…consists in deriving (authentic) happiness by using your Signature Strengths every day”

* The “…meaningful life… uses these same strengths to forward knowledge, power or goodness… something much larger than you.”

This book contains detailed material, backed up with substance, multiple tests and well summarised chapters. It includes comprehensive end notes adding 300+ paragraphs of background information linked to related research material. I believe he achieves his purpose, and demonstrates exactly why happiness is within the readers’ power!

David Miskimin 2006

The New Wave of Humanistic Psychology

The author, American psychologist Dr. Martin Seligman, is famous for his book Learned Optimism. And his new book, Authentic Happiness, is a useful addition with an especially good web site presenting personality tests. Not all psychologists, however, have agreed with, or found research support for, Dr. Seligman's theory of optimism. Some parts of this "Positive Psychology Movement" have been found to be too one-sided and unrealistic about optimism. The academic book about that more balanced research and theory is Optimism and Pessimism edited by Dr. Chang. That book has a chapter about constructive pessimism by Dr. Norem, the author of the Positive Power of Negative Thinking. Some psychologists say Dr. Seligman's theory of Positive Psychology is too much a 'one size fits all' model of healthy personality. Individual and cultural differences seem to be more important than Dr. Seligman implies -- his approach may be a bit too "American" and optimistic for some readers. The recent surge of research on Resiliency in psychology indicates that individual differences in personality are fundamental -- what helps me won't necessarily help you. Keeping an open mind while exploring psychological health seems to be the key. In any case, Dr. Seligman does present some of the answers for some of the people, and that alone is a very worthwhile contribution.

Psychology is taking a positive turn

= POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY =
Until recently psychology has mainly been working within a disease model: a strong emphasis has been placed on discovering deficits in human behavior and finding ways to repair this damage. Psychologist hardly focused on in doing studies acquiring knowledge about healthy functioning and building strengths. In other words: they have focused solely on taking away something negative (the disfunctioning) instead of adding something positive (increasing mental and behavioral health). The result: psychologist know little about healthy and happy functioning. This situation has been changing now since the rise of positive psychology a few years ago. What is Positive Psychology? It is a new movement in psychology, originated by Martin Seligman and a few other prominent psychologists among whom Mihali Csikszentmihalyi (author of FLOW). It aims to be a psychological science about the best things in life. Main topics of study are: positive emotions, positive traits and positive institutions. This book, Authentic Happiness, is the first book on positive psychology. Seligman is its main spokesperson.

= HAPPINESS =
This book mainly deals with the phenomenon of happiness. According to Seligman your enduring level op happiness results from three factors: 1) your SET RANGE ( the basic biologically determined range within which your happiness normally will be), 2) the CIRCUMSTANCES OF YOUR LIFE (some conditions - like being married and living in a democratic country- somehow seem to contribute to happiness, and 3) your VOLUNTARY CONTROL ( the things you can do to get your happiness to the upper part of your set range. Ok, then how to get this done? Before answering this question Seligman explains that happiness/positive emotion can refer to three domains: the PAST (satisfaction, contentment, fulfilment, pride and serenity), the PRESENT (joy, ecstasy, calm, zest, ebullience, pleasure and flow) and the FUTURE (optimism, hope faith, trust). Then the author comes up with suggestions to improve your happiness:

= HOW TO INCREASE YOUR HAPPINESS =
1) to be happier about your past, you need to: 1) let go of the false belief that your past negative experiences determine your present and future, 2) increase your gratitude about the good things in your past and 3) learn how to forgive past wrongs.

2) to be happier in your present, you need to distinguish between PLEASURES and GRATIFICATIONS. Pleasures are delights that have clear sensory and strong emotional components that require little if any thinking. Gratifications are flow-experiences. They are activities we very much like doing but that are not necessarily accompanied by any raw feelings at all. The gratifications last longer than the pleasures and they are undergirded by our strengths and virtues. The key to happiness in past and future lies in enhancing gratifications.

3) to be happier about your future, you need to change your explanatory style in order to become more optimistic and hopeful (for an explanation read my review of Seligman's book LEARNED OPTIMISM).

= AUTHENTIC HAPPINESS BY USING YOUR STRENGTHS =
These explanations imply what Seligman means by AUTHENTIC HAPPINESS. He says we should not rely on shortcuts like television watching, chocolate eating, loveless sex, and buying things to feel happy. He explains that positive emotion alienated from the exercise of character leads to emptiness, to inauthenticity, and to depression. So we want to feel like we deserved our positive feelings. That's why Seligman says UTHENTIC HAPPINESS comes from identifying and cultivating your most fundamental strengths (so-called SIGNATURE STRENGTHS) and using them everyday in work, love, play, and parenting. This message reminds of the one in Csikszentmihalyi's FINDING FLOW (see my review).

= CORE VIRTUES AND STRENGTHS =
Psychology has devised a classification system (language) for describing abnormal behavior and mental diseases. But it lacked a language describing human effectiveness and sanity. That is why Seligman and a team of scholars researched sources from all kinds of cultures and times in history and found that there is a strong convergence in what these traditions consider to be virtues and strengths. This led to the formulation of a classification system of virtues and strengths. SIX CORE VIRTUES: 1) Wisdom and knowledge, 2) courage, 3) Love and humanity, 4) Justice, 5) Temperance, 6) Spirituality and transcendence. Further they identified 24 strengths corresponding to these virtues. This book contains definitions of this taxonomy and some questionnaires for the reader to complete (the questionnaires can be found on the web too, by the way).

= CONCLUSION =
Some words about the form and style of the book. It is pleasantly written. Seligman writes in a rather personal and honest style which makes the book lively (for instance he exclaims on page 24: "I am a hideous example of my own theory.") I recommend this book to anyone interested in psychology and in happiness (although it is not a self-help book in the first place, I think). The book ends reflectively dealing with the relationship between positive emotions and win-win situations, and speculating that we may be on the threshold of an era of win-win games and good-felling. I enjoyed reading the book and I like positive psychology. It is in many ways reminiscent of humanistic psychology (which I always liked) but has a more scientific approach. I have a good hope it will be a success.

Coert Visser, www.m-cc.nl

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