Authentic Happiness Martin E P Seligman Pdf To Excel
From the time it was published over a decade ago, has been considered as a classic positive psychology book. Written by the founder of positive psychology himself,, however, he has been speaking about positive psychology long before this book came to fruition. Seligman wrote “ “, which became the national bestselling book. But it was still his Authentic Happiness book that is most recognized for how happiness was scientifically discussed. The book was divided into 3 parts:,, and In The Mansion of life. The book was written from the writer’s perspective, which is easily readable and interesting to analyze as you go through the writings of his experience. In the preface, Authentic Happiness is stated to counter the belief that “happiness is inauthentic” and the book aims to overthrow the idea that happiness is something fixed that can never increase.
Have you ever wished you had a blueprint for happiness? Many people have wished that there was some single thing they could do to magically transform their lives, making themselves happier and their lives more meaningful. Driver Updating Software Download. The proposed solutions have ranged from self-esteem programs to nutrition supplements and.
Furthermore, Seligman proposes 3 pillars of positive psychology as positive emotion, positive traits, and positive institution (in 2011, it was turned into a model to better cover all aspects of well-being). Seligman also hopes that the reader identifies their own strengths and virtues while reading. Become a Science-Based Practitioner! The Positive Psychology toolkit is a science-based, online platform containing 135+ exercises, activities, interventions, questionnaires, assessments and scales. Authentic Happiness Summary Positive emotion During the first part of Positive Emotion, Seligman aims to provide readers a better understanding of what positive emotion really is.
He begins with a study of essays written by 180 nuns who had the same lifestyles, economic class, and social class. The study found that the nuns who expressed words related to good and positive feelings lived longer. Another study investigating smile authenticity in college yearbooks revealed that women with a genuine smile (Duchene smile) tended to have higher marital satisfaction and well-being than those who have a non-Duchene smile (Pan American smile). He also makes the distinction between positive psychology and happyology, stating that positive psychology is not about hedonism but instead it is about finding “meaning of those happy and unhappy moments.” In addition, rather than finding shortcuts for happiness and well-being through comfort, joy, rapture, and ecstasy, the aim behind authentic happiness is to find your strength and virtue, which is further discussed in part two. Positive feelings are states, which last for a finite amount of time, while positive character or traits “recur across time and different situations.” Positive traits such as,, altruism,, the 24 traits, plus the 6 core virtues, which are wisdom, courage, love, humanity, justice, temperance, and transcendence, can lead you to an increase in well-being. Based on evolution, is there to protect us from threats.
It is there to assist us in disengagements, a flight or fight response, or to attack. Positive emotions play the opposite role, helping us to “broaden our abiding intellectual, physical, and social resources, building up reserves we can draw upon when a threat or opportunity presents itself’.” People with high positive affect do not feel good all the time but just more often than those who don’t.
In addition, even happy people sometimes can be seen as naive, when in fact, they “seek out and absorb” negative information and can be skeptical if the events are threatening just like non-happy people do. Plus, positive emotion can also undo the negative emotions, based on Barbara Fedrickson’s theory. The happiness formula was presented after a few exercises on happiness i.e. Fordyce Emotion Questionnaire, Positive Affectivity, and Negative Affectivity Scale (PANAS). Business Driven Technology 5th Edition Baltzan.
The equation is ‘H=S + C + V’. Seligman discusses each of the factors and proposes that in C or circumstances represent money, marriage, social life, negative emotion, age, health, education, climate, race, gender, and religion. He looks at to what extent these factors are relevant to happiness. Moving forward, Seligman gives us the and the gratitude survey to complete. He argues that the reason people believe that the past determine the future is influenced by Freud, Darwin, and Marx. Even though there is some supportive data showing that bad childhood events lead to a destructive adulthood, the results are not consistent enough to adequately conclude that.
He suggests that the best way is to forgive and it will help you forget your past. Moving on to the future, optimism plays a large role during this period. As the writer of Learned Optimism, he clearly distinguishes between pessimism and optimism. Sometimes we are illogical and quickly jump to conclusions, which creates false beliefs. Therefore, Seligman suggests 4 ways to argue with yourself. Based on the scientific study of positive emotion, there are three ways to increase the amount of happiness, which are,, and habituation.
Somehow, pleasure has to be distinguished from gratification, as Seligman stated, which separate the pleasant life from the good life. Strength and Virtue “Authentic happiness comes from identifying and cultivating your most fundamental strengths and using them every day in work, love, play, and parenting.” Throughout the history of psychology, little research has been conducted on character except through personality studies. “Any science that does not use character as a basic idea”, Seligman argues, “will never be accepted as a useful account of human action.” He counter-argues 3 reasons on why character is underestimated in science and shows how to cultivate the 6 virtues, the 24 strengths, and how to find your top five to work on it. In The Mansion of Life Seligman uses the third part of the book to answer “What is the good life?”, which be believes is the act of using your strength every day.
In terms of working and, little has to do with money. However, freedom of choices and finding flow is more important. Lawyers were discussed as an example of an unhappy, highly stressful job. The 3 principles that fosters the outcome are pessimism, lower choices in high stress circumstances, and a win-lose game in the law field. Nevertheless, Seligman also presented the way out for this. At the near end, Seligman looks at love based on research across 17 nations and found that married people are happier. He proposed that the 3 levels of love explains why that is so because marriage combines ‘the love from people who give us comfort, love from people who depends on us, and the romantic love.’ A Parent’s marriage also influences the way children look towards relationship and their mate, too.
Using our signature strengths everyday can enhance marriage quality. Based on the research conducted on hundreds of couples, there are some signs that predict the likelihood of couple to divorce or to have a better marriage life. Seligman suggests 8 techniques for building positive emotions. Each emotion leads to exploration and cultivates mastery, which reveals the strength and virtue in you. On the good life, Seligman states that it, “Consists in deriving happiness by using your strengths every day in the main realms of living. The meaningful life adds one more component: using these same strengths to forward knowledge, power, or goodness.” Review This book is a classic.
It is well written and it will change how you think about happiness and strength in many ways. Various questionnaires are provided and it is quite easy to follow to see what level we are in right now. The content has a fine amount of research to back up its credibility.
Some are conducted cross-nationally but others are done in a limited group. I think it would be much better if we can see how positive emotion is understood from different parts of the world. In my opinion, I enjoyed reading Seligman’s perspective but I am also aware that this is a one-sided view. I like how he made it clear at the beginning about the origin of positive psychology.
However, the content in all 3 parts of the book are quite imbalanced. It seems like the core of the book is about of cultivating strength and virtue for lasting life fulfillment, which is discussed in part 2. It would be better if each of the characteristic is discussed more so that we could understand it better. In addition, in part 3, which focuses on answering what is a “good” life, the aspects that are used as an example are quite limited; work, love, and children.
Also, the 3 pillars of positive emotion, flow, and purpose do not seem to adequately answer the question in a satisfying way. That is perhaps why 6 years later, the new model has launched out as PERMA. Which covers the relationship and achievement aspects to complete the well-being later on.