Product Description

In this national bestseller -- Martin Seligman's most stimulating, persuasive book to date -- the acclaimed author of Learned Optimism introduces yet another revolutionary idea. Drawing on groundbreaking scientific research, Seligman shows how Positive Psychology is shifting the profession's paradigm away from its narrow-minded focus on pathology, victimology, and mental illness to positive emotion and mental health. Happiness, studies show, is not the result of good genes or luck. It can be cultivated by identifying and nurturing traits that we already possess -- including kindness, originality, humor, optimism, and generosity.

Seligman provides the tools you need in order to ascertain your most positive traits or strengths. Then he explains how, by frequently calling upon these "signature strengths" in all the crucial realms of life -- health, relationships, career -- you will not only develop natural buffers against misfortune and negative emotion, but also achieve new and sustainable levels of authentic contentment, gratification, and meaning.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2615 in Books
• Published on: 2004-01-05
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 336 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780743222983
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From Publishers Weekly
In his latest user-friendly road map for human emotion, the author of the bestselling Learned Optimism proposes ratcheting the field of psychology to a new level. "Relieving the states that make life miserable... has made building the states that make life worth living less of a priority. The time has finally arrived for a science that seeks to understand positive emotion, build strength and virtue, and provide guideposts for finding what Aristotle called the `good life,' " writes Seligman. Thankfully, his lengthy homage to happiness may actually live up to the ambitious promise of its subtitle. Seligman doesn't just preach the merits of happiness e.g., happy people are healthier, more productive and contentedly married than their unhappy counterparts but he also presents brief tests and even an interactive Web site (the launch date is set for mid-August) to help readers increase the happiness quotient in their own lives. Trying to fix weaknesses won't help, he says; rather, incorporating strengths such as humor, originality and generosity into everyday interactions with people is a better way to achieve happiness. Skeptics will wonder whether it's possible to learn happiness from a book. Their point may be valid, but Seligman certainly provides the attitude adjustment and practical tools (including self-tests and exercises) for charting the course.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Review
Elle A bold new plan for taking control of your life and finding lasting happiness. -- Review

Review
Caroline MyssAuthor of Sacred ContractsAuthentic Happiness is delightful and richly insightful. Martin Seligman has written a very practical book, guiding readers to make positive choices in life.

Steven PinkerAuthor of The Language InstinctA highly insightful scientific and personal reflection on the nature of happiness, from one of the most creative and influential psychologists of our time.

ElleA bold new plan for taking control of your life and finding lasting happiness.

Customer Reviews

The Real McCoy
Written by the former president of the American Psychological Association, and author of over a dozen books including the popular Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life, this title is one of the better selling happiness books out there.

While this is the kind of book I could write a really long review about, I think I'll just discuss what I consider to be the best bits for those looking for ways to become happier- which I think is why most people would buy this book. Soooo.....

1) the book provides the reader with a "happiness formula", which is H = S + C + V. This works out to happiness = your genetic Set point + intervening Circumstances + factors under you Voluntary control. So, since your can't do much about changing your genetics, when it comes to becoming happier, that leaves room for improvement in the areas of circumstances and voluntary activities.

2) the book suggests that if you want to lastingly raise your level of happiness by changing the external circumstances of your life, you should: live in a wealthy democracy, get married, avoid negative events and negative emotion, acquire a rich social network, and get religion. Conversely, you needn't bother to do the following: make more money, stay healthy, get as much education as possible, or try to change your race or move to a sunnier climate. However even if you could alter all of these things, it would not do much for you as this stuff accounts for only a small part of your happiness. On to Voluntary efforts...

3) This is where most of the book spends a substantial part of its efforts showing you how to be happier, and there's a lot of "meat" to sink your teeth into, with sections on how to obtain more satisfaction with your past, what consitutes happiness about the future, and happiness in the present. Also, the book spend much time talking about how happiness can be cultivated by identifying and nurturing our traits, such as humor, optimism, generosity or kindness.

Readers who have read other happiness books will already be well familiar with the idea that the best way to increase your happiness is through intentional or voluntary activities. It makes a lot of sense, as you can't change your genetics, and circumstances are either out of your control, or make very little contributions to your happiness. Like this book, I agree that using intentional activities is the route to go when it comes to raising lasting happiness levels- and this book will help you out with that a lot. Other evidence-based books readers might be interested in that can also increase your well-being include Exercise Beats Depression.

An extremely worthwhile book
As a psychologist, I completely understand Martin Seligman's drive to free psychology from its obsession with negativity. Freud, he writes, made many people "unduly embittered about their past and unduly passive about their future," while clinical psychology focussed on diagnosing and treating mental disorders. In his new book, Authentic Happiness, Seligman goes a long way towards breaking psychology free from its love affair with pathology and replacing it with a far more positive approach.

I don't know of anyone with better credentials to guide readers through what psychology has discovered about happiness. Seligman's own research has contributed greatly to our understanding of the entire range of human experience from profound depression to "abundant gratification." His early, groundbreaking studies of learned helplessness provided great insight into inescapable trauma as a major source of helplessness and depression. He went on to study "learned optimism" as a powerful antidote to depression--his earlier book by that name is invaluable.

Now, Seligman sets out to provide readers with the insights and tools from the relatively new field of positive psychology. He does this with a rich mixture of anecdotes, personal revelations and research. In addition, he provides frequent self-assessments and exercises. I think that almost anyone who takes the time to read what Seligman has to say, who takes and thinks about the self assessments, and who does the exercises, will start thinking and acting in ways that lead to lasting happiness.

It's important to realize that Seligman is not a self-help guru by any stretch of the imagination. He is a leading research psychologist who builds on solid experimental findings. (Although the book is vividly written for the most part, at times Seligman's reliance on research findings slows things down.) Still, he is also devoted to the idea of making those often dry experiments as meaningful and useful as possible. He doesn't promise limitless bliss, but what he does offer may actually be reachable by ordinary, unenlightened people like us.

Early in the book Seligman makes the point that pleasure in itself is not the road to happiness. As we all know, pleasure is fleeting, and pursuing it can easily turn into addiction or futility. Instead Seligman identifies and values a set of nearly universal virtues which he believes lead to deep and lasting gratification. These include wisdom and knowledge, courage, love and humanity, justice, temperance, spirituality and transcendance. "The good life," he writes, "is using your signature strengths every day to produce authentic happiness and abundant gratification."

What I liked most about this book is that it made me feel good about myself, other people, and the "simple" virtues that make up much of the fabric of life, but which are often ignored and devalued. Kindness, tolerance, competence, interpersonal skills, a work ethic, and faith emerge as vital ingredients of a good, gratifying, happy life.

Authentic Happiness is not a miracle cure for all unhappiness. It is, however, a wise, well-informed, and extremely valuable guide to a more grounded, heartfelt and gratifying life.

Robert Adler, Author of _Sharing the Children: How to Resolve Custody Problems and Get on With Your Life_(1988, 2nd. Ed. 2001), and _Science Firsts: From the Creation of Science to the Science of Creation_ (2002).

This is science?
Professor Seligman addresses his audience in two distinct costumes. In the first, he wears the white lab coat of the scientist, and he presents findings in the form of regularities across population groups: this empirical data is descriptive, in that it relates what is the case and makes no exhortations as to what should be the case; it is also objective, in that it relies on a methodology that allows another scientist to potentially duplicate the findings. Seligman's second costume is that of the sage, or archetypal wise man, so that he can be seen as wearing flowing orange robes, or a comfortable tweed jacket, or the vestments of a cleric or rabbi: in such garb he tells us what should be the case; the methodology here is such that it positively invites disagreement - consensus is neither necessary nor presumed; instead of relating what humans do in fact strive for, he instructs us as to what humans should strive for.
*
If Professor Seligman wore each of these two outfits in turn, then his performance would be clear and comprehensible. However, he changes costume frequently, and without warning, and he often speaks as if dressed in an odd combination of both - white lab coat thrown over black cassock, his stethoscope tangled with his tzitzis. The scientist starts to sound like the preacher-man. This is not just confusing, it is deliberately misleading.
*
As a scientist, Seligman is helpful and informative. In an appendix, he provides the bones of a conceptual analysis of the term `happiness'. He dissects the term along several axes: firstly, by temporal direction - whether the happiness is seen as of the past, the present, or the future; secondly, by sensory or reflective faculty - whether the happiness is purely sensual, or whether it requires the engagement of rational processes; and lastly, along the axis of passivity versus activity - whether it is passively experienced by the subject, or whether the subject actively engages in behaviour which engenders, or even constitutes, happiness. This analysis might be incomplete, but it is useful as far as it goes. If you like, he distinguishes various `sub- types' of happiness. These `sub-types' can co-exist, and conflict, within an individual - thus it makes sense to say that an individual is `unhappy' with regards his/her past, but `happy' in the present; or `unhappy' sensually, but `happy' in terms of the activity that is being performed (say an athlete in great pain on approaching the finishing line of a race). By making these distinctions, Seligman makes it possible to comprehend the results of the studies he cites.
*
The studies themselves are interesting. Most of them track a sub-type of happiness that involves the reflective faculties, and which is directed towards the past - answers to questions along the lines of, `How satisfied are you with your life as a whole?'. As an example: one might expect that as a nation becomes economically wealthier, its inhabitants would respond to such a question more positively - the average `happiness' of the citizens would increase. Not so. If you sample the physically healthier segment of the population, they would on average be `happier' than those ill, surely? No. The beautiful, as opposed to the plain - happier? No. And so on. All these counter-intuitive findings are intriguing and, given that the limitations of the methodology are spelt out, uncontroversial. You can, if you wish, call these scientific findings, or at least statistical ones.
*
The problems begin when Seligman, or anyone for that matter, tries to do something with these findings. Seligman suggests that it is `better' to be happy. One can well ask, "Better in what way?". Seligman's answer has several strands. The most prominent is an appeal to self-evidence - he presumes that it is a ubiquitous human trait that humans prefer to be happy. His auxillary strands have happiness as conducive to a human society that is more productive (in some sense), more peaceful, and more knowledgable. His answer might be said to rely on common sense, or on uncommon practical wisdom, but it certainly does not rely on scientific method. Relatedly, he cites six ubiquitous virtues, gleaned from reading over thirty texts of traditional repute - while many other virtues are mentioned, these six are common to all. He then commends these six virtues, apparently the consensus of the thirty texts lending them the authority to be regarded as prescriptive. As a methodology this might well be pragmatic, but again it is not distinctively scientific. As a scientist, Professor Seligman presents the findings - but when he champions an increase in the amount of individual or collective happiness he does so not as a scientist, but as an ordinary citizen, or, perhaps, as a citizen who has read the wisdom of the ages.
*
Taking this analysis in a slightly different direction, one can ask what `sub-type' of happiness should be prioritized. Seligman's own taxonomy has made it possible to be happy in one way, while unhappy in another, so the question arises which type of happiness is most important. Here Seligman suggests that the `gratifications' trump the `pleasures' - that is, happiness involving the rational faculties and reflection is more important than happiness consisting of sensual pleasure alone; and that `active' happiness, that is behaviour that actually constitutes `happiness', holds a higher priority than a passively experienced subjective feeling of happiness. He goes further and claims that even more important is `meaning', this vague concept being said to arise when a human's activities (presumably happy ones) are connected to `something larger'. Again, one can either endorse or reject Seligman's ranking of the various sub-types of happiness, along with his claims in regard `meaning', but this is in no way a `scientific' dispute. No study can be cited, nor no experiment performed, to prove Seligman right or wrong. His speculations come from the armchair, an armchair where he has no doubt read many secular and sacred texts, but an armchair nonetheless.
*
While the paragraphs above mention claims which are, at least at first blush, plausible, Seligman also makes claims that are immediately disputable. Several reviewers have rightly taken issue with his advice about child-rearing. His speculations regarding God appearing as the culmination of some evolution of the universe are similarly unconvincing. Strangely, Seligman wishes to bolster his claims with weak gestures towards `science' - as previously, his topics here are, prima facie, not amenable in any way to scientific investigation, so how `science' is meant to intervene is utterly unclear. He uses the word `science' as some unspecified ultimate authority, almost as if he were appealing to a deity himself.
*
Occupying a territory somewhere between his more outlandish claims and his accounts of the responses to questionnaires, there is his account of `signature strengths'. This is laid out as if it were a quasi-scientific classification, as per genus and species in biology. Actually, the system here is one of Seligman's own invention, one which might prove practically useful, but one which is underdetermined by the objective data - one could, with equal validity, classify personality traits in any number of ways - it remains to be seen whether Seligman's classificatory systems attracts more adherents than the poet W.B.Yeats' theory of 28 personality types, and whether it is incorporated into a practice that could be justifiably termed scientific. Furthermore, Seligman's advice to cultivate the one or two `signature strengths' is not a piece of advice based on any established science, but the practical suggestion of a thoughtful man.
*
In this book, the actual recounting of scientific findings is limited. The problematic assumptions behind these findings are barely discussed. The `self-improvement' fraction of the book is extensive, and oracular - it is also, in part, misleadingly disguised as being directly implied by the findings and, consequently, `authorized' by `science'. The vast bulk of the book is actually Professor Seligman's personal recommendations for living a better life. You might care to listen to him, or you might prefer to listen to Buddha, or your local pastor, or to Robert Nozick, or Fyodor Dostoevsky, or to your mum and dad, or, and this gets my vote for what it's worth, to as many sources of wisdom as time allows.