From Authentic Happiness by Martin Seligman- the father of positive psychology

Martin Seligman is considered to be the father of Positive Psychology and his book, Authentic Happiness is the first important book in the field:

·         Authentic Happiness comes from identifying and cultivating

·         Your most fundamental strengths and using them every day

·         In work, love, play and parenting

Positive Psychology has three pillars

1.       The study of Positive Emotions

2.       The study of Positive Traits- strengths and virtues, abilities such as intelligence

3.       The study of Positive Institutions such as democracy, strong families

 

·         Positive emotions of trust and hope serve as best not when life is easy

·         But when life is difficult- in times of trouble understanding and building

·         Strengths and virtues like: valor, perspective, integrity, equity, loyalty

·         May become more urgent-strengths and virtues function as a buffer

·         Against misfortune- the key is to identify your Strengths and Virtues

Positive Psychology and Authentic Happiness take you on a road-

·         This road takes you through the countryside of pleasure, gratification

·         Up the high country of strengths and virtues and

·         Then to the peaks of lasting fulfillment, meaning and purpose

 

In the opening of his book, Martin Seligman speaks about the most interesting experiment in Happiness- that of the sisters of Notre Dame, in New York. 174 nuns wrote about their experience and their notes have been studied to see what effect, if any, positive thinking has on life expectancy.

 

The happy nuns lived longer than the less happy ones.

 

·         On the same note, people from Utah live longer than those in  

·         Neighboring Nevada- why? – is it the Mormon life? As opposed

·         To a more frenetic life style in Nevada?

·         Or it may be junk food and tobacco?

·         In the nuns study, they all lived routine lives

·         With the same diet, no smoking or drinking

·         But with variations in their life expectancy

 

There are two types of smile:

1.       The Authentic Duchenne smile

2.       The Pan American smile is un authentic

In studies

·         Psychologists looked through large numbers of photos

·         And separated the Duchenne from the non- Duchenne smilers

·         At the University of Berkley California have studied photos

·         In the 1960 yearbook of a certain college

·         All women except three were smiling and half were Duchenne smiles

·         The women were contacted at the ages of 27, 43 and 52

·         And they were asked about their marriages and life satisfaction

·         The researchers wondered if they can predict from the smile Alone

·         What the women’s lives would turn out to be like

Astonishingly:

·         Duchenne women are likelier to be married, to stay married

·         And to experience more personal well being over the next thirty years

·         They studied to see if these women were prettier and their good

·         Looks , rather than the genuineness of their smile predicted their life satisfaction

·         The researchers found that looks had nothing to do with life satisfaction

·         A genuinely smiling woman was more likely to be

·         Well- wed and

·         happy

 

In the next part of the book, Martin Seligman writes about Positive Emotions: joy, flow, glee…pleasure, contentment, serenity, hope and ecstasy…