The fledgling movement is already off to an impressive start. In 1998, it raised several million dollars, including $800,000 from the Adenberg School of Commitment and $750,000 from the Templeton Foundation, and, in late 1999, it held its first-ever Positive Psychology Summit in Lincoln, Nebraska. While one summit participant, psychologist and best-selling author Mary Pipher, Ph.D., went so far as to call Martin Seligman "the Freud of the next century," the man and his field are not without their critics.
Some "humanistic" psychologists claim that Abraham Maslow, Ph.D., and Carl Rogers, Ph.D., came up with the concept 40 years ago—and that Seligman is just "reinventing the wheel." But Seligman counters that there's a big difference between humanistic psychology and positive psychology.
"Maslow and Rogers were hostile toward empirical science and there was never any science in their journals," he says. "For positive psychology, however, there are already at least 60 science-based research projects under way."
Goals of the movement include:
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Developing two complementary branches of science and practice: one that alleviates and prevents negative traits and feelings, and another that promotes well-being.
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Changing the nature of psychotherapy by developing ways to identify and nurture patients' strengths.
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Developing a curriculum for teaching positive psychology, both at universities and in high-school psychology classes.
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Launching a fund-raising campaign to support expanded scientific research.
While these measures may take years, there are concrete steps we can take right now to bring positive psychology into our lives. Five psychologists tell us how:
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Whistle While You Work
In 1963, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi began a long-term cross-cultural study on the quality of life and sense of motivation of artists, musicians and athletes. After conducting more than 8,000 interviews and amassing a quarter of a million questionnaire responses from people around the world, he discovered that one key to human happiness is loving your everyday profession. "Whenever people are doing something they enjoy, something they want to do and keep doing because of the experience they get from the activity itself, they report very positive phenomenological states."
Findings were similar across Thai and Cambodian mountain villages, South American peasant communities, Navajo hunters and industrialized European workers. These athletes and creative types were universally absorbed in the moment when engaging in their art; the activities were challenging in accordance with their skill level; and they got immediate positive feedback from their task, he says.
In Csikszentmihalyi's book Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement with Everyday Life (Basic Books, 1997), he explains that to gain satisfaction from everyday monotony, we should do what athletes and creative types do: choose tasks that are in line with our abilities, set clear goals and seek feedback from friendly observers.
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See Through Rose-Colored Lenses
When you're irritated or terrified, focus on something positive, advises Dr. Barbara L. Fredrickson, Ph.D., director of the Fredrickson Social Psychophysiology Laboratory at the University of Michigan. Her studies prove that positive thinking and exposure to positive stimuli reduce tension.
In her 1998 study, Fredrickson told participants they would have to give a speech shortly, making them nervous. She then showed several of them a video of a puppy playing and waves lapping at a shoreline. Fredrickson's team monitored participants' cardiovascular reactions, since negative emotions such as fear and anger create a measurable physical response. The researchers found that focusing on positive stimuli—in this case, the animal and the ocean—was powerful enough to return the participants to their normal level of cardiovascular function.
But Frederickson is not simply advising, "take your mind off the negative." When given neutral stimuli—a video of a computer screen saver—participants' heart rates did not normalize. Shifting the focus to something positive is key, she says. Fredrickson also found that people who already exhibited good coping skills and a happy demeanor were more resilient and relaxed at the end.
But it's not just the sunny disposition that's helping optimists. Professor Chris Peterson of the University of Michigan has found that optimists work hard to live more healthfully. "[They] don't smoke, don't drink, don't salt the food, don't eat those gooey desserts," he says.
Also, it turns out that nurturing optimistic explanatory styles is a kind of preventative medicine, and it can be taught to children. In Philadelphia, Seligman and his colleagues have been running a middle-school program that teaches kids to deal more effectively with setbacks. Research shows that kids who go through the program are much less prone to depression as adults.
Why might optimists enjoy all these advantages? Several studies point to their key trait—resilience. Because they don't turn setbacks into catastrophes, optimists are better able to bounce back from emotional and physical stress than others.
While it's accepted that stress compromises our immune system, psychoneuroimmunologists are now looking at how optimism and positive experiences help the brain and immune system run even more smoothly.
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