Positive psychology is a recent branch of psychology that studies why some people feel particularly happy. "Positive psychologists seek to find and nurture genius and talent," and "to make normal life more fullfilling, not to cure mental illness" (wikipedia). The father of positive psychology, Martin Seligman, gave a talk at TED.
In his research, he has found that happy people differ from miserable ones in one respect: they have pleasant, good, and miningful lives (find below a rigorous description of what he means by pleasant, good, and miningful). He councluded his talk (at minute 20:00) by proposing to further research on how technology may make our lives pleasant, good, and miningful. Shall we enrich our research agenda? :-) It would be a good start to read Learned Optimism or Stumbling on Happiness.
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. Pleasant Life or the "life of enjoyment" examines how people optimally experience, forecast, and savor the positive feelings and emotions that are part of normal and healthy living (e.g. relationships, hobbies, interests, entertainment, etc.).
. Good Life or the "life of engagement" investigates the beneficial affects of immersion, absorption, and flow that individuals feel when optimally engaged with their primary activities. These states are experienced when there is a positive match between a person's strength and the task they are doing, i.e. when they feel confident that they can accomplish the tasks they face.
. Meaningful Life or "life of affiliation" questions how individuals derive a positive sense of well-being, belonging, meaning, and purpose from being part of and contributing back to something larger and more permanent than themselves (e.g. nature, social groups, organizations, movements, traditions, belief systems).
Thursday, August 21, 2008
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