Martin Seligman
Martin Seligman
Martin E. P. "Marty" Seligmanis an American psychologist, educator, and author of self-help books. Since the late 90's, Seligman has been an avid promoter within the scientific community for the field of positive psychology. His theory of learned helplessness is popular among scientific and clinical psychologists. A Review of General Psychology survey, published in 2002, ranked Seligman as the 31st most cited psychologist of the 20th century...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPsychologist
Date of Birth12 August 1942
CountryUnited States of America
It's my belief that, since the end of the Second World War, psychology has moved too far away from its original roots, which were to make the lives of all people more fulfilling and productive, and too much toward the important, but not all-important, area of curing mental illness.
It's no surprise that optimistic athletes, managers and teams do better. What's interesting is where they do better. It's in coming back from defeat and acting in the clutch.
I don't mind being wrong, and I don't mind changing my mind.
The best therapists can do with sadness, anger, and anxiety is to help patients live in the more comfortable part of their set range.
We have children to pursue other elements of well-being. We want meaning in life. We want relationships.
Life inflicts the same setbacks and tragedies on the optimist as on the pessimist, but the optimist weathers them better.
Psychology should be just as concerned with building strength as with repairing damage
The aim of Positive Psychology is to catalyze a change in psychology from a preoccupation only with repairing the worst things in life to also building the best qualities in life.
The good life is using your signature strengths every day to produce authentic happiness and abundant gratification.
Changing the destructive things you say to yourself when you experience the setbacks that life deals all of us is the central skill of optimism.
When well-being comes from engaging our strengths and virtues, our lives are imbued with authenticity.
Doing a kindness produces the single most reliable momentary increase in well-being of any exercise we have tested.
You go into flow when your highest strengths are deployed to meet the highest challenges that come your way.
Well-being cannot exist just in your own head. Well-being is a combination of feeling good as well as actually having meaning, good relationships and accomplishment.