Happiness and the "Fidgeting Until Death" Syndrome

Just love that phrase.  Reader Nancy sent me this article on Martin Seligman and the Psychology of Happiness. Can you learn to be happier?  That's exactly what Martin Seligman and his researchers are trying to find out.  Here's the article.

Comments

[Peter]

Love the phrase, hate Seligman.

OK, hate is too strong a word but he’s one of my biggest pet peeves. (And I have many!) When the genius who showed us that “learned helplessness” is in fact, LEARNED, decided to become a “positive psychology” rock star he ignored the obvious, but far less marketable, idea that “learned optimism” would be learned in exactly the same way.

Most of us know the classic experiment: give a dog no way to avoid an electric shock and you get a dog that decides (quite sensibly) that the best course is to lie down, conserve energy and not even try. (Yes, I know this is the horribly simplified version.)

On the other hand, subsequent studies have shown that when positive outcomes are strongly tied to effort, you get a dog… or a rat… or a human… with a healthy sense of agency marked by perseverance and resilience.* It’s the obvious mechanism by which optimism is learned and has huge implications for the way humans form their self-image and the resultant way they choose to act throughout the rest of their lives.

Seligman could have used his own agency (and intellect, and stature in the field) to run with this idea and create a REAL positive psychology movement. But no, he tells us that the key to happiness is practicing gratitude and focusing on our strengths with a healthy (healthy?!?) dose of self-delusion. It’s one step removed from the “think happy thoughts” section of the self-help department. What a shame.

*For a somewhat-flawed but generally good discussion of this, see “Depressingly Easy” in the July 2008 issue of Scientific American Mind, which unfortunately is available online only as a précis.

[Lindsay]

I think having a great goal or a "mission in life" and the freedom to pursue it leads to more happiness than anything read in self-help books. When we have a mission to focus on, we're too busy to notice all the mundane little things in life that can be depressing... if you pay attention to them.