Authentic Happiness

Authentic Happiness – Martin E. P. Seligman

For most of its history, psychology focused on diagnosing and treating mental illness. Martin E. P. Seligman, a former president of the American Psychological Association known for his research on learned helplessness and optimism, helped launch a new field, positive psychology, which studies what makes life worth living. In Authentic Happiness: Using the New Positive Psychology to Realize Your Potential for Lasting Fulfillment, he presents its key ideas for general readers.

Seligman argues that lasting happiness does not come from shortcuts, such as pleasures that require little effort, but from identifying and using our signature strengths. He describes positive emotions about the past, present and future, and explains how gratitude and forgiveness can improve feelings about the past, while optimism and hope can improve feelings about the future. He distinguishes between pleasures and gratifications, the deeper satisfaction that comes from absorbing activities that engage our strengths.

At the heart of the book is a classification of six virtues found across cultures, wisdom, courage, humanity, justice, temperance and transcendence, along with the character strengths associated with them. Readers can take questionnaires to identify their own signature strengths and learn how to use them in work, love and parenting.

Seligman describes three kinds of good lives: the pleasant life, the good life of engagement, and the meaningful life, which involves using one’s strengths in the service of something larger than oneself.

Accessible and research-based, Authentic Happiness is an influential introduction to positive psychology. The author has since refined some of his ideas in later work.