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The Seligman Times

The Seligman Times Volume 1, Number 2
Post-Election Optimism
 
There were only glum faces around our Thanksgiving table this year. Hillary Clinton supporters all, my kids and their mates saw nothing to be thankful for. The specter of Donald Trump ascending to the most powerful position in the world cast a pall over the day and my kids—ranging in age from thirteen to twenty-seven—said with one voice that they had nothing to be optimistic about.
 
But I disagreed and I said so.
 
You likely feel the same way as my children, so let me start with a quiz:
 
    Is the world getting better or worse?
    Better        Worse      Not Changing      Don’t Know
 
    In the last thirty years has world poverty
    Halved      Doubled     Not Changed    Don’t Know

 

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https://www.authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu/content/seligman-times-volu...

The Seligman Times

The Seligman Times

 

 

By Martin Seligman
 

When I started authentichappiness.org in 2002, I intended it to publicize my book, Authentic Happiness. I also wanted to let you take the tests--at no cost--that are the basis of the book and of Positive Psychology.

I was surprised by how popular this website became: Almost four and a half million people have registered here and taken the tests as of today. About two thousand new people register every day and this usage has been steady for years.

I was just as surprised by how popular Positive Psychology became, both in academia and with the public. There are now courses in most universities around the world and hundreds of millions of dollars in research grants and contracts. There are at least twenty national associations, the foremost being IPPA, ippanetwork.org. Thousands of practitioners and scientists now call themselves “Positive Psychologists.” I number myself among them.

I find myself at the center of all these cross-currents. New articles, new books, new discoveries, new websites, new popular press, and fascinating new people and their projects, come my way almost daily. There are even whole new fields--Positive Education, Positive Neuroscience, Positive Health, Positive Humanities, Positive Theology, Prospective Psychology, and Positive Psychiatry.

So the time has come to expand and liven up this website by writing about the news in Positive Psychology and its allied fields. I call this section The Seligman Times, because I intend—at least at the outset—to write about the stuff that I personally fancy.

I will also do book reviews, movie reviews, and editorialize about current events. I will start by reporting new developments and musing about them, but I intend my role ultimately to evolve into “managing editor” and I will soon entertain submissions.

    So watch this space.

https://www.authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu/content/seligman-times

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