Martin Seligm The New Era Of Positive Psychology

When a person thinks about the human body and how it works, the study of psychology may not be the first thing to come to mind. Many have argued the importance William Wundt is often considered the founder of psychology because he opened the first Experimental Psychology lab in 1879. Since then there have been countless developments in truly understanding how the human mind works and how environmental factors behavior. Martin Seligman discusses great reasoning and facts in his lecture titled “The New Era of Positive Psychology” that make the broad topic much easier to understand. He reviews the basic science of psychology, discusses why psychology is good and describes how a person can truly live a happy life.

To begin, Seligman goes over the science and background of psychology. He describes how psychology is measurable and can be classified into many groups. Throughout time, there have been many experiments performed with use random assignment placebo designs to investigate how the mind works and what truly changes a person’s behavior. Finding the reasoning for why a person acts can be linked to genetics, social environments, nature vs. nurture theories and the wiring of the
left hemisphere of the brain. Drug treatments are one way to test psychological disorders and truly understand the way these disorders affect humans. Ultimately the science of psychology has proven to work and as Seligman said “we can make miserable people less miserable.”

Secondly, Seligman communicates about the positive and negatives of the study of psychology.
In early times, when a person was considered “crazy” they were shipped off the the loony bin but in modern times the world has advanced in knowledge making it easier for those with mental disorders to live a normal happy life. Fourteen disorders are now very treatable amplifying the success of modern day psychologists. When treating a patient, professionals should be as concerned with strengths as weaknesses, interested in bringing good to lives, and making the lives of “normal” people fulfilling. Like all advancements in science, there have been negative effects from psychology. Psychologists have become victimologists forgetting about improving normal lives and not enough positive
interventions. Finally, the most important piece of Seligman’s lecture discusses the formula for living a healthy, happy life. There are three different “happy lives.” First is the “Pleasant Life” which is when a person has as much happiness as they can possibly have. Second is the “Good Life” which focusses on engagement. For example, a person’s working life, family life, and love life. Engaging in different things in life helps one find their strengths and weakness and also recraft and amplify to deliver success. Lastly, there is the “Meaningful Life.” This life is when a person knows their highest strengths and using those strengths to become something larger than themselves. Different lives bring different people true happiness it is just up to the person to learn about themselves and strive for it.

In my opinion this lecture was extremely interesting because I have always had a passion for psychology. Understanding how the mind works is the first piece of understanding the entirety of human anatomy and physiology. True happiness is something that everyone searches for during their time on earth and is certainly intriguing to research. To me, individual's attempt to surround the word happiness with ideas like money, wealth, power, fame and fortune. At the end of the day however, all of that money and extra things will not make a person any more happy than a mother seeing her military child returning home safe from war. Hypothetically, if you stood at the top of the stairs to your 200 million dollar mansion viewing all of your flashy possessions you could still not be truly happy. On the other hand, if a homeless person that has starved for three days would be given a Big Breakfast from McDonald’s they would undoubtedly be happy; at least for that moment in time. Psychology helps human’s reflect on the importances in life and provides a map on how to live a happy life.