Rating: 
Summary: A Study of Happiness
Review: "Authentic Happiness" is a readable and fascinating, but somewhat academic, treatise about happiness by Martin Seligman.The book begins with a discussion of the nun study-a study that followed nuns throughout their lives and examined factors such as longevity and health. The study found the greatest predictive factor of successful aging and life satisfaction was optimism reflected in essays the young nuns wrote about their lives when they first took their religious vows. Those who were happy and optimistic when young tended to remain happy, healthy, and successful. Those who expressed more pessimism in their essays tended to age less successfully and tended to have less life satisfaction. Other researchers found similar early predictive value using yearbook photos. Seligman writes: "...yearbook photos are a gold mine for Positive Psychology researchers. 'Look at the birdie and smile,' the photographer tells you, and dutifully you put on your best smile. Some of us break into a radiant smile of authentic good cheer, while the rest of us pose politely. There are two kinds of smiles. The first, called a Duchenne smile (after its discoverer, Guillaume Duchenne) is genuine. The corners of your mouth turn up and the skin around the corners of your eyes crinkles (like crow's feet). The muscles that do this, the orbicularis oculi and the zygomticus, are exceedingly difficult to control voluntarily. The other smile, called the Pan American smile (after the flight attendants in television ads for the now-defunct airline), is inauthentic, with none of the Duchenne features. Indeed, it is probably more related to the rictus that lower primates display when frightened than it is to happiness." Follow-up studies of people with Duchenne yearbook photos showed that they tended to have more personal life satisfaction into their thirties, forties, and fifties than did people without Duchenne smiles. Seligman tells us that "external circumstances" only have a minimal effect ("no more than between 8 and 15 percent of the variance...") on happiness. Here are a few circumstances Seligman says tend to correspond slightly with happiness: 1) Living in a wealthy democracy, rather than a poor dictatorship. Unsurprisingly, this has a relatively strong effect on happiness relative to other circumstances. Extreme poverty and dictators are a real bummer. 2) Marriage. Married people tend to be happier. "Marriage is a more potent happiness factor than satisfaction with job, or finances, or community," Seligman writes. 3) Rich social network. Seligman points out that this might not be a causal relationship. In other words, happy people might tend to build richer social networks more naturally. What about staying healthy, getting a good education, and making more money? Seligman says none of these are highly correlated with happiness. Also, it's a person's subjective feeling of health, not objective health that matters for determining happiness. Some people facing extreme illness remain happy, while other people in relatively good health feel they aren't healthy and are depressed about it. Of course, extreme health problems have a tendency to drag us down. I found the relationship between money and happiness fascinating. It appears winning the lottery or extreme wealth won't make a person happy. Seligman writes: "In very poor nations, where poverty threatens life itself, being rich does predict greater well-being. In wealthier nations, however, where almost everyone has a basic safety net, increases in wealth have negligible effects on personal happiness. In the United States, the very poor are lower in happiness, but once a person is just barely comfortable, added money adds little or no happiness. Even the fabulously rich-the Forbes 100, with an average net worth of over $125 million dollars-are only slightly happier than the average American." (I read an article about Jean Chatzky's new book in which people were asked about their overall life happiness. Relative to income, once $50,000 is hit, happiness levels off. If you search google for "happiness money $50,000" you can find the full article online.) However, a person's obsession with making more money can lead to less happiness. Seligman writes: "...people who value money more than other goals are less satisfied with their income and with their lives as a whole ..." While external circumstances account for less than 15% of a person's happiness, Seligman tells us that genetic disposition plays a significant role, probably contributing over 50% to a person's characteristics. So, why do people become unduly pessimistic or unhappy? Seligman argues that negative emotions prepare us for conflicts or for win-lose games. In contrast, positive emotions help us be more creative and helps us to build social and intellectual resources. Happiness prepares us for win-win situations. Seligman writes: "When we are happy, we are less self-focused, we like others more, and we want to share our good fortune even with strangers. When we are down, though, we become distrustful, turn inward, and focus defensively on our own needs. Looking out for number one is more characteristic of sadness than of well-being." In addition to providing us with an understanding of happiness, "Authentic Happiness" provides several tests for evaluating our own happiness. Many of the tests are available online at AuthenticHappiness.org. Seligman also offers a prescription for finding more happiness. He suggests that people are happiest when they're using their signature strengths. Studying major religions and philosophies, Seligman has identified six admirable and largely culturally-independent strengths. They are: * Wisdom and Knowledge
* Courage
* Love and Humanity
* Justice
* Temperance
* Spirituality and Transcendence Seligman says that if we discover a calling, something that links to a greater good, which utilizes our signature strengths, we tend to be happy. The book also has practical advicee for using your knowledge of happiness to improve marriages and help children become more future-oriented. I highly recommend "Authentic Happiness" to readers who are interested in studying happiness, who want to test their own level of happiness, or who want to attain richer, more fulfilling lives.
Rating: 
Summary: Skilled Academic Author, Great but not for Everyone ...
Review: This is a great book by a great academic researcher. There is a lot of information in here that is great food for thought. But, any time you read an academic researcher/theoretician's work, it is super important to put on your skeptic thinking cap because they are usually coming from a particular perspective and are really good at making you think that their view is it. Nonetheless, the author has some great points about a lot of aspects of life in here. NOW, if you are interested in a book that will be especially devoted to helping you find authentic wellness, and not just be an intellectual exploration, see "Effortless Wellbeing: The Missing Ingredients for Authentic Wellness" by Evan Finer. That book gives you critical ideas and practical how-to practices to activate your true self and create wellness automatically. It will help you experientially get there. Highly recommend both books. Authentic Happiness is very interesting academic reading; Effortless Wellbeing is down-to-earth practical how-to.
Rating:
Summary: Leading the Way to a Happier Future
Review: Marty Seligman is the leader of the emerging field of Positive Psychology. Finally, psychologists are focusing on what works instead of what is broken. In this highly readable book, the author shares the latest research on happiness and what creates it. I suspect many of the negative reviews were written by pessimists and traditional psychotherapists whose voodo therapy probably does more harm than good. Its true that this is a new field but its significance could change the course of the world. If we all focused on creating positive emotions instead of material wealth, we could transform Earth into a happier and more sustainable planet. Thanks Marty, the people of Earth need your leadership and compassion.
Rating:
Summary: A Solid CD Program
Review: I'm always looking for CDs to listen during my communte. A friend suggested this program as having some good ideas. It does. My criteria for a program being valuable is whether it has useful ideas. His theory about people having predestined ranges of happiness, with ability to move higher within a particular range makes sense. His suggestions about flow also make sense, as does his distinction between a gratification (instant) and a pleasure (must be earned). Cognitive psychology, like the behaviorists beforehand, tends to be formulaic, implying that emothion follows action and behavior leads to feelings. I'm not so sure about dogged determination that formulas are the answer to everything. I also think that this program spends too much time plugging the various surveys available on the author's web site. Still, this gets 4 stars because I got some good ideas and helpful suggestions.
Rating: 
Summary: Speculative + Unscientiific + Self-absorbed = Disappointing
Review: The biggest problem with Seligman's book is it is not based on real science. His experiments consists of asking people whether they are happy. This is like asking a male teenager about his sex life. The results will not be that accurate. The problem with surveys are many. People all have different criterion about what will qualify as happiness. It may be absence of pain for one and a state of bliss for another. Defining of these vague terms does not seem to be done very clearly in his work. Other problems that may result is that people often delude themselves about how happy they are or simply lie on the survey for whatever reason. In addition a question may be present to measure a trait but the wording of the question or the causal connection of the question to the trait is unsupported. In other words, just because this person answered this question this way does not mean the trait is necessarily reflected in that person. There's a lot of subjectivity and interpretation going on. A better way to do this is have physiological indicators that correlate to happiness. People would be hooked up to wires, put through different experiences, and their levels of happiness measured. However, all we get are questionnaires which really prove nothing. This means all the conclusions from experiments done from surveys (which I believe are all of them) must be looked at with a grain of salt and not taken as gospel. I would think the general conclusions such as married people are happier than single people are probably true, but I would be suspicious of the numbers telling what percentage are happy and how much happier they are. Seligman has this happiness formula that he either simply created out of thin air or is based on his survey experiments. Since the validity of survey experiments are questionable, I'm skeptical about the formula as well. He also talks about his life, how he met his wife, how he chose his profession, his various hobbies, his kids, how he met his colleagues. Other non fiction-writers do this too, especially 'self-help' authors. I wish they wouldn't. It is irrelevant, uninteresting, indulgent and self-absorbed. I did not pick up the book to read their autobiography. Seligman argues that you will be happier if you engage in more activities that creates 'flow' and which you innately are good at. Basically it means you will be happier if you do stuff you like. Unfortunately, most of his insights do not go any deeper than this. He creates these 24 strengths that he found from combing through religions, cultures, and important texts in the pass. I hope most scientists would not do it this way. He divides and categorizes. People will find this interesting, because they like taking quizzes and tests to find out more about themselves. However, the real probative value is minimal. All the problems with surveys I mentioned above apply to the surveys measuring what amount of these 24 strengths you have. His work would be more valid to me if good scientific testing derived these 24 strengths rather than him collecting them. His chapter on meaning and purpose which you think would intricately be linked to happiness has hardly anything to do with it and his more him talking about his colleagues and some get together. Get to the point! He has this gratitude exercise which is hoaky and sentimental. In conclusion, the book is not really insightful or helpful and probably has nothing in it that will make anyone any happier. If by chance someone does become happier, I doubt this book will have anything to do with it. Like philosophers of old and Jung and Freud, he is speculating and making stuff up with the smallest backbone of science behind it. Speculation may be interesting and fun but is not science and it is usually not helpful. I really wanted to like this book and wanted scientific data on happiness so I may better understand it and achieve more of it, but I didn't get that. Quite a disappointing book.
Rating:
Summary: Surprisingly Superficial...
Review: Having read several of Seligman's other books, I was quite surprised by just how unsubstantial this book is. Largely ancedotal in nature, it provides little in the way of useful information on just how to make the changes necessary to achieve happiness. The chapter on raising children is downright silly- since Seligman apparently has no scholarly foundation on this topic, he fills the chapter with anecdotes about his own experiences in dealing with his four kids. What's particularly funny about this is that at the very end of the book he thanks his SIX children - what happened to the other two, or the first wife for that matter. One might argue it's personal and therefore not relevant, but since he insists on dragging his second family into this book so much, why not talk about the first?
Finally, the whole concept of achieving authentic happiness is probably a lot more meaningful to someone who spends New Year's eve in the Yucatan on someone else's dime, or who contemplates the meaning of it all sitting poolside in the Bahamas. The final pages on his newfound concept of God read like some silly science fiction short story. This book is a serious misstep from someone who needs to get a foot back in the real world.
Rating:
Summary: One of the best
Review: One of the best books on happiness. I also recommmend The Pathway, and The Little Guide To Happiness.
Rating:
Summary: A Useful and Entertaining Book
Review: We are lucky that a heavy weight in experimental psychology has taken an interest in these areas. It took someone of Seligman's stature to marshal the funding and qualified manpower in order to study the areas of positive emotion and strengths of character. I'm not sure I agree that psychology has done enough to study pathology, but I do believe that it is high time that we begin to spend more time and resources in an effort to understand how people who lead highly satisfying lives do so. His formula describing happiness makes sense. It is interesting that experimental psychology is coming to the same conclusion as so many philosophers have, that in an effort to lead the good life, striving after pleasures along leave us coming up short. Seligman does't deride pursuing pleasure, in fact, he gives us some assistance getting the most from sensory pleasures, but he points toward the matching of signature strengths to opportunities as the primary source of happiness that is under our control. This does not surprise me as it seems to be an example of consiliance among many thinkers from Dewey, to Rogers and Maslow to Csikszentmihalyi not to mention the many philosophers that have reached the conclusion by more absract means. His website has many useful tests that are scored with lightning speed and that give you comparitive data about thousands of others who have taken the same test. The only question I have about all this data his is compiling and basing his research on is how does he rule out the desire to be socially approved. I found myself struggling with some questions in an effort to distinguish between what I strive to be like, or what I would like to be like and where I actually am at currently. Therapists, folks in the self-help market and many others will find much that is useful in this book that looks like it will the the first and most general of a field that one hopes is taking its first toddler steps.
Rating:
Summary: Seligman does his research
Review: Dr. Seligman gives us the criteria for happiness in this informative book. Authentic Happiness is on par with my favorite book on the planet, Optimal Thinking: How to Be Your Best Self by Dr. Glickman which gives the simple resource to make the most of any situation and life.
Rating:
Summary: good book, but not for the over-40 single woman
Review: This book provides practical advice backed up by research. It states clearly what actions and beliefs are needed in order to have a happy and fulfilled life. Unfortunately, it seems that marriage or at least a stable, committed, long-term relationship is necessary for happiness, and this is just not something that many single women over 40 are going to be able to achieve (from the text, it appears that Seligman, like many middle-aged men, decided to marry a woman 15-20 years younger than he is, the second time around). It is somewhat disheartening to be told that one of the key ingredients to happiness is something that is likely out of your reach.
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