Abstract
A science of positive subjective experience, positive individual traits, and positive institutions promises to improve quality of life and prevent the pathologies that arise when life is barren and meaningless, The exclusive focus on pathology that has dominated so much of our discipline results in a model of the human being lacking the positive features that make life worth living. Hope, wisdom, creativity, future mindedness, courage, spirituality, responsibility, and perseverance are ignored or explained as transformations of more authentic negative impulses. The 15 articles in this millennial issue of the American Psychologist discuss such issues as what enables happiness, the effects of autonomy and self-regulation, how optimism and hope affect health, what constitutes wisdom, and how talent and creativity come to fruition. The authors outline a framework for a science of positive psychology, point to gaps in our knowledge, and predict that the next century will see a science and profession that will come to understand and build the factors that allow individuals, communities, and societies to flourish.
Editor’s note. Martin E. P. Seligman and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi served as guest editors for this special issue. Copyright © 2000 by the American Psychological Association. Republished with permission from the American Psychologist, vol. 55, no 1, pp. 5–14.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Allport, G. W. (1961). Pattern and growth in personality. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Wilson.
Baltes, P. B., & Staudinger, U. M. (2000). Wisdom: a metaheuristic (pragmatic) to orchestrate mind and virtue toward excellence. American Psychologist, 55, 122–136.
Banduram, A. (1986). Social foundations of thoughts and action. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall.
Benjamin, L. T. Jr. (Ed.), (1992). The history of American psychology [Special issue]. American Psychologist, 47(2).
Buss, D. M. (2000). The evolution of happiness. American Psychologist, 55, 15–23.
Diener, E. (2000). Subjective well-being: The science of happiness and a proposal for a national index. American Psychologist, 55, 34–43.
Hall, G. S. (1922). Senescence: The last half of life. New York: Appleton.
James, W. (1958). Varieties of religious experience. New York: Mentor. (Original work published 1902).
Jung, C. (1933). Modem man in search of a soul. New York: Harcourt.
Jung, C. G. (1969). The archetypes of the collective unconscious: vol 9. The collective works of C. G. Jung. Princeton: Princeton University Press. (Original work published 1936).
Kahneman, D. (1999). Objective happiness. In Kahneman, D., Diener, E., & Schwartz, N. (Eds.), Well-being: The foundations of hedonic psychology (pp. 3–25). New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
Koch, S., & Leary, D. E. (Eds.), (1985). 4 Century of psychology as science. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Larson, S. W. (2000). Toward a psychology of positive youth development. American Psychologist 55, 170–183.
LeDoux, J., & Armony, J. (1999). Can neurobiology tell us anything about human feelings? In Kahneman, D., Diener, E., Schwartz, N. (Eds.), Well-being: The foundations of hedonic psychology (pp. 489–499). New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
Lubinski, D., & Benbow. C. P. (2000). States of excellence. American Psychologist, 55, 137–150.
Maslow, A. (1971). The farthest reaches of human nature. New York: Viking
Massimini, F., & Delle Fave, A. (2000). Individual development in a bio-cultural perspective. American Psychologist, 55, 24–33.
Myers, D. G. (2000). The funds, friends, and faith of happy people. American Psychologist, 55, 56–67.
Peterson, C. (2000). The future of optimism. American Psychologist, 55, 44–55.
Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2000). Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development, and well-being. American Psychologist, 55, 68–78.
Salovey, P., Rothman, A. J., Detweiler, J. B., Steward, W. T. (2000). Emotional states and physical health. American Psychologist, 55, 110121.
Schwartz, B. (2000). Self-determination; the tyranny of freedom. American Psychologist, 55, 79–88.
Seligman, M. (1992). Helplessness: on depression, development, and death. New York: Freeman.
Seligman, M. (1994). What you can change & what you can’t. New York: Knopf.
Seligman, M., Schulman, P., DeRubeis, R., & Hollon, S. (1999). The prevention of depression and anxiety. Prevent Treat 2(Article 8). Retrieved from World Wide Web: http://joumals.apa.org/prevention/volume2/pre0020008a.html
Simonton, D. K. (2000). Creativity: Cognitive, personal, developmental, and social aspects. American Psychologist, 55, 151–158.
Smith, R. (1997). The human sciences. New York: Norton.
Taylor, S. E., Kerneny, Μ. E., Reed, G. M., Bower, J. E., & Gruenewald, T. L. (2000). Psychological resources, positive illusions, and health. American Psychologist, 55, 99–109.
Terman, L. M. (1939). The gifted student and his academic environment. School Society, 49, 65–73.
Terman, L. M., Buttenwieser, P., Ferguson, L. W., Johnson, W. B., & Wilson, D. P. (1938). Psychological factors in marital happiness. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Vaillant, G. E. (2000). Adaptive mental mechanisms: their role in a positive psychology. American Psychologist, 55, 89–98.
Watson, J. (1928). Psychological care of infant and child. New York: Norton.
Winner, E. (2000). The origins and ends of giftedness. American Psychologist, 55, 159–169.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2014 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Seligman, M.E.P., Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2014). Positive Psychology: An Introduction. In: Flow and the Foundations of Positive Psychology. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9088-8_18
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9088-8_18
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-017-9087-1
Online ISBN: 978-94-017-9088-8
eBook Packages: Behavioral ScienceBehavioral Science and Psychology (R0)