Prof Seligman on PERMA

many of us believe that a good way of looking at what's north of zero north of indifference has five different elements and the first one is is what I whenever I talked to press I said please don't put the smiley face on the cover I was delighted that the advertiser today did not put the smiley face on it but it is the question of positive emotion and happiness rapture comfort joy and I'm very interested in those things the question is how to measure them and how to build it but positive psychology doesn't end there that the second ingredient of positive psychology is a engagement flow being one with the music so the house lights are up enough so I can see the first dozen rows and it looks to me that about 70% of you are one with the music now that you're wrapped up listening and what I'm saying the other 30% of you are having sexual fantasies by the way this is well documented so we're interested in the question of measuring flow measuring engagement and how in schools in the workplace in your love relationships and what you care about you can have more of that so we'll talk about that the third element of well-being to my way of thinking is positive relationships and the question can you have better relationships then you do now and it turns out there have been a couple of discoveries one of which I think will surprise you and techniques that children people in corporations can learn so we'll talk about the our relationships the fourth element and the notice these are different from smiley-faced elements is meaning and purpose in life and for me that's belonging to and serving something you think is bigger than you are and I'll tell you something about research on this and the question of Ken can one have more meaning and purpose in life and the fifth element the a is accomplishment up so perma is the acronym for this on and the two important things about perma if I was giving this talk 20 years ago and I'm going to suggest toward the end that the measurement of perma is a good state and national goal and if I'd suggested that 20 years ago people would have said well dollars are measurable but well-being is not so it turns out each of these things is measurable I have a website that's free it's called authentic happiness one word dot org and it talks about it it has on it the twenty leading tests of these variables of well-being and your what they're free you can take them if you want to know about two and a half million people have registered at the website and taken it so if you actually want to know what your sense of humor is relative to other australians you can find out actually sort of percentiles about this and then the dieting question occurs on it turns out each of these things is buildable and part of the reason I never worked I spent my life working on misery trauma helplessness depression suicide and part of the reason I didn't work on well-being is there was a study about 35 years ago which looked at lottery winners in Illinois and it basically measured the smiley face how happy they and it followed them it turns out when you win the lottery you get happier but about three months later you're back to the your usual curmudgeonly self and so I said well I didn't want to work on anything as transient is that what turns out that's not representative of this and positive emotion engagement relationships meaning and accomplishment are probably buildable in lasting ways

Channel: SAHMRI Wellbeing and Resilience Centre

Views: 54,451

Rating: 4.9311829 out of 5

Keywords: Martin Seligman, Wellbeing, PERMA, Resilience, SAHMRI, Wellbeing and Resilience Cntre

Id: jqqHUxzpfBI

Length: 4min 43sec (283 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 07 2015