Positive Psychology - An Action Plan for Happiness Philosophy

Prologue: In working on this post, I have developed a quick lesson in happiness that I deliver, like a guru, to people who ask about what I am learning by taking philosophy courses. Recent recipients of this lesson include my noontime shuttle bus driver and the manager of my bar-b-que spot. The lesson, which must be quick, goes like this: (1) everyone wants to be happy, although they don’t necessarily know or agree on what this means; (2) for the lesson I define it as having positive emotions, engaging in a life with meaning, accomplishing things, and, most importantly, having good relationships with others; (3) we obtain these by working actively to develop virtues, or excellence as a human being in the various spheres of our life, which have been recognized by civilizations for millennia as having value in themselves; (4) we do this by developing character traits based on our own personal character strengths; and (5), if you want to know what your character strengths are, take the Positive Psychology tests measuring them. Happiness philosophy requires engagement, actively working to achieve happiness. This engagement is itself a component of happiness. One does philosophy. So, engage.

But let me elaborate. Positive psychology is not pop psychology. It is a research and evidence-based branch of psychology. It is about what people choose for its own sake. It is important to note that the task of positive psychology is to describe what people actually do to achieve happiness or well-being; it is not prescriptive.

The father of the field of positive psychology is Martin Seligman, at the University of Pennsylvania. The goal of traditional psychology is relieving misery and uprooting the disabling conditions of life. In 1998 Dr. Seligman was elected president of the American Psychological Association and urged psychology to supplement this traditional goal with a new one: to explore what makes life worth living and building the enabling conditions of a life worth living. Out of this grew the field of Positive Psychology, a science seeking to understand positive emotion, build strength and virtue, and find guideposts for finding what Aristotle called the “good life.” 

Seligman developed the Authentic Happiness Theory, and set it out in his 2002 book, Authentic Happiness. The theory rests on three pillars; i.e., the study of positive emotion, the study of positive traits, and the study of positive institutions, such as democracy, strong families, and free inquiry that support the positive traits, which in turn support positive emotions. 

Seligman identifies momentary positive emotions as joy, flow, glee, pleasure, contentment, serenity, hope and ecstasy. Authentic happiness’s premise is that the quality of life is about more than the surplus of good moments over bad moments. It is about the meaning of those good and bad moments and the strengths and virtues they display; i.e., your character. He says that positive emotion alienated from the exercise of character leads to emptiness, to inauthenticity, and ultimately the gnawing feeling that we are just fidgeting until we die; the positive feeling that arises from the exercise of strengths and virtues is authentic happiness.

Jonathan Haidt explains the strengths and virtues aspect of positive psychology well in his book, The Happiness Hypothesis (2006). It is about the origins of positive psychology in ancient wisdom and applications of it today. His book draws on ten ancient ideas discovered by different civilizations and modern research to tell a story about human flourishing and the obstacles to well-being we put in our own paths. He begins the story with two ancient truths. The first is the foundation for his book. Our minds are divided into two parts, emotion and reason, which sometimes conflict. The idea that our emotions and our reactions to events are caused by the mental filters through which we see the world is the basis for the second ancient truth, which is, as the Buddha said, that our life is the creation of our mind. There is nothing is either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.

The ancient happiness hypothesis was that happiness comes from within, and cannot be obtained by making the world conform to your desires. Haidt’s happiness hypothesis is that happiness comes from within, and from without. We can increase our level of enduring happiness above our genetic set-point by addressing the circumstances of our life and through actions we choose voluntarily. Modern science (positive psychology) and ancient wisdom can help get the balance of within and without right.

The concept of the divided mind is central to all of Haidt’s thinking. He uses the metaphor of the elephant (emotion, instinctive reaction) and the rider (reason, conscious thought), and argues that we give too much importance to the rider. We are 90% elephant, and 10% rider. The elephant’s most important word choices are “like and dislike” and “approach or withdraw.” Lasting change in our lives can only come from retraining the elephant.

The most valuable aspect of Haidt’s book is that it develops in understandable language the evolutionary and psychological bases for his assertions. The elephant/rider metaphor is explained through discussion of neuroscience and psychological testing. The “nothing is either good or bad but thinking making it so” is discussed by explaining what psychologists call “negativity bias.” The same with the idea that we have a genetically determined set point for happiness, an “affective style.” Affect refers to the experience part of emotion; your affective style reflects the balance of power between your approach system and your withdrawal system; i.e., your elephant. 

You can change your affective style. Haidt quotes Marcus Aurelius: “the whole universe is change and life itself is but what you deem it”. He argues that this claim, that life is a creation of the mind, is not helpful until augmented by the theory of the divided self and an understanding of negativity bias and affective style. Once you understand these, you can take a more sophisticated approach to self-improvement, which is positive psychology.

In Authentic Happiness Seligman explains the importance of various emotions to happiness, and psychological tests developed by him and his associates that measure those emotions. You can take those tests at the Authentic Happiness website, www.authentichappiness.org. There are tests to measure your level of negativity bias and affective style, your general level of happiness, your level of satisfaction with your past, your feelings of gratitude and forgiveness, your level of optimism, and, most importantly, your personal character strengths.

Positive psychology is about meaning in moments of positive emotion. The strengths of character and virtues they display make up the quality of your life, your character, and are the route to authentic, enduring, happiness. Seligman and his associates identified six core virtues that are endorsed across every major religious, philosophical, and cultural tradition that capture the idea of good character: Wisdom/Knowledge, Courage, Love/Humanity, Temperance, and Spirituality/Transcendence. To be a virtuous person, a person of good character, is to display by act of will some or all of these virtues. 

There are different routes to each virtue, which Seligman calls strengths. A strength is a trait, a psychological characteristic, that can be seen in different circumstances over time. It is valued in its own right; it requires no further justification. Engaging in a strength produces a positive emotion in the doer. I can attest to this personally. One of my strengths (and one of Seligman’s) identified in the positive psychology test for strengths, is love of learning, which is a route to the virtue of Wisdom. By engaging this strength by studying philosophy this semester, I have experienced an increase in happiness.

Seligman and his associates identified 24 strengths associated with the six virtues. The VIA Survey of Character Strengths test identifies and ranks an individual's strengths. Seligman says that the top five identified are your signature strengths. They are character strengths that a person self-consciously owns, celebrates, and exercises every day; they are deeply characteristic of you. Here is his formulation for the good life: “using your signature strengths every day in the main realms of your life to bring about abundant gratification and authentic happiness.” He discusses how to do that in the final section of the book.

Seligman intended for positive psychology to be about “what we choose for its own sake.” We choose what makes us feel good, but we also choose to act for other reasons. He says that the goal of authentic happiness theory is happiness, which can be analyzed into three elements; i.e., positive emotion, engagement (flow), and meaning. Positive emotion is what we feel; i.e., pleasure, ecstasy, comfort, etc. He says that a life led around this element is the “pleasant life.” This is the goal of authentic happiness theory; i.e., happiness. Engagement is about flow, the loss of self-consciousness during an absorbing activity. This he calls an “engaged life.” Meaning, the “meaningful life,” is about belonging to and serving something bigger than the self.

Seligman later changed his mind about happiness, or positive emotion, being the goal of positive psychology. He concluded that the three elements of positive emotion, engagement, and meaning didn’t exhaust what we “choose for its own sake.” Two additional elements were added: accomplishment/achievement and positive relationships. He developed the evolved Well-Being Theory, and presented it in his 2011 book Flourish. The goal of well-being theory is not happiness, but to increase the amount of flourishing in one’s own life and on the planet, by exploring what makes life worth living and building the conditions of a life worth living. Well-being theory holds that well-being is not a “thing” like happiness, but a construct of five elements that people choose for their own sake.

Each element contributes to well-being, is pursued for its own sake, and can be measured independently of the other elements. Positive emotion remains the cornerstone of well-being theory, but now it is just an element of well-being rather than the goal. In adding accomplishment as an element of well-being, Seligman was recognizing that people seek achievement for its own sake; he refers to it as the “achieving life.” He notes that the addition of accomplishment emphasizes that the task of positive psychology is descriptive. He is not endorsing the “achieving life” or suggesting that you should make that a goal, but only noting that some people do. 

The final element, positive relationships, is perhaps the most important. Seligman notes that in their research they have found that doing an act of kindness produces the single most reliable momentary increase in well-being of any exercise they have tested. And recall the Harvard 75-year study showing that good relationships keep us happier and healthier, supporting the Epicurean view of the importance of friendship. Well-being has subjective and objective elements. It is a combination of feeling good and actually having meaning, good relationships, and accomplishments in your life. This leads to a life that is flourishing. 

A full understanding of positive psychology requires reading Authentic Happiness, Flourish, and The Happiness Hypothesis, but if one is interested in seeing how today’s psychology supplements the lessons of Aristotle, Epicurus, and Epictetus, it is worth the effort. Positive psychology expresses Positive Philosophy, i.e., the Philosophy of Happiness, and provides a plan of action. If you, as philosophy students, choose to read these books, you are sure to appreciate where they are coming from.

Links to comments on other posts: 

The Happiness Myth - Paivi
Art and Happiness - Martin