“Learn how to be happy!” We owe this advice to them, to those great positive psychologists who discovered that happiness can be learned, who conduct their several researches in order to provide us with more practical guidelines for living a satisfied, fulfilling life. Let us see who we are talking about:
Martin Seligman
Seligman is regarded as the father of positive psychology, he is a psychologist and university professor recognized all over the world, director of the Positive Psychology Center at the University of Pennsylvania. His work ranges from positive psychology and the study of helplessness, depression, optimism and pessimism, and flexibility.
Ed Diener
dward Diener, or Mr. Happiness, is an American psychology professor and author. In the past three decades his research has played a defining role in the science of happiness. Coiner of the term “subjective well-being,” his studies have focused on how people value their well-being (quantifying well-being, influence of personality types, income, and cultural impacts).
Edward Diener is an established positive psychologist, proven by the fact that GOOGLE currently lists Mr. Happiness in 98,000 hits.
Mihály Csíkszentmihályi
Mihály Csíkszentmihályi, Széchenyi award-winning psychologist’s areas of expertise are developmental and educational psychology as well as the study of creativity and talent. His most widely known work is Flow, for the theory of which he gathered data for over two decades. The result of his scientific work is the theory of the optimal experience. Professor Csíkszentmihályi was head of the Institute of Psychology at the University of Chicago. Prior to Flow, he wrote several worldwide bestsellers.
Barbara Fredrickson
Having earned her Ph.D. from Stanford University, Fredrickson is currently professor of psychology at the University of North Carolina, head of Positive Emotions Psychology Lab. She is associated with the theory of Broaden and Build, according to which positive emotions—as opposed to negative ones—increase a person’s capacity for attention and create new behavioral and thought patterns. Prompted by a richer range of behaviors we learn new skills and broaden our resources.
Sonja Lyubomirsky
Sonja Lyubomirsky graduated from Harvard as a psychology major, then earned her Ph.D. from Stanford University, currently lecturing at the Institute of Psychology at the University of California. Her major area of research is happiness, and her scientific work has been recognized through several professional prizes.
In her major work, The How of Happiness, she collected practical guidelines and methods for maintaining everyday happiness. Her world-famous book was based on large-scale research: Sonja and her team undertook to compare several hundreds of experiments where patients were attempted to be cheered up by various method. Analyzing data from 250,000 participants, she found that happiness has serious advantages in addition to feeling good.