Authentic Happiness

A groundbreaking look at how readers can improve the world around them and achieve new and lasting levels of authentic contentment and joy.

Martin E. P. Seligman is the most influential psychologist in the world (Academic Influence) and a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, where he directs the Positive Psychology Center. A former president of the American Psychological Association, he earned his BA in philosophy from Princeton and his PhD in psychology from Penn, and holds ten honorary doctorates. His research—from learned helplessness to learned optimism to prospection—has reshaped how science understands human well-being. He is the author of more than thirty books, including Flourish, Authentic Happiness, The Hope Circuit, and Tomorrowmind.

Contents Preface Part I: Positive Emotion 1. Positive Feeling and Positive Character 2. How Psychology Lost Its Way and I Found Mine 3. Why Bother to Be Happy? 4. Can You Make Yourself Lastingly Happier? 5. Satisfaction about the Past 6. Optimism about the Future 7. Happiness in the Present Part II: Strength and Virtue 8. Renewing Strength and Virtue 9. Your Signature Strengths Part III: In the Mansions of Life 10. Work and Personal Satisfaction 11. Love 12. Raising Children 13. Reprise and Summary 14. Meaning and Purpose Appendix: Terminology and Theory Acknowledgments Endnotes Index