Brian Johnson explains how Positive Psychology shifted focus from mental illness to happiness and meaning. Researchers identified six core virtues—wisdom, courage, love, justice, temperance, and spirituality—and found that happiness comes from living them out. The VIA strengths test at authentichappiness.com helps you find yours.
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Wisdom, courage, love, justice, temperance, and spirituality.
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Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to a chapter from A Philosopher's Notes. Happiness Equals Virtues and Inaction Quick fact in the 20th century, for every 100 articles psychologists published on negative aspects of human behavior stuff like depression, schizophrenia, etc. There was only one article published on the positive stuff. Basically, we figured out how to take someone from negative 10 to negative 5 to 0 through therapy and psychopharmacology. But but we were pretty much in the dark on how to scientifically help someone go from 0 to 5 to 10 and beyond. To address this issue in the year 2000, Martin Seligman and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi created a new movement called Positive Psychology that promised to identify the scientific underpinnings of how we can live with more happiness, meaning, and all that good stuff. G Guess where they started? They went old school, sifting through all the classic wisdom texts where they saw the same ideas repeated again and again, although they differ on the details. These classics, from the Bible to the Bhagavad Gita to the Bushido Samurai code, say the same. Live with virtue. In fact, the researchers identified a constellation of six core virtues wisdom, courage, love, justice, temperance, and spirituality. They set out to scientifically establish that when we put these virtues in action, we'll live with more happiness, meaning and mojo. The equation is simple. Happiness equals virtues in action. P.S. while we're on the subject of virtues in action, check out authentichappiness.com and join a million other peeps who have taken their Via Character Strengths test. It's an awesome way to identify your scientifically valid top virtues in action, AKA strengths so you can start engaging them more often in your day to day life. As Martin Seligman, the author of Authentic Happiness and the godfather of the Positive Psychology movement, tells us, one of the keys to happiness is simple. Use your strengths often, do so in service to something bigger than yourself, and you'll be blessed with abundant happiness and a life filled with meaning and all that goodness to boot. Good times.
