A Psychology of Human Strengths: Fundamental Questions and Future Directions for a Positive Psychology

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Back to table of contents Previous article Next article Book Forum: PsychologyFull AccessA Psychology of Human Strengths: Fundamental Questions and Future Directions for a Positive PsychologyEDWARD M. OPTON Jr., Ph.D., J.D., EDWARD M. OPTON Jr.Search for more papers by this author, Ph.D., J.D., Berkeley, Calif.Published Online:1 Aug 2004https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.ajp.161.8.1516AboutSectionsPDF/EPUB ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack Citations ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InEmail Positive psychology is the science of human strengths: energy, optimism, perseverance, kindness, humor, enthusiasm, ingenuity, and more. The 23 papers collected in the volume under review are the product of a 1999 conference of scholars in this burgeoning branch of psychology.The book should have been of great interest, especially to psychotherapists. The 44 authors include leading researchers, among them Daniel Kahneman, winner of a Nobel Prize, and Martin E.P. Seligman, a president of the American Psychological Association and the most productive of the positive psychologists. Yet this book, like many conference-based books, is a disappointment destined to slumber unread on library shelves. Why postconference books so often are jinxed is a question for the sociologists of academia. The symptoms common to such efforts and apparent here include too sparing an application of the editors’ blue pencil, leaving the reader to slog through sentences, paragraphs, and even entire chapters that are banal, tautological, redundant, or indecipherable.The best chapters are those by Seligman and Christopher Peterson, by Dale Griffin and Daniel Kahneman, and by Alice Isen. The last of these is a synthesis of dozens of research reports by Isen and her students and colleagues, all adding up to the conclusion that positive emotions, even mild positive emotions such as are induced by a smile or a small gift, have a substantial effect on cognition. People who feel better think smarter and act more constructively. The direction of the effect is no surprise; its strength—at least in the laboratory—is.On the whole, though, readers who want to introduce themselves to the potential of positive psychology will do better elsewhere—with the excellent special issue of the American Psychologist edited by Seligman and Cikszentmihaly devoted entirely to the subject (January 2000) or the cumbersome but encyclopedic Handbook of Positive Psychology(1), for example.Edited by Lisa G. Aspinwall, Ph.D., and Ursula M. Staudinger, Ph.D. Washington, D.C., American Psychological Association, 2003, 369 pp., $49.95.Reference1. Snyder CR, Lopez SJ (eds): Handbook of Positive Psychology. New York, Oxford University Press, 2002Google Scholar FiguresReferencesCited byDetailsCited ByA Modest Festschrift and Insider Perspective on Beatrice Wright’s Contributions to Rehabilitation Theory and Practice8 November 2010 | Rehabilitation Counseling Bulletin, Vol. 54, No. 2 Volume 161Issue 8 August 2004Pages 1516-1516 Metrics PDF download History Published online 1 August 2004 Published in print 1 August 2004