There was no lecture this week so today’s blog will just focus on the material covered in the tutorial. This week’s tutorial covered content that I could use in my text book chapter Motivation and Positive Thinking. What interested me the most this week was the book that James brought to class called ‘Learned Optimism’ by Martin E. P. Seligman. Seligman is a positive psychologist who introduced new life into psychology. Instead of focusing on the negative, he brought about the idea of Positive Psychology. His two main contributions are that of learned optimism and goal setting. A few of his works are available online on Google Books. One of these that I have come across is the The Science of Optimism and Hope which builds on the research of the cognitive foundations for effective living. It focuses on the qualities within a person that can improve well-being through optimism and hope. I have not yet looked over it in full, but I am sure that Seligman’s research and work, will contribute significantly to my text book chapter, as he is renowned for his work within positive psychology.
Templeton, the man who has sponsored Seligman to write this book in particular, discusses Seligman's outlook on life, which is very similar to the teachings of the Secret which I mentioned in Week 1.
“What we look for in life, good or evil, problems or solutions, a measure of mental health is the disposition to find good everywhere and we can improve our lives by changing our mindset. He argues that the social sciences can teach us about the merits of these virtues and how to live more satisfying productive fulfilling lives” (Templeton as cited in Seligman, 2000, pp. 3).
While looking further into Seligman’s work I came across one of his videos on You-Tube and he calls himself ‘happierdotcom’ and actually has a wide variety of videos on there. In these he discusses the definition of Positive Psychology, how this can be used in therapy and his view on optimism and the difference between an optimistic and pessimistic person, I have a attached a link to this particular video here (Dr. Seligman's Definition of Optimism).
Focusing more on the tutorial material in particular, we completed the ‘Test Your Own Optimism’ test which was taken from Seligman’s (1998) book Learned Optimism. It measured pessimism and optimism. According the class’s results, everyone in the class was very pessimistic. As we know, optimism predicts life satisfaction, well being, work productivity and health, so maybe everyone in our class has no hope! However optimism is learned and we can change it. There was some argument in class as to whether the test actually measured these constructs properly as the choice of answers was limited and appeared to not differentiate between the two. For example question 28 asks:
‘Your boss gives you too little time in which to finish a project, but you get it finished anyway.’
a. I am good at my job
b. I am an efficient person (Seligman, 1998).
Both answers in this question appear to be more positive in nature and it could be argued that they do not necessarily focus on the construct of pessimism, sparking concern as to whether it is an appropriate measure to have included.
In one of Seligman’s You-Tube videos however he talks about The Happiness Test, which is similar to this one which we completed. Despite people being upset and thinking that their results are wrong, it could mean that everyone in the class, including myself who scored a whole -1, are actually not overly optimistic in our thinking patterns. Seligman states that “Happiness and strengths tests tell you where you are relative to people like you and how much room there is for improvement" (Seligman, 2009 b). Maybe it would be a better option in the future for us to take a strengths test which Seligman refers to in his video. A strengths test will tell us our 5 highest strengths and in doing so will outline what we need do more of and what we should use in everyday situations to become more optimistic (Seligman, 2009 b). This type of test would be more helpful as it would provide our strengths and how to improve them, rather than just telling us we are pessimistic.
I found this tutorial and the material I have researched since very interesting and applicable to my text book chapter. I am happy that James introduced me to Seligman’s work as this will really contribute to my text book chapter and my ideas.
References
Seligman, M. E. P. (1998). Learned optimism. New York, NY: Pocket Books.
Seligman, M. E. P. (2000). The science of optimism and hope. Retreived from http://books.google.com.au/books?hl=en&lr=&id=ISezR6pODo8C&oi=fnd&pg=PA415&dq=seligman+positive+psychology&ots=D-uHmj4cjH&sig=7jJcJ-7idDTOY7x0iLjbPKp8Wqg#v=onepage&q=seligman%20positive%20psychology&f=false
Seligman, M. E. P. (2009, October 4). Dr seligman's definition of optimism [Video podcast]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-rMuJW-UKg&feature=related
Seligman, M. E. P. (2009, October 4). The happiness test [Video podcast]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3dSuTA0QPbKag%26feature%3drelated&ei=UTF-8&fr=hp-pvnb
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