Seligman Slams Schoch (and Vernon)!

Hello Fellow Hedonists,

Martin Seligman, the founding father of positive psychology, slammed Mark Vernons ridiculous report on Robert Schochs ludicrous inaugural lecture (based on his book) in the Guardian Unlimited. Here it is:

"Mark Vernon (2/2/2008), reporting a lecture by Richard Schoch, asks what has Positive Psychology taught us in the ten years since its inception. “In three words, not a lot - especially when compared with the insights buried in the ancient wisdom on the good life.” Perhaps Mr. Vernon and Mr. Schoch knew the following, but science did not know these things until recently, and the ancients certainly did not:

- Optimistic people are much less likely to die of heart attacks than pessimists, controlling for all known physical factors

- Women who display genuine (Duchenne) smiles to the photographer at age eighteen go on to have fewer divorces and more marital satisfaction than those who display fake smiles

- Externalities (e.g., weather, money, health, marriage, religion) totaled together account for no more than 15% of the variance in life satisfaction.

- Several specific exercises (www.reflectivehappiness.com) produce increases in happiness and decreases in depression six months later while other plausible exercises are mere placebos.

- The pursuit of meaning and engagement are much more predictive of life satisfaction than the pursuit of pleasure.

- Economically flourishing corporate teams have a ratio of at least 2.9 to1 of positive statements to negative statements in business meetings, whereas stagnating teams have a much lower ratio; flourishing marriages, however, require a ratio of at least 5:1

- Self-discipline is twice as good a predictor of high school grades as IQ

- Learning optimism at ages 10-12 halves the rate of depression as these schoolchildren go through puberty

- Happy teenagers go on to earn very substantially more income fifteen years later than less happy teenagers, equating for income, grades, and other obvious factors

- How you respond to good events that happen to your spouse is a better predictor of future love and commitment than how you respond to bad events.

- People experience more “flow” at work than at home.

More egregiously, Vernon tells us “the fundamental error of the science - and the reason why so many of its recommendations sound trivial or just confused - is the assumption that happiness is the same as positive emotion.” If Vernon had bothered to crack Authentic Happiness (2002), the first major book in Positive Psychology, he would have found that its foundation is the denial that happiness is the same as positive emotion. Positive Psychology is the study of positive emotion and engagement and meaning; how to measure them rigorously and how to reliably build them."

Good job, Marty! Stick to Shakespeare, Schoch! I bet Vernon soiled his underoos!

                                                                                       Excelsior!

                                                                                       C.L.Sosis

Comments

[Clifford Sosis]

Hello Mark,

Psychologists, such as Mihály Csíkszentmihályi, seem to measure meaning and engagement independently of positive affect successfully. So your comments seem ill-informed. Can you blame Seligman and other positive psychologists that meaning, engagement and positive affect tend to accompany each other? How do you suggest we measure meaning and engagement?

The ancients knew a thing or two, but we should acknowledge that they didn't know everything we know now. When they were right, it was on the basis of empirical evidence, but this body of evidence almost entirely consisted of common sense and anecdotes, which is why alot of the things they believed were simply false. They came to inaccurate, but intuitively plausible conclusions, conclusions we might be tempted to accept today. We must test these conclusions. The intuitive conclusions that are correct, coincidentally, will be supported by good science. The false, though intuitive conclusions, will be rejected.

Excelsior!
C.L.Sosis.

[Mal]

Vernon said: "More taxes supposedly works because it incentivises us to work less - though paradoxically, it also turns out that happier people actually work more, because they want fewer days off."

I'm very doubtful this is true about all 'happier people'. They may want to spend more time with the grandkids. Need to do some Seligmanian statistic crunching?

Also, we are working more, and are much wealthier, than fifty years ago. But no happier. So, assuming wealth increased our happiness, might it not be working more that is the problem?

[Mark Vernon]

Hi -

As it happens I have 'bothered to crack' Authentic Happiness, and I suppose another way of putting the complaint is that though they say happiness is not just positive emotion but meaning and engagement, the so-called measurements of meaning and engagement just let positive emotion in again through the back door. That's because meaning and value aren't very amenable to measurement and so it is positive emotion you end up measuring.

Incidentally, I also think it's quite likely the ancients did know the things Seligman lists, though they would have expressed them differently. There was, for example, a huge debate about the role that luck played in the good life - externalities you might say. And the whole Athenian education system was geared towards the crucial age of 10-12.

Mark