He starts his talk by providing a brief overview of the state of psychology. For more than 60 years psychology worked under the disease model (i.e. it focused on finding out what was wrong with people). The outcome of this period was the formation of the science of mental illness and the development of viable treatments for many psychological disorders. A conclusion of this period of endeavour was that psychology and psychiatry could actually make people less miserable. And yet this period of research and practice was not without penalty. Firstly, a downside of working under the disease model was that psychologists came to be seen as victimologists as they forgot the role of personal responsibility in shaping human behaviour. A second downside was that psychologists failed to explore avenues for improving the lives of normal people and those of high talent. A third downfall of this approach to psychology was a focus on reactive measures aimed at repairing damage, rather than positive intervention aimed at increasing personal happiness. These shortcomings encouraged a number of psychologists, including Seligman, to develop the field of positive psychology.

The three core aims of positive psychology are:

• A concern for strength, not just weakness.
• A concern for building the best in life, not just repairing the worst.
• A concern for increasing the fulfillment of normal people and of nurturing high talent, not just with healing pathology.

An outcome of the science of positive psychology is the development of a system for measuring, classifying, and identifying the root causes of happiness. A pertinent conclusion of the work in this field was the discovery that the single attribute common to all of the happiest people in society was that of extreme sociability. However, two caveats follow. Firstly, Seligman points out that this is correlational data and not causal data (i.e. the social behaviour is an outcome as opposed to a cause of happiness). The second caveat is that the happiness of highly social people is perhaps the most shallow of the three kinds of happiness that humans can experience.

Seligman goes on to explain these three kinds of happiness; what he refers to as the three “happy” lives. The classification exists as each of the three types of happiness can be experienced independently, and each kind of happiness can be fostered through different interventionist techniques. The three happy lives are:

1. The Pleasant Life. A life that maximizes positive emotion (pleasure) and the means to amplify it.
2. The Good Life. A life of engagement (wether it be work or family) where time appears to stand still.
3. The Meaningful life. A life of commitment to a cause greater than yourself.

The pleasant life has two key drawbacks. Firstly, it is approximately 50% heritable and hence not particularly modifiable (perhaps 15-20% through current techniques). Secondly, it habituates. In other words, the first taste is wonderful, but the pleasure quickly fades in repeat encounters.

Perhaps the best way to build the pleasant life is to work on planning and savoring periods of pleasure (e.g. planning and then executing your perfect evening). Another technique is to practice philanthropy (for it has been shown that the pleasure derived from philanthropic activity has staying power - it lasts).

The good life is characterized by “flow”. In contrast to the pleasant life which is concerned with the recognition of pleasure, the good life is set apart by a lack of feeling; in a state of flow, when time stops, you feel nothing. You are completely absorbed; at one with the moment. The way to build the good life is to understand your key strengths, and then to re-craft your life to use those strengths as often and as fully as possible.

In a similar fashion, the meaningful life is fostered by understanding your signature strengths, but in this instance, using them to belong to and in service of something larger than yourself.

Following consideration of these “three lives”, the obvious question is, how do these different forms of happiness affect overall life satisfaction? After considerable empirical research, a surprising discovery is that positive emotion (the pleasant life) has almost no contribution to total life satisfaction, the pursuit of flow has considerable impact, and the pursuit of meaning has the greatest impact. To quote Seligman:

Where pleasure matters is if you have both engagement, and you have meaning, then pleasure is the whipped cream and the cherry. Which is to say in the full life, the sum is greater than the parts if you have all three.

You can read more about Professor Seligman, and his work, at the Authentic Happiness web site.