Authentic Happiness
by Martin E P Seligman
Seligman did experiments shocking dogs and noticed that two or three out of every ten dogs wouldn’t just lie back and be shocked, they would try and escape. And instead of focusing on the helpless ones, he looked instead at the resilient ones and set out to find out what made them resilient. What is good about this book is that it puts together lots of his work in a way that is absolutely readable. It’s also very practical – it tells you why happiness matters, what you can do about it, and how to go about it.
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“I like it because I read Seligman’s work way back when I was a psychology student. He was the man who gave us ‘learned helplessness’ – why men don’t learn how to use washing machines. He did experiments shocking dogs and noticed that two or three out of every ten dogs wouldn’t just lie back and be shocked, they would try to escape. And instead of focusing on the helpless ones, he looked instead at the resilient ones, and set out to find out what made them resilient. What is good about this book is that it puts together lots of his work, as well as lots of other psychologists’ work, in a way that is absolutely readable. It’s also very practical – it tells you why happiness matters, what you can do about it, and how to go about it.” Read more...
The best books on Happiness at Work
Jessica Pryce-Jones, Psychologist
