1/15/2014.
MPA
Newsletter December 2013
Notes
of a Psychology Watcher
Steven
J. Ceresnie, Ph.D.
To Teach is to Learn Twice:
A few years after I began teaching, it
occurred to me that being a teacher - not being a student - provides the best
education. "To teach is to learn twice," wrote Joubert, in a
simple-sounding maxim that could have several different meanings. It could mean
that one first learns when getting up the material one is about to teach and
then tests and relearns it in the actual teaching. It could mean that being a
teacher offers one a fine chance of a second draft of one's inevitable
inadequate initial education. It could mean that learning, like certain kinds
of love, is better the second time around. It could mean that we are not ready
for education, at any rate of the kind that leads to wisdom, until we are
sixty, or seventy, or beyond. I favor this last interpretation, for it accounts
for the strange feeling that I have had every year of my adult life, which is
that only twelve months ago I was really quite stupid.
---
Joseph Epstein
Teaching and Learning Positive
Psychology: Other People Matter
In 2006, the MPA Program Committee invited Dr.
Christopher Peterson (1950 – 2012) to talk at Madonna University on the emerging
field of Positive Psychology. Dr. Peterson (1950 – 2012), was the Arthur F.
Thurnau professor of psychology and former chair of the clinical psychology at
University of Michigan. Dr. Peterson was well-known for his psychological
research in health and optimism, learned helplessness, and in the
classification and measurement of human strengths and abilities. He won the
2010 Golden Apple Award – the most prestigious teaching award at the University
of Michigan.
Back to 2006 at Madonna University, when
Dr. Peterson walked up to the podium to give his lecture at the MPA conference,
he said, “I have heard of Madonna --- but I didn’t know she had a college.”
Dr. Peterson’s wit, humanity and
wisdom runs through his teaching, research, and writings.
To get some sense of Dr. Peterson’s
values, scientific sense, and virtues, I recommend you turn to two of his
elegant books:
Peterson,
Christopher. A Primer in Positive Psychology.
New York: Oxford University Press,
2006.
Peterson,
Christopher. Pursuing the Good Life. 100
Reflections on Positive Psychology. New York: Oxford University Press, 2013.
Chris dedicates A Primer in Positive Psychology to his parents “with love and
gratitude…who taught me to love learning, to work hard, and to get along with
others.”
His book starts to fill in the periodic table of
elements that makes up the science of positive psychology under the following
chapter headings:
Pleasure and Positive Experience
Happiness
Positive Thinking
Character Strengths
Values
Interests, Abilities, and Accomplishments
Wellness
Positive Interpersonal Relationships
Enabling Institutions
The Future of Positive Psychology
Each chapter provides guidelines from research
findings about how to live when you are alive --- deepening our sense of
pleasure, engagement, and meaning.
Since 2008, Chris has written a blog
titled “The Good Life,” for the Psychology
Today Web site, discussing the elements of what makes life worth living.
Chris writes that his readers have told him they like blogs that have research
findings, are terse, sprinkled with a bit of humor, and offer practical
implications about pursuing the good life. The 100 reflections are taken from
Chris’ Psychology Today blog, revised
and updated for this book.
There are eleven broad categories of
reflections:
Part I: Positive
Psychology and the Good Life
Part II: Positive
Emotions and Experiences
Part III: Positive Traits and Talents
Part IV: Positive
Relationships
Part V: Enabling
Institutions: Families
Part VI: Enabling
Institutions: Workplaces
Part VII: Enabling Institutions:
Schools
Part VIII: Enabling Institutions:
Sports
Part IX: Enabling
Institutions: Geographical Places
Part X: Rants
Part XI: Pursuing
the Good Life
In the first reflection, Dr. Peterson
lists what we have learned in recent years about the psychological good life (I
quote):
Most people are
happy.
Happiness is a
cause of good things in life and not simply along for the happy ride.
People who are
satisfied with life eventually have even more reason to be satisfied, because
happiness leads to desirable outcomes at school and work, to fulfilling social
relationships, and even to good health and long life.
Most people are
resilient.
Happiness,
strengths of character, and good social relationships are buffers against the
damaging effects of disappointments and setbacks.
Crisis reveals
character.
Other people
matter mightily if we want to understand what makes life most worth living.
Religion matters.
Work matters as
well if it engages the worker and provides meaning and purpose.
Money makes an
ever-diminishing contribution to well-being, but money can buy happiness if it
is spent on other people.
As a route to a
satisfying life, eudemonia trumps hedonism.
The ‘heart’
matters more than the ‘head.’ Schools explicitly teach critical thinking; they
should also teach unconditional caring.
Good days have
common features: feeling autonomous,
competent, and connected to others.
The good life can
be taught.
In another reflection, Chris asks the question: “Is positive psychology bullshit?” (I meet
people who ask the same question but leave out “positive”). To answer, he
quotes from Harry Frankfort’s (2005) essay “On Bullshit.” Frankfort defines bullshit not as a lie but
as an indifference to truth. Because Positive Psychology is based on research
published in peer-reviewed journals, this scientific focus exempts it from the BS
category. Chris is quick to point out we
should all develop a BS detector for anyone who promises the secret to
happiness or bliss in six easy steps.
The following are some of reflection
titles, quotes, and delightful digressions, aimed to lift our spirits:
Fast Food and Impatience
There Are No Saints
Resilience
Other People Matter
“I say that in
every positive psychology lecture I give and every positive psychology workshop
I conduct. It sounds like a bumper sticker slogan, but it is actually a good
summary of what positive psychology research has should about the good life
broadly construed. It is in the company of others that we often experience
pleasure and certainly how we best savor its aftermath.”
--- Christopher
Peterson
Bibliography
Frankfurt, H.G. On bullshit. Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005.
Peterson, Christopher. A Primer in Positive Psychology. New
York: Oxford University Press, 2006.
Peterson, Christopher. Pursuing the Good Life. 100 Reflections on
Positive Psychology. New York:
Oxford University Press, 2013
