Positive Psychology: Antonio Damasio

Saturday, July 3, 2010

Antonio Damasio

Antonio Damasio - Antonio Damasio is David Dornsife Professor of Neuroscience and Director of the Brain and Creativity Institute at the University of Southern California; he is also an adjunct professor at the Salk Institute. Damasio has made seminal contributions to the understanding of how the brain processes memory, language, emotions, and decisions. He has written several best-selling books, including Looking for Spinoza: Joy, Sorrow, and the Feeling Brain (Harcourt Trade Publishers, 2003) and Descartesâ€™ Error: Emotion, Reason and the Human Brain (G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1994). Damasio has received many awards, including the 2005 Asturias Prize in Science and Technology and the 2004 Signoret Prize. Damasio is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Positive Psychology given credence by Academia:

Positive psychology is the scientific study of the strengths and virtues that enable individuals and communities to thrive.

Commentators on the subject Martin Seligman and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, note that:

"The field of positive psychology at the subjective level is about valued subjective experiences: well-being, contentment, and satisfaction (in the past); hope and optimism (for the future); and flow and happiness (in the present).

At the individual level, it is about positive individual traits: the capacity for love and vocation, courage, interpersonal skill, aesthetic sensibility, perseverance, forgiveness, originality, future mindedness, spirituality, high talent, and wisdom.

At the group level, it is about the civic virtues and the institutions that move individuals toward better citizenship: responsibility, nurturance, altruism, civility, moderation,tolerance, and work ethic."