Stage 2: The Leap from Research to Policy in the United Kingdom

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From the course by University of Pennsylvania

Positive Psychology: Martin E. P. Seligman’s Visionary Science

1419 ratings

University of Pennsylvania

Positive Psychology: Martin E. P. Seligman’s Visionary Science

1419 ratings

Course 1 of 5 in the Specialization Foundations of Positive Psychology

Dr. Martin E.P. Seligman—renowned worldwide as the “father of Positive Psychology”—has led visionary leaps in the scientific research, empirical data and personal understandings of human flourishing. This course explores the past, present and future of positive psychology as a journey through the key scientific leaps led by Dr. Seligman and his colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania's Positive Psychology Center and Master of Applied Positive Psychology program. There are no prerequisites.

From the lesson

The Skills of Well-being Can Be Learned, Taught, and Transformative

In this module, Dr. Martin Seligman shares the great leaps in scientific understanding that created the foundation for a science of well-being at individual, communal, and global levels.

Stage 1: Teaching Skills for Wellbeing Proactively Can Prevent Anxiety and Depression in Children8:49

Stage 2: The Leap from Research to Policy in the United Kingdom3:15

Stage 3: The Science of Grit and a New Understanding: How to Foster Flourishing in Schools3:11

Meet the Instructors

Martin E.P. Seligman, Ph.D.
Zellerbach Family Professor of Psychology & Director, Positive Psychology Center
Positive Psychology Center

[MUSIC]

Phase two happens in the back streets of Glasgow.

I'm walking with a man named Richard Layard, he's now Sir Richard Layard.

And this is about the year 1998 or something we're taking a break from

lecturing in Glasgow and let me tell you a little bit about Richard.

In medieval ministries there was a position called the abbot,

and what the abbot was, was the bridge between the sacred and the secular.

So the abbot both sorted out the monks, but dealt with the secular powers.

Well Richard Layard is an abbot.

So Richard is a world-class economist from London School of

Economics who writes on well being, but

he also held the unemployment portfolio during the Blair administration.

He was one the leaders of the Labour Party, and I had talked,

at the time I'm about to discuss, Richard had raised

a great deal of money in Parliament to bring cognitive therapy to Britain.

And in fact, I saw him just a few weeks ago.

He'd raised a total of 1.6 billion pounds sterling to train 10,000 cognitive

therapists, which is now the way therapy for depression is done in Britain.

So, Richard says to me as we walk to Glasgow, Marty I'm

going to bring the Penn prevention program to the school of England.

So, I said to Richard, yeah, I think the data

are just about right to do a small pilot study in Liverpool.

And Richard says to me, you just don't get it Marty, do you?

You think that public policy,

the incorporation of scientific findings into government,

occurs when the data mounts and mounts and mounts until it becomes irresistible.

And Richard said, in my 40 years in politics, I've never seen such a case.

Government adopts science when the data are sufficient and

the political will is present.

Your data are sufficient, and the political will exists in Britain and

I'm taking positive psychology,

resilience, Penn prevention to the schools of England.

And indeed, he did that.

And I would estimate that by now

thousands of British teachers have been trained in positive education and

tens of thousands of British students have been taught.

So that's the second act in the growth of positive education.

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