Often identified as one of the founders of positive psychology, during his 1998 presidential address to the American Psychological Association Martin Seligman called on his colleagues to invest as much of their time and funding on researching human strengths as they were on human misery. Since this time his main mission has been to unite researchers and practitioners in the scientific study of human flourishing.
A leading authority in the fields of resilience, learned helplessness, depression, optimism and pessimism, he has written more than 275 scholarly publications and 20 books. Among his better-known works are Flourish, Authentic Happiness, Learned Optimism, The Optimistic Child, Helplessness, and Abnormal Psychology. Martin’s work has been featured on the front page of the New York Times, Time, Newsweek, U.S. News and World Report, the Reader’s Digest, Redbook, Parents, Fortune, Family Circle, USA Today and many other popular magazines.
Martin is the recipient of two Distinguished Scientific Contribution awards from the American Psychological Association – the Laurel Award of the American Association for Applied Psychology and Prevention and the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Society for Research in Psychopathology. He received both the American Psychological Society’s William James Fellow Award (for contribution to basic science) and the James McKeen Cattell Fellow Award (for the application of psychological knowledge).
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