4.4 Interview: Using Strengths

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From the course by University of Pennsylvania

Positive Psychology Specialization Project: Design Your Life for Well-being

215 ratings

University of Pennsylvania

Positive Psychology Specialization Project: Design Your Life for Well-being

215 ratings

Course 5 of 5 in the Specialization Foundations of Positive Psychology

You are encouraged to take the first four courses of the Foundations of Positive Psychology Specialization before starting this course and completing the Specialization Project. This course, taught by Dr. Martin E.P. Seligman brings all the key concepts from the first four courses to practice as you develop and test a new positive intervention for an audience of your choice. You identify opportunities in your daily life to increase the wellbeing by using knowledge you developed in the first four courses of the Specialization. In this final project, you evaluate the efficacy of a positive intervention based on subjective and objective measures. Then, you compare how empirical and non-empirically-based positive interventions can be applied to influence a person's wellbeing. Lastly, you reflect on how the fundamental elements of research methods are important in the everyday application of positive psychology. After completing all five courses, learners earn a certificate signed by Dr. Martin E.P. Seligman, Dr. James Pawelski, Dr. Angela Duckworth, Dr. Claire Robertson-Kraft and Dr. Karen Reivich.

From the lesson

Putting the Positive Intervention into Action

Module 4 has the learner put the positive intervention into action, assess and the share the results, and finally reduce the positive intervention to writing so it can be shared.

4.3 Aristotelian Balance2:00

4.4 Interview: Using Strengths7:59

4.5 Using Signature Strengths Instead of Weakness2:12

4.6 Using Signature Strengths over time to Increase Happiness0:56

Meet the Instructors

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

[MUSIC]

Let's talk about strengths, in particular the VIA Character,

VIA classification strengths and virtues.

Is there a particular strength that's been important to you in your life?

>> Definitely.

So I grew up with a stammer and I still stutter,

and so my top two strengths are [stutters] creativity and [stutters] bravery.

And I use [stutters] bravery all the time for instance when I'm

interviewed about something.

And I you know concerned if it's going to be a bad day where

I'm going to get stuck a lot.

And I used it all [stutters] growing up, but

those two things really define the work that I do now.

Because if your top strengths is coming up with big ideas or

trying to come up with big ideas, and then having [stutters] bravery than my

life is essentially a machine of coming up with big ideas and

trying them out on people and finding out if they suck or not.

>> [LAUGH] >> [LAUGH] That's what I do in my,

with my friends and at work all the time.

>> So can you tell us if, let's say that there was somebody who just took the VIA

survey for the first time, and it came out that one of their strengths was bravery.

And they want to use this more in their lives.

What tips might you give them?

How does one use bravery?

>> Yeah, what I think is important to find out what you’re brave about.

Bravery can mean a lot different things, depending on what your other strength are.

And so for me, it was more in the realm of ideas.

For a while my work did not allow me to that, and so one thing that I did is I

begin a blog where I would come up with hair-brained ideas and put them out there.

And it was a way for

me to use those strengths even when they weren't part of my work.

So I think the key, is when you find out that bravery is one of your strengths.

To find a way to express it via Blog or

if it's not in the realm of ideas, something else.

>> So one of the things that, or one of the ways I should say that positive

psychology is often misunderstood is it's thought to have only to do

with beautiful things, you know, sunny days, sandy beaches, and so forth.

And I think I hear you saying that in your life one of the reasons,

one of the ways that you have developed your strength is by facing adversity.

>> Definitely, yeah.

>> So what do you think is the difference between,

I mean a lot of people face adversity and it flattens them.

>> Yeah.

>> Why in your case did you, or what made the difference, or

what is about you, the choices that you make, that you have made,

that you continue to make, that puts you on the track to creativity and

bravery as opposed to being flattened?

>> I think it's hard for people to exhibit bravery if they

can't use it, or can't find a way to use it and

are always getting shut down for what their ideas are.

And I'm really grateful that I've had a number of bosses

that understood this about me and that nurtured that about me.

And that allowed me to run with an idea.

And the thing is that it's a numbers game.

Like you can, if your thing is coming up with ideas and trying to put them

out there, eight or nine out of ten of them are just going to be bad.

[LAUGH] And so being okay with that,

I think is a critical, critical thing.

But at the end of the day, I think what's useful for

people who have the strength is that, you can be accused

sometimes of being prideful, because who are you to speak

when other people might be more qualified than you, etc.

But for me it was useful to realize

that Plato, Marty Seligman.

[LAUGH] All of these people, at the end of the day

they are just people who are just putting out their ideas.

And I study with Marty, and not all of his ideas are great too.

So to have that modeled, as like, you can try out ideas and

they can be bad, and that's fine.

>> So Jare, we tend to identify bravery with the victor, right?

So the person who comes out on top is the one who is obviously brave.

But I think I hear you saying something different, I think I hear you saying

that you can actually not come out on top in this particular context, and

be the braver person.

>> Yes.

I have a loving relationship with failing.

Failing for me is a sign that I've tried.

The biggest fear that I have is to clam up and not try.

There's been times in my life when my stutter was worse and

I didn't share my ideas, because I was worried that I would look stupid,

or the ideas would be bad, or I couldn't explain them well.

And that was always way worse at the end of the day.

It made me feel way worse at the end of the day than I tried to share something,

to explain something, or to speak into someone's life.

I think a big way that some people are brave is the willingness

to be unconventional in how they encourage someone to really

like take them aside and be like “you are very good at this.”

I think good mentors are often brave, where they like step into that role and

they're not ashamed to really try to speak to someone's life.

So I think there's a number of ways to be brave and it often involves, and

I've done that before, and it wasn't received that well by the person.

[LAUGH] And you gotta roll with that, but so

many times it is really spoken to people in really met

them at a critical time and you just have to go for it.

>> Chris Peterson used to say that our signature strengths often times get us

into trouble.

Have your strengths gotten you into trouble?

>> Oh, yeah!

I mean, I've already said like I've,

[LAUGH] I've failed many times.

I just had a dissertation committee meeting,

and I was brave in how strongly I stated one of my

opinions about a domain of psychological literature.

It turns out I didn't really know what I was talking about.

And I got called out for it.

And that's fine, and then you're like, oh, I need to learn.

I need to learn more and you keep going.

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