Learned Optimism

Optimism improves quality of life and can be learned, Martin E. P. Seligman argues, citing more than two decades of clinical research. He reached the idea through lab studies of learned helplessness and explains it through explanatory style: whether bad events seem permanent or temporary, pervasive or limited, self-caused or external. Simple techniques help readers break a give-up habit and build a more constructive inner dialogue, which Seligman links to relief from depression, a stronger immune system and greater happiness. He also covers encouraging optimism in children, at school and at work. Marian Sandmaier, reviewing it in The New York Times Book Review, wrote that it lifted her out of a funk.

Positive Education founder Shaen Yeo, a speaker in the field, called it the turning point that steered psychology toward human flourishing, and inspiring material.