The Martin E.P. Seligman Award recognizes excellence in dissertation research in the emerging field of positive psychology. Underwritten by the John Templeton Foundation since 1999 and supported by the American Psychological Association, the award consists of $1000 cash grant and travel expenses to the Positive Psychology Summit in Washington D.C. where the presentation is made each year.

Referred to as the founder of the positive psychology movement, Martin Seligman recalls spending 30 years of his career studying negative emotion and mental weakness caused by such things as illness, isolation, abuse and war. Human strengths and virtues were seen as derivative, defensive or even illusionary. After being exposed to the work of psychologist Barbara Fredrickson and others who argued that positive emotion can be instrumental in making human beings think better and achieve important aims, Dr. Seligman's entire professional orientation began to shift, and so began the building of the positive psychology movement. With it came the reversal of a 50 year emphasis on illness and damage, making room for practitioners to also recognize the effects of strengths and positive emotion on human potential.

Currently the Fox Leadership Professor of Psychology in the Department of Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Seligman has contributed fifteen books and over 150 articles to this growing field of study. Among his better-known works are Learned Optimism (Knopf, 1991), What You Can Change & What You Can't (Knopf, 1993), The Optimistic Child (Houghton Mifflin, 1995), Helplessness (Freeman, 1975, 1993) and Abnormal Psychology (Norton, 1982, 1988, 1995, with David Rosenhan).

“Rather than being consumed with problems
and limitations, we can rise above them”

— Sir John Templeton

For more information:
John Templeton Foundation
Communications Department (Seligman Award)
300 Conshohocken State Road, Suite 500
West Conshohocken, PA 19428
USA
610-941-2828 tel.
610-825-1730 fax
communications@templeton.org
www.templeton.org/seligmanaward

 

Award History

2007      Jason Berman (postdoctoral fellow at University of California—San Diego): His research investigated the relationship between having one's "signature strengths" (virtuous traits and character strengths) as highly accessible within their self-concept, and the person's psychological well-being.

2006      Paule Miquelon (McGill University, Montreal, Quebec): Her research closely examines how both hedonism (pleasure) and eudemonism (purposeful life engagement) relate to physical health.
2005      Patricia Bruinicks (Hendrix College, Conway, Arkansas): Her research attempts to define hope by distinguishing it from optimism and other related states, and to measure hope by creating an individual difference measure based on that definition.
2004      Genevieve A. Mageau (McGill University, Montreal Quebec): Her research explores harmonious versus obsessive passions, and shows that the way people engage in activities may influence the extent to which they derive positive affect from them.
2003      Margaret J. Shih (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI): Her research attempted to show how an emphasis on one's positive identities can boost performance on academic tasks.

More Past Seligman Award Winners

Prizes