Ten insights on human well-being and potential from two giants we sadly lost in 2021: Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Ed Diener

Many of us suffered terrible losses in 2021. In the field of positive psychology, we lost two of our most influential scholars: Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Ed Diener. In their honor, I’d like to remember and appreciate the contributions they made to the understanding of human flourishing. Csikszentmihalyi was born in 1934 in what today is Hungary. He grew up curious and spirited, but his world changed with the outbreak of World War II and the instability that followed. After attending a lecture by Carl Jung as a young adult, he left for the United States and eventually landed at the University of Chicago, setting out to understand why people are the way that they are. As a student at Claremont Graduate University, I studied with Csikszentmihalyi. With Martin Seligman, Csikszentmihalyi formalized the idea of a field of study that focused on human potential instead of human limitations: positive psychology. But what I was left with after my years studying with him, besides immense awe at his accomplishments, was his unending thirst for knowledge—and how he saw his place as contributing to ideas that could help make the world a better place. Ed Diener grew up in very different surroundings, but was seemingly driven by a similar desire to understand the conditions that help people to thrive. He was born in Glendale, California, and was raised on a farm in Central California. After receiving his doctorate from the University of Washington, he spent 34 years teaching and resear...
Source: SharpBrains - Category: Neuroscience Authors: Tags: Brain/ Mental Health Education & Lifelong Learning behavior happiness human behavior human potential Positive-Psychology Psychological Science well-being Source Type: blogs