Living the Good Life: Positive Psychology and Flourishing

In this first talk of "The Good Life" speaker series, Corey Keyes, Professor of Sociology, addresses "Positive Psychology and Flourishing" (Feb. 25, 2014). Prof. Keyes was a member of a MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Successful Midlife Development, a co-chair of the first Positive Psychology Summit in 1999, and a member of the 2007 National Academies of Science Keck Futures Initiative on The Future of Human Healthspan: Demography, Evolution, Medicine, and Bioengineering. He is a senior fellow at Emory University's Center for the Study of Law and Religion and its multidisciplinary five-year project—Pursuit of Happiness—funded in part by the Templeton Foundation. His research centers on illuminating the two-continua model of mental health and illness—showing how the absence of mental illness does not translate into the presence of "flourishing" mental health and revealing that the biological and psychosocial causes of true health are often distinct processes from those now understood as the causes of illness. This work is being applied to better understanding resilience and prevention of mental illness and informs the growing approach called predictive health care, which seeks to apply novel responses to correct early deviations from true health to maintain health and limit disease and illness. The Good Life Speaker Series seeks to facilitate a meaningful exchange of ideas on how to lead the "good life," based on Socrates' concept of Eudaemonia. We aim to attract speakers whose experiences and knowledge provide distinctive and challenging understandings on how to lead such a life. Our goal in doing so is that an audience, comprised primarily of students, can benefit from their wisdom as they move forward constructing their own personal version of the good life.