For much of its history, psychology has seemed
obsessed with human failings and pathology. The very idea of psychotherapy,
first formalized by Freud, rests on a view of human beings as troubled creatures
in need of repair. Freud himself was profoundly pessimistic about human nature,
which he felt was governed by deep, dark drives that we could hardly control.
The scientists who followed developed a model of human life that seemed to many
mechanical if not robotic: humans were passive beings harshly shaped by the
stimuli and the rewards and punishments that surrounded them.
After World War Ⅱ, psychologists tried to explain how so many ordinary citizens
could have agreed with fascism, and did work symbolized in the 1950 classic
The Authoritarian Personality by T.W. Adorno, et al. Social
psychologists followed on. Some of the most famous experiments proved that
normal folk could become coldly insensitive to suffering when obeying
"legitimate" orders or cruelly aggressive when playing the role of prison
guard. A watershed moment arrived in 1998, when University of
Pennsylvania psychologist Martin Seligman, in his presidential address to the
American Psychological Association, urged psychology to "turn toward
understanding and building the human strengths to complement our emphasis on
healing damage." That speech launched today’s positive psychology
movement. Though not denying humanity’s flaws, the new positive
psychologists recommend focusing on people’s strengths and virtues as a point of
departure. Rather than analyze the psychopathology underlying alcoholism, for
example, positive psychologists might study the toughness of those who have
managed a successful recovery--for example, through organizations like
Alcoholics Anonymous. Instead of viewing religion as a delusion and a support,
as did Freud, they might identify the mechanisms through which a spiritual
practice like meditation enhances mental and physical health. Their lab
experiments might seek to define not the conditions that induce wicked behavior,
but those that foster generosity, courage, creativity, and laughter.
Seligman’s idea quickly caught on. The Gallup Organization founded the
Gallup Positive Psychology Institute to sponsor scholarly work in the field. In
1999, 60 scholars gathered for the first Gallup Positive Psychology Summit; two
years later, the conference went international, and ever since has drawn about
400 attendees annually. According to Freud, human nature ______.
A. was positive on the whole
B. was controlled by secret desires
C. was inclined to control other people
D. was becoming worse and worse