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Psychology
USA
2026

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Psychology

D-Index
149
Citations
224222
World Ranking
77
National Ranking
43

Research.com Recognitions

  • 2026 - Research.com Psychology in United States Leader Award
  • 2025 - Research.com Psychology in United States Leader Award
  • 2017 - APA Award for Lifetime Contributions to Psychology, American Psychological Association.
  • 2006 - APA Award for Distinguished Scientific Contributions to Psychology, American Psychological Association
  • 2002 - Fellow of the American Academy of Political and Social Science
  • 1997 - Joseph Zubin Award, Society for Research in Psychopathology
  • 1995 - James McKeen Cattell Fellow Award, Association for Psychological Science
  • 1991 - William James Fellow Award, Association for Psychological Science (APA)
  • 1978 - Fellow of the American Psychological Association (APA)
  • 1975 - Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
  • 1974 - Fellow of John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation

Overview

Martin E. P. Seligman is affiliated with the University of Pennsylvania in the United States. Their research primarily falls within the field of Psychology, with a specific focus on related subfields including Social Psychology, Clinical Psychology, Applied Psychology, Sociology and Political Science, and Cognitive Neuroscience.

Their work covers a range of main topics, notably:

  • Optimism, Hope, and Well-being
  • Psychological Well-being and Life Satisfaction
  • Mental Health via Writing
  • Behavioral Health and Interventions
  • Resilience and Mental Health
  • Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Research
  • Personality Traits and Psychology

Frequent publication venues for their work include:

  • The Journal of Positive Psychology (6 publications)
  • Journal of Personality (2 publications)
  • Proceedings of the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media (1 publication)
  • Psychological Methods (1 publication)
  • Frontiers in Psychiatry (1 publication)

Recent papers demonstrate a variety of topics and collaborations:

  • "Characterizing Geographic Variation in Well-Being Using Tweets," 2021, Proceedings of the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media
  • "Closed- and open-vocabulary approaches to text analysis: A review, quantitative comparison, and recommendations," 2021, Psychological Methods
  • "Happy Soldiers are Highest Performers," 2021, Journal of Happiness Studies
  • "Optimism and risk of incident hypertension: a target for primordial prevention," 2020, Epidemiology and Psychiatric Sciences
  • "Development of character strengths across the deployment cycle among U.S. Army soldiers," 2020, Journal of Personality

The scientist regularly collaborates with co-authors including Johannes C. Eichstaedt, Margaret L. Kern, Lyle Ungar, David B. Yaden, and Salvatore Giorgi, each featuring on multiple publications.

Throughout their career, they have received several awards such as the APA Award for Lifetime Contributions to Psychology in 2017, the APA Award for Distinguished Scientific Contributions to Psychology in 2006, and fellowships including the American Psychological Association, American Academy of Political and Social Science, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Best Publications

  • Learned Helplessness in Humans: Critique and Reformulation

    Lyn Y. Abramson;Martin E. P. Seligman;John D. Teasdale

  • Character Strengths and Virtues: A Handbook and Classification

    Christopher Peterson;Martin E. P. Seligman

  • Authentic Happiness: Using the New Positive Psychology to Realize Your Potential for Lasting Fulfillment

    Martin E. P. Seligman

  • Helplessness: On Depression, Development, and Death

    Martin E. P. Seligman

  • Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life

    Martin E. P. Seligman

  • Flourish: A Visionary New Understanding of Happiness and Well-being

    Martin E. P. Seligman

  • Positive psychology: An introduction.

    Martin E. P. Seligman;Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

  • Positive Psychology Progress: Empirical Validation of Interventions.

    Martin E. P. Seligman;Tracy A. Steen;Nansook Park;Christopher Peterson

  • Beyond Money Toward an Economy of Well-Being

    Ed Diener;Martin E.P. Seligman

  • Very Happy People

    Ed Diener;Martin E.P. Seligman

  • Positive Psychology, Positive Prevention, and Positive Therapy

    Martin E. P. Seligman

  • Learned helplessness: Theory and evidence.

    Steven F. Maier;Martin E. P. Seligman

  • Self-Discipline Outdoes IQ in Predicting Academic Performance of Adolescents

    Angela L. Duckworth;Martin E.P. Seligman

  • Failure to Escape Traumatic Shock

    Martin E. Seligman;Steven F. Maier

  • The attributional Style Questionnaire

    Christopher Peterson;Amy Semmel;Carl L. von Baeyer;Lyn Y. Abramson

  • The Effectiveness of Psychotherapy The Consumer Reports Study

    Martin E. P. Seligman

  • STRENGTHS OF CHARACTER AND WELL-BEING

    Nansook Park;Christopher Peterson;Martin E. P. Seligman

  • Causal explanations as a risk factor for depression: Theory and evidence.

    Christopher Peterson;Martin E. Seligman

  • Positive Education: Positive Psychology and Classroom Interventions.

    Martin E. P. Seligman;Randal M. Ernst;Jane Gillham;Karen Reivich

  • On the generality of the laws of learning

    Martin E. P. Seligman

Frequent Co-Authors

Christopher Peterson
Christopher Peterson University of Michigan–Ann Arbor
Raquel E. Gur
Raquel E. Gur University of Pennsylvania
Edna B. Foa
Edna B. Foa University of Pennsylvania
Margaret L. Kern
Margaret L. Kern University of Melbourne
Jane E. Gillham
Jane E. Gillham Swarthmore College
Johannes C. Eichstaedt
Johannes C. Eichstaedt Stanford University
Nansook Park
Nansook Park University of Michigan–Ann Arbor
Ed Diener
Ed Diener University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
David Stillwell
David Stillwell University of Cambridge
Lyn Y. Abramson
Lyn Y. Abramson University of Wisconsin–Madison

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