Templeton positive about largest psychology award

Ground-breaking research in positive psychology will be handsomely rewarded.

By Patrick A. McGuire
Monitor staff

The John Templeton Foundation of Radnor, Pa., has agreed to sponsor the largest cash award program in the field of psychology. With a first prize of $100,000, the four annual awards for outstanding research in the field of positive psychology will total $200,000. And, at $50,000, even its second prize will be among the highest awards now presented in psychology.

The program to promote the advancement of the new science of positive psychology will be administered by APA through the Science Directorate as a three-year program and the names of its first winners will be announced in February 2000. APA Past President Martin E.P. Seligman, PhD, will chair the awards selection committee. It was Seligman's research in the science of positive psychology that initially attracted the John Templeton Foundation's interest.

In 1997, Seligman gave the keynote address at a symposium on optimism hosted by the Foundation. During his speech, Sir John Templeton, a noted philanthropist knighted by Queen Elizabeth, rose from the audience and asked Seligman how his Foundation could help promote positive psychology.

As it happened, APA's chief executive officer, Raymond D. Fowler, PhD, was also in the audience and joined the impromptu conversation that followed. It wasn't long before the three were in discussions that led, over several months, to the establishment of the award.

"The questions raised by positive psychology are great ones," said Seligman. "What's always been missing is the incentive to go into the field. In fact, there's been a disincentive. Psychology for so long has been centered on curing ills. There has been nothing in place to create a better balance in our science between healing the worst things in life and building the best of our human strengths. This prize is intended to encourage the brightest young people to move their research in this direction."

The prize will be open to psychologists who have attained the academic appointment of assistant professor or higher in either the United States or Canada. Candidates must not be more that 40 years of age or, if over 40, must not be more than 12 years beyond receipt of the doctoral degree.

Seligman, in collaboration with the APA Science Directorate, has organized a selection committee that, other than himself, includes: Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi, University of Chicago; Daniel Kahneman, Princeton University; Richard McCarty, APA, ex officio; Martha McClintock, University of Chicago; David Myers, Hope College; Arthur Schwartz, John Templeton Foundation, ex officio; Claude Steele, Stanford University.

The program will begin accepting applications in May, with an October 1 final deadline for nominations. In addition to the first and second prizes, a third-place winner will receive $30,000 and a fourth prize will pay $20,000. Each award will be divided between unrestricted prize money and support of the winner's research program.

"Our grant is meant to support and reward ground-breaking research in the area of positive psychology," according to Arthur Schwartz, EdD, the foundation's director of character development programs. Winners, he said, must show outstanding promise not only in research fields such as optimism, but in areas such as goal-setting and future-mindedness.

"These are very important psychological constructs to Sir John Templeton," said Schwartz. "He is hopeful that the grant will significantly increase the number of scientific studies in these understudied areas along with research in the areas of persistence and courage. Sir John believes these clusters of skills and virtues form the core of a positive psychology."

Templeton, 86, is a former Rhodes scholar who made his fortune in international investing. The John Templeton Foundation works closely with scientists, medical professionals, theologians, scholars and educators throughout the world to support more than 100 programs that focus on science and religion, spirituality and faith, freedom, and character development.

According to the agreement between the Foundation and APA, the officially named Templeton Positive Psychology Awards "will create a highly leveraged opportunity to associate the mission and vision of the John Templeton Foundation with the most brilliant and visionary researchers emerging in psychological research and neuroscience."



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