Pursuit of Happiness and Resolution of Conflict: An Agenda for the Future of ADR

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal Volume 12 | Issue 2 Article 2 4-15-2012 Pursuit of Happiness and Resolution of Conflict: An Agenda for the Future of ADR Arthur Pearlstein Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.pepperdine.edu/drlj Part of the Dispute Resolution and Arbitration Commons, and the Law and Psychology Commons Recommended Citation Arthur Pearlstein, Pursuit of Happiness and Resolution of Conflict: An Agenda for the Future of ADR, 12 Pepp. Disp. Resol. L.J. Iss. 2 (2012) Available at: https://digitalcommons.pepperdine.edu/drlj/vol12/iss2/2 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the School of Law at Pepperdine Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal by an authorized editor of Pepperdine Digital Commons. For more information, please contact , . Pearlstein: Pursuit of Happiness and Resolution of Conflict: An Agenda for th [Vol. 12: 215, 2012] PEPPERDINE DISPUTE RESOLUTION LAW JOURNAL Pursuit of Happiness and Resolution of Conflict: An Agenda for the Future of ADR Arthur Pearlstein* I. INTRODUCTION: WHY THE PURSUIT OF THE SCIENCE OF HAPPINESS SHOULD BE A HIGH PRIORITY FOR THE FIELD OF CONFLICT RESOLUTION Interest in human happiness is at least as old as the advent of philosophy. It is framed in American society in terms of “the pursuit of happiness,” starting with the Declaration of Independence. 1 The intensive study of the pursuit of happiness as a separate field, however, arguably has a more recent origin. Many scholars trace it to a revolution in the discipline of psychology that started in 1998 when Martin Seligman, the new president of the American Psychological Association, introduced the term “positive psychology” in his inaugural speech.2 Seligman decried the common focus of psychology “on repairing damage using a disease model of human functioning.”3 Positive psychology is, instead, “the study of the traits and conditions that lead to human thriving. . . . It presupposes that happiness and well-being are not merely the absence of depression and anxiety, but rather are a whole host of states, traits, and emotions that combine to make life worth living.”4 This article demonstrates that the study of happiness has major implications for the field of conflict resolution. * Executive Director, Government Organization and Leadership (GOAL) program at Creighton University School of Law, formerly Professor of Law and Director of the Werner Institute for Negotiation and Dispute Resolution at Creighton University School of Law. Mr. Pearlstein earned his J.D. from Harvard Law School and Master of Dispute Resolution from Pepperdine University School of Law, Straus Institute for Dispute Resolution. 1. THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE para. 1 (U.S. 1776). 2. See generally Martin E.P. Seligman & Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Positive Psychology: An Introduction, 55 AM. PSYCHOLOGIST 5 (2000); CHRISTOPHER PETERSON, A PRIMER IN POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY (2006); Shelly L. Gable & Jonathan Haidt, What (and Why) Is Positive Psychology?, 9 REV. GEN. PSYCHOL. 103 (2005). 3. Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, supra note 2, at 5. 4. Todd David Peterson & Elizabeth Waters Peterson, Stemming the Tide of Law Student Depression: What Law Schools Need to Learn from the Science of Positive Psychology, 9 YALE J. HEALTH POL’ Y L. & ETHICS 357, 385-86 (2009). 215 Published by Pepperdine Digital Commons, 2012 1 Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal, Vol. 12, Iss. 2 [2012], Art. 2 Though emerging from the field of psychology, the growing study of happiness has reached across disciplines and methodologies. 5 In academia, those involved in happiness studies emphasize that their approach is scientific and systematic. 6 Christopher Peterson, a pioneer in positive psychology, explains that the approach assumes “that human goodness and excellence are as authentic as disease, disorder, and distress.”7 Positive psychology relies, he reminds us, “on empirical research to understand people and their lives.” 8 Indeed, there is an enormous body of research on happiness with daily advances from a variety of scholarly perspectives. 9 In addition to psychology, disciplines involved in the systematic pursuit of research findings include economics, public policy, biology, neuroscience, philosophy, history, education, medicine, and many others.10 The World Database of Happiness maintains a “Continuous Register of Scientific Research on Subjective Appreciation of Life,” which, as of late March 2012, had cataloged “6896 publications on . . . happiness, of which 3408 report empirical investigations using accepted measures of happiness.” 11 Among these were “748 measures of happiness used in 1440 studies[;] 4335 distributional findings in the general public in 159 nations[;] 14327 correlational findings observed in 1437 studies excerpted from 1087 publications,” not to mention almost twice as many “findings waiting to be entered.”12 In addition to more scientifically oriented work on happiness, interest in the field has sparked an explosion in the number of popular psychology and self-help books, magazine articles, and stories elsewhere in the media focusing on happiness. 13 Moreover, the development of corporate and institutional training and consultation on happiness has continued unabated for some time. 14 This has led to what one commentator, noting the degree to 5. See PETERSON, supra note 2, at 10. 6. Id. 7. Id. at 5. 8. Christopher Peterson, Positive Social Science, 591 ANNALS AM . ACAD. POL. & SOC. SCI. 186, 187-88 (2004). 9. PETERSON, supra note 2, at 9. 10. See generally PETERSON, supra note 2. 11. Ruut Veenhoven, World Database of Happiness: Continuous Register of Scientific Research on Subjective Appreciation of Life, ERASMUS UNIVERSITY ROTTERDAM , http://worlddatabaseofhappiness.eur.nl (last visited Mar. 27, 2012). 12. Id.; see, e.g., Bruno S. Frey & Alois Stutzer, What Can Economists Learn from Happiness Research?, 40 J. ECON. LITERATURE 402 (2002) (for an overview of happiness studies in the field of economics). 13. E.g., Jeffrey Zaslow, Happiness, Inc., WALL ST. J., Mar. 18, 2006, at P1. 14. Id. 216 https://digitalcommons.pepperdine.edu/drlj/vol12/iss2/2 2 Pearlstein: Pursuit of Happiness and Resolution of Conflict: An Agenda for th [Vol. 12: 215, 2012] PEPPERDINE DISPUTE RESOLUTION LAW JOURNAL which “companies are putting the findings [of happiness research] to work,” referred to as “a sort of happiness-industrial complex.” 15 In even a cursory review of major books and articles on the positive psychology movement and the burgeoning field of happiness science, those who study or practice conflict analysis and resolution will discover a great deal of familiar territory. The new packaging of approaches and perspectives, derived from age-old sets of principles and practices—such as negotiation, mediation, and arbitration—as Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) or “conflict resolutio (...truncated)