The Templeton Foundation and Positive Psychology

While reading around about Positive Psychology I had noticed that the John Templeton Foundation was one of the listed financial supporters for the research listed on the 2005 paper.

When trying to work out the method adopted in the empirical work to establish the commonalities of the virtues across time I read up a little on Ninian Smart whose work they used as a starting point for deciding on which texts to read I noticed Ninian Smart was due to give a Templeton lecture at the time of his death.

So I decided to see if the John Templeton Foundation published a list of fundees and projects. On the front page I came across this which is interesting.

There some parallels between positive psychology and objectives that the John Templeton Foundation has.

Seligman and Csikszentmihaly claim that one the missions of psychology before WWII was the nuturing of exceptional talent; while there are a few examples of that scattered across the history of psychology I would contest the idea that it has been one of the missions of psychology. It is however one of the aims of the John Templeton Foundation.

The virtues that the foundation support

awe, creativity, curiosity, diligence, entrepreneurialism, forgiveness, future-mindedness, generosity, gratitude, honesty, humility, joy, love, purpose, reliability, and thrift.

Map well onto the character strengths and virtues that positive psychology assert are universal.

All very speculative right now, although Templeton did fund the movement at its beginning.

http://www.templeton.org/what-we-fund/grants/positive-psychology-research

Edited to Add. 12/2/13

Positive psychology character strengths and Templeton virtues

1. Creativity - Creativity
2. Curiosity - Curiosity
3. Open Mindedness - 
4. Love of learning -
5. Perspective - future mindedness
6. Authenticity - honesty
7. Bravery - 
8. Persistence - reliability
9. Zest - Joy
10. Kindness - generosity
11. Love - love
12. Social intelligence
13. Fairness
14. Leadership - entrepreneurialism
15. Teamwork
16. Forgiveness - forgiveness
17. Modesty - humility
18. Prudence - thrift
19. Self regulation diligence
20. Appreciation of beauty and excellence - awe
21. Gratitude - gratitude
22. Hope
23. Humour
24. Religiousness

So the Templeton virtues have been proven by science to be ubiquitous across time and cultures by positive psychology, well that is handy.