And people who are just very creative, but have no judgement, need somebody next
to them who says of those 12 ideas, this is the one that's good.
So I think those are things and I like to teach a lot.
And I learn a lot from teaching.
I teach big classes, 600 students.
I also teach little seminars.
But I learn from teaching and I love it.
And where I got that, I don't know.
I didn't TA ever.
As a graduate student.
I had a National Science Foundation fellowship which, as it were,
protected me from it.
And then because some faculty member left while I was a grad student and
there was no one to teach physiological psychology, which was my field,
I taught the undergraduate physiological psych course at Harvard
as a graduate student and I loved it.
And the students were just great.
One of the students, a couple of them became well-known people actually.
And it was just exciting to me.
So I don't know what that is.
But going back to the issue of character strength, when you get to
moral character strengths, I believe its a mistake to build on your strengths
because I think as a person your character is judged by your weakness.
So if you're a kind and dishonest person,
people are going to focus on the dishonesty.
There's a tendency for
people to look at negative features which is I think built in.
So a kind dishonest person is not a person in good character.
And a person of pretty kind and pretty honest is probably better regarded,
so I think what you should do in the moral domain is if you see that
I'm not good at some moral character strength, say then how can improve that.
Because this is the case when the chain is the strongest as it's weakest link,
were as in the case of confidence the chain is the strongest as strongest link.
>> That's fascinating Paul, I think you're right and it's a very important point.
How would you say, so
how would you respond to the advice about how to strengthen that weakest link?
So some folks in positive psychology have argued that a good way to shore up
your strengths, sorry.
Some folks in positive psychology have argued that a good way to shore up your
weaknesses is by using your strengths because you tend to enjoy that more.
So if you're not a kind person,
might you use the things that you are good at to help bolster your kindness?
You think that's a promising approaching?