This special Friday edition of The Psychology of Wellbeing features an essay by Dacher Keltner, Professor of Psychology at the University of California Berkeley, that originally appeared on Greater Good, the online magazine of UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center– Dacher Keltner is its executive editor. In this article (and the accompanying video,) Keltner elaborates on […]
I just finished reading “What the Dog Saw” by Malcolm Gladwell. The book is typical of Gladwell’s fascinating storytelling style but unlike his other books (“Outliers,” which is about the factors leading to phenomenal success, “Blink,” which is about how ideas are formed in our subconscious, and “The Tipping Point,” which is about how ideas […]
I recently spoke with Tom Rath, a fellow Master of Applied Positive Psychology, and the head of the workplace consulting business with Gallup. Gallup is very well known for their global opinion research, but most of the employees (a couple hundred thousand according to Rath) are dedicated to working with large organizations to build more […]
Comprehensive Soldier Fitness is the Army’s new training program that uses positive psychology to teach soldiers mental resilience strategies to maintain their psychological wellbeing while confronting the challenges of being separated from families, regularly facing conflict, and losing friends and colleagues. The program, which calls for an army of “balanced, healthy, self-confident soldiers” and “improved […]
Time. It may be our most valuable resource for without it, nothing else matters. It also may be the resource we most take for granted, squandering it foolishly by watching re-runs of American Idol or whiling away the hours in a job that brings no meaning or satisfaction. Our relationship with time permeates every aspect […]
Last week, I wrote about selecting a book for my mother-in-law who was visiting from France (btw, this has nothing to do with this post, but mother-in-law in France is known as the “belle mere” or “beautiful mother.” This is so much nicer than calling her an “in-law” which is like saying, “she’s only my mother […]
My mother-in-law was recently visiting from France and was interested in borrowing a book from my collection of positive psychology texts so she could learn more about the science of happiness. I brought her to my bookshelves and told her to browse what was there and to let her curiosity be her guide. After a few […]
I don’t care who you are, I don’t care what company you work for, and I don’t care what job you have. You can’t read “Delivering Happiness”, the new book by Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh, without asking yourself, “should I try to get a job at Zappos?” In the book, Hsieh outlines his own personal […]
The relationship between wealth and happiness is complicated. People are always excited to hear (and share) snippets of research that seem to indicate that money doesn’t buy happiness. It is comforting to believe that happiness and wealth are not related because it means we don’t have to keep trying so hard to make a buck. […]
For as long as I can remember, I have been interested in the application of psychology to human well-being and performance. Even prior to working in the spa industry, where I have worked for the last twenty years, I was a personal trainer and fitness instructor and was interested in how the mental states of […]
