In positive psychology, most theories of positive emotion have focused on discovering their relative costs and benefits to humans. These theories, to a greater and lesser degree, see positive emotions as being evolved adaptations to our environment. Greater mood brings wider though-action repertoires, allowing us to build our resources (1), they regulate our [...]
Archive for the ‘Happiness and Well-Being’ Category
Flowers = Happiness? The emotional impact of plants
Friday, February 19th, 2010Five things everybody needs to know about materialism
Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009“The things you own, end up owning you”
- Tyler Durden (Fight Club)
I’ve seen Fight Club about 58 times. It’s my favourite film. I love it so much I even had the above quote engraved onto the back of my iPod.
In the film, Brad Pitt’s character Tyler Durden is a pretty heavy anti-consumerist. [...]
Mental time travel for happiness
Wednesday, October 7th, 2009A recent experiment has just discovered that time travel can make you happy. Great Scott! I’m not talking about actual time travel, of course, but mental time travel; using your brain to do something that, at the moment, only us humans can do – simulate and predict future events.
Mental Time Travel (MTT) can be [...]
Happiness Music
Monday, September 21st, 2009Music has a remarkable ability to conjure up strong emotions in people. It can cheer you up, bring you down, and in the case of boybands, cause severe anger and disgust. And it’s old; some scientists believe music even predates language, this based on flute-like instruments dug up in France, believed to be over 50,000 [...]
How to be Happier – Free ebook!
Wednesday, September 9th, 2009Here’s a free ebook for download – How to be Happier. And you don’t even have to trade in your email address to get it!
It’s based on an earlier post on this blog, also entitled How to be Happier. It’s one of the most popular articles on this whole website, but at over 4,000 words [...]
Six Success-Enhancing Behaviours that Good Moods Bring You
Thursday, July 30th, 2009Just like Santa Clause, happiness brings gifts with it too – and you don’t have to be good all year to get them! In the last three articles, I’ve discussed a paper arguing that happiness leads to success, through a better career, better relationships and better health. This works in part through behaviour – positive [...]
Does Happiness Lead to Success? Part 3: Health
Monday, July 27th, 2009This series is discussing the idea that not only does success bring happiness, but happiness also brings success. Previously, we found that happiness helps people to have better careers and better relationships. Today, we’ll see that they also have better health, too.
The authors of the paper put the question this way: “Is happiness associated with [...]
Robert Biswas-Diener on happiness, strengths, and ‘incubators’
Sunday, July 26th, 2009Robert Biswas-Diener is a big name in positive psychology research. He’s sort of the Indiana Jones of positive psychology; he travelled around the world, through rich countries and tribal cultures, investigating happiness in these varied places. Rumour has it he took a whip and a hat along with him, although I can’t confirm this.
Anyway, he’s [...]
Does Happiness Lead to Success? Part 2: Love and Relationships
Thursday, July 23rd, 2009This series is discussing the idea that not only does success bring happiness, but happiness also brings success. Last time we found that happiness helps people to have better jobs and earn more money; today we’re going to see whether they enjoy better relationships too. I’ve already written articles on happiness as it relates [...]
Does Happiness Lead to Success? Part 1: Work
Monday, July 20th, 2009Let’s look at happiness from a different perspective. Most people see happiness as a response to good things happening; a natural assumption to make, considering that when good things happen, it makes us happy. But the evidence is piling up that happiness is also a cause of good things happening. And by ‘good thing’, I [...]
