The 6th Biennial Meaning conference took place August 5-8 in Vancouver Canada. The theme was Creating a Psychologically Healthy Workplace, and sessions also touched on a deeper theme — the importance of meaning to the quality of our lives. Many of the sessions were recorded and recordings are available for purchase, if this brief summary makes you wish you had been there. My own presentation on articulating a shared and valued purpose at work is available in the collection.

Visiting an 87-year-old friend in a supported living facility, I have been wondering what gives meaning to life when someone is no longer able to serve others or contribute to lifetime passions or pursue a larger purpose.

The film, Inception, explores the phenomenon of ideas. Where do they start? How are they influenced? Can we extract ideas from each other, and when we do, to whom do they belong? Can we cause others to incept (take in) ideas by influencing them to think what we want them to think? The film shows how these powers can be used for good as well as evil.

One of my fascinations with positive psychology is the existence of its many paradoxes. So as soon as I came across this new research report Money Giveth, Money Taketh Away, my eyes lit up. The researchers explored the widely-held belief that experiencing the best things in life undermines your ability to enjoy life’s little pleasures.

Research shows we are more likely to sustain positive change by changing actions and patterns than by improving external circumstances. But that assumes we do them. Stephen Schueller is the first researcher to develop a structure for recommending positive interventions based on a person’s preferences for prior interventions.

Research and application often appear to live in separate worlds, but sometimes they come together in a way that shines light on both. What if a company could change direction radically by adopting …

It is time again for the biennial Meaning Conference, to be held in Vancouver BC on August 5-8. From from the announcement, “Work is more than a means of making a living or creating wealth. It can also be a higher calling that ennobles the soul, endows life with meaning, and enhances humanity. ” Read further to see who will be speaking, including two lectures open to the general public.

Kathryn Britton recently wrote about using positive psychology to deal with a sudden loss as she mourned her dear friend Linda. Grieving is an individual process, but while no two people have an identical experience of losing a loved one, there are several patterns that emerge. I’d like to offer some observations about how Positive Psychology is at work while people heal after a loss, even in the long term.

Is It More Fun To Be a Scientist or an Artist? is the title of Professor Richard Gregory’s final publication. Professor Gregory, one of the world’s leading researchers on perception died on May 17, 2010.
Professor …

To further elaborate on why the riches are not equivalent to happiness, I adopt the approach used by Daniel Kahneman, winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics, of looking at happiness as moment-to-moment experience instead of general well-being or flourishing. When we break down happiness into moment-to-moment experience, riches do not necessarily make people happier. Why not?