Senia Maymin is the founder and editor-in-chief of PositivePsychologyNews.com. She was the series editor for the Positive Psychology News book series that recently published the first book, Resilience: How to Navigate Life's Curves. (Bio, Articles)
News from Wired, UCSD Guardian, and TrainingZONE.
From Wired: Down with Happiness by David Ewing Duncan
- Article descirbes all the different ways that people seek the pursuit of happiness, including drugs, neural implants, alcohol, and good old-fashioned flow.
- “In the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson famously proclaimed a universal right to the pursuit of happiness. The key word there is pursuit.”
- “In describing optimal experience — the subjective state of happiness he calls flow — the psychiatrist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi says it comes down to engaging in activities just beyond our skill level. Like Jefferson, Csikszentmihalyi understands that pursuit, and not outcome, is what’s important.”
From UCSD Guardian: Study Shows No Link Between Financial Success, Happiness by Seda Terzyan
- Article describes the set point of happiness as described in the latest article of Scientific American: Mind, and describes ways to move further from the set point through goals and meaning. Seligman, King, Diener, and Mazey are interviewed.
- “Setting goals with the intent of achieving materialistic gain does not have long-term effects, but goals directed toward helping others and saving the world make people happy in the long run, [Laura] King said.”
- “Happiness is a way of perceiving the world positively with action and optimism, King said.”
- “Staying away from negative emotions and concentrating on the positives is an effective way to change that inherent point on the ladder of happiness, said Martin Seligman, professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania and the founder of a newly emerging field called “positive psychology,” which focuses on positive human emotions. … He said it is necessary to set important goals and create meaningful relationships with people.”
- “Ed Diener, professor of psychology at the University of Illinois, found that the top 10 percent of the happiest students share one major thing in common: spending time with close friends and family.”
From TrainingZONE: Lessons in Happiness by Dawn Smith
- Article speaks about business training on happiness, whether happy employees are more productive employees, whether anyone can actually increase happiness, and – if they can – what techniques they can use.
- ““When you go into a business you have to use different language” says Dr Ilona Boniwell, who leads the recently launched MSc course in Applied Positive Psychology at the University of East London – thought to be the UK’s only degree in happiness. “You have to use terms like engagement, strength and resilience, which is correlated with happiness.””
- “At The Happiness Project, Ian Lynch makes a distinction between the productivity of “sad” employees, who may focus more closely on tasks to keep their minds off their misery, and happy employees, who he says are more likely to be creative, use their talents at work, get on well with colleagues, be pleasant to customers, and thereby enhance the brand and the business in significant ways.”
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Thumbs down courtesy of the Italian Voice
