Bridget Grenville-Cleave

A recent piece of research from Charlotte Fritz at Portland State University and her colleagues has explored the relationship between switching off from work during non-work time (a.k.a. ‘psychological detachment’), well-being, and productivity.

Do people who live in different cities really have different psychological traits and dispositions? Few psychologists have studied variation across cities before now, and those that do focus on negatives such as obesity, psychiatric disorders, and violent crime. So this new positive psychology research into city-level strengths by Nansook Park and Chris Peterson is not only interesting, but also very refreshing. As they point out, it’s high time we looked at what’s right with city life!

Kiselica and Englar-Carlson look at how Positive Psychology can be used to support troubled men and boys. They discuss a strengths-based approach known as Positive Masculinity. As the mother of a rapidly-growing boy (aged 8, going on 18), I was very interested to come across the Positive Masculinity Model, and wondered what I could learn from it that would be useful to me as a parent.

In the Positive Psychology Masterclasses that my colleague Miriam Akhtar and I co-facilitate, one of the important topics we cover is how to develop positive relationships. Many people who attend…

When I stumbled upon research about the effects of the economic crisis on well-being, I was primed to be curious because I had just read Louisa Jewell’s critique of Bright-Sided…

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.

The 5th European Positive Psychology Conference took place last week in Copenhagen, Denmark on June 23-26 2010. This article covers addresses on the last day, June 26, by Professor Ruut Veenhoven on differences in happiness between Denmark and The Netherlands, Dr. Alex Linley on the future of positive psychology, and Dr. Howard Gardner on the Good Work Project.

The 5th European Positive Psychology Conference took place this week in Copenhagen, Denmark on June 23-26 2010. This article covers addresses on June 25 by Professor Wilmar Schaufeli on employee engagement, by Professor Henrik Hans Knoop on well-being at society as well as individual levels, and Professor Willibald Ruch on humor and a related intervention.

The 5th European Positive Psychology Conference took place this week in Copenhagen, Denmark on June 23-26 2010. This article covers addresses on June 23 and 24, including opening talks by Professors Henrik Hans Knoop and Antonella Delle Fave, as well as keynotes by Professor Corey Keyes on building mental health as well as addressing mental illness and Professor Barbara Fredrickson on how positive emotions work and why.

“Hands up anyone who studied emotional mountaineering at school?” was Dr Chris Johnstone’s opening question. Had we been taught how to overcome low, negative or otherwise troublesome emotions? Not a single hand went up. Nevertheless said Chris, it is possible to learn how to become more resilient and to find your power. (Second in the series about the 5^th Annual Bristol Happiness Lecture, subject, Positive Psychology Responses to Depression).

Keynote speaker, Miriam Akhtar, described the Positive Emotion Kit (PE Kit) approach to countering depression. To boost mood naturally and experience more positive than negative emotion, people can form personal PE kits by selecting interventions from five essential evidence-based categories.

In yesterday’s article, I described how clinical psychologists could expand the “what’s wrong?” model to include “what’s strong?”  Today, I give the specific ten strategies recommended by Tayyab Rashid of…

Introductory classes in positive psychology often differentiate it from “psychology as usual” by arguing that the latter operates in the disease or deficit model whereas positive psychology operates in the…

Netta Weinstein and Richard Ryan at the University of Rochester have recently published research on the impact of doing things for others.
Their research looked at the link between well-being and autonomous helping on the one hand versus controlled helping on the other hand.

Inspiration, or more precisely the lack of it, strikes fear into the hearts of many students faced with an assignment or test, a blank sheet of paper and a ticking…

So you have some extra cash in your pocket. Do you spend it on the latest gizmo or on going to a restaurant with friends? How does your choice affect…

“The future is looking a whole lot better.” It was the reference to that classic film “Back to the Future” in the title of this new piece of research on…

In the paper, Communicating and Philosophizing about Authenticity and Inauthenticity in a Fast-Paced World, Becky DeGreeff, Ann Burnett and Dennis Cooley at North Dakota State University suggest that living life…

Want to know some evidence-based methods to create stronger bonds with your co-workers? Here are effective tools and techniques from positive psychology theory and research. Most of it is simple to implement too, but does that make it easy?

Why is it that the older you get, the faster time goes? When I was a kid, summers were always long, lazy, languid. Time seemed almost to stand still. The…