Conferences

The latest issue of MAPP Magazine has been published by graduates of the MAPP Program at the University of Pennsylvania. This edition has more articles on Positive Humanities. It also explores the factors that lead to habit formation.

Beginning on March 18th, the International Positive Psychology Association is kicking off the Evidence in Action Conference, which celebrates the application of positive psychology across fields and disciplines. IPPA has chosen to run a 24-hour program to engage members around the world, sectioned into blocks of time followed by a large breaks so participants can be present and engaged without getting zoom fatigue.

Back in March, Dr. Attila Oláh invited people to attend the 9th European Conference on Positive Psychology in Budapest. The conference happened in late June. Here is a report on conference happenings.

This summer, there were two major events focused on positive education. On August 8, there will be a panel to explore what people learned by participating. You are invited to register.

Continuing the report on the IPEN conference started on July 13, I invite you to learn about Angela Duckworth’s Character Lab Playbooks, about research on the behavior changes associated with meditation, and more.

The International Positive Education Network, known to friends as IPEN, held its second annual festival in Ft. Worth Texas from June 25 to June 28. The conference was jointly sponsored by the David L. Cooperrider Center for Appreciative Inquiry, so you won’t be surprised that the conference title was .

On May 6-7, 2018, the American College of Lifestyle Medicine (ACLM) hosted a ground-breaking Summit on Happiness Science in Health Care: Infusing Positive Psychology into Medicine and Health Care. Participants all recognize the need to connect positive psychology and health care.

Interested in positive psychology? Join us for the 9th European Conference on Positive Psychology (ECPP) and preconference meetings. The conference will take place in Budapest, Hungary, from June 26 through June 30. Luminaries in the field will explore the conference theme, “Positive psychology for a flourishing Europe in times of transition.”

We are experimenting with ways to get the word out about interesting webinars that are open to the public. There isn’t much warning for this webinar, so act fast if interested.

The lovely city of Angers, France hosted the eighth European Conference on Positive Psychology (ECPP). Angers has been voted the “happiest city in France.” It was certainly easy for conference attendees to be happy in Angers. Happy and stimulated, we learned about red-cape and green-cape interventions, about heroism and heroic leadership, and much much more.

In this series, I take you on a four-conference tour, starting with a conference at Niagara-on-the-Lake in Canada.

The Canadian Positive Psychology Association (CPPA) Conference had me at its title: I got to Exhilarate! for two days with hundreds of positive Canadians.

Barbara Fredrickson opened the first full day of the Canadian Positive Psychology Association conference with the question, “Why is it important to prioritize positivity?” Then she proceeded to answer her question, extending the messages she has conveyed in past conferences with some very pragmatic reflections on putting research findings into daily practice.

In the first of a series of articles about the keynote addresses at the June Canadian Positive Psychology Association conference, find out about Dr. Lea Waters, who decided to work on introducing positive psychology into an institution with a very broad reach: the family.

Throughout the World Congress of the International Positive Psychology Association, a dazzling array of new scientific breakthroughs and research set off fireworks to rival those of the Magic Kingdom. Martin Seligman challenged his own earlier research on learned helplessness. Tal Ben-Shahar invited us to focus on the growing tip as we work on positive change. Tom Rath reminded us of often neglected qualities that help us be fully charged.

Self-compassion is a way of relating to ourselves kindly, as we truly are, flaws and all.

This article contains an invitation to the Saturday party at IPPA on June 27 to benefit programs for hospitalized children by Soaring Words.

Starting today: a virtual conference titled Banish Self-Doubt with the New Science of Self Confidence. You are invited to hear
Louisa Jewell host a series of interviews with experts on building confidence, courage, grit, and self-efficacy.

At a recent workshop at Esalen in Big Sur, experts from UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center “explored the roots of personal happiness and offered concrete, science-based approaches to boosting happiness in one’s self and others.“

Now I turn my attention to the practice side of the International Symposium on Contemplative Studies. Here’s a practice that I experienced at the conference and how it affected my well-being. I include step-by-step instructions for trying it out at home.

Of the 470 presenters at ISCS, none had a message more compelling than that of Tania Singer, a social neuroscientist from The Max Planck Institute. Singer seems vitally alive as she presents her work, a scientist who has clearly found her calling and is excited to share her findings. She is also studying a neglected type of motivation, Affiliation Motivation. Like many others there, she is embarked on the quest described by the Dalai Lama in the closing speech, “How can we take knowledge from science and apply it in the service of humanity?”