Dow Jones Sinks

In this month’s posting for Positive Psychology News Daily, I reviewed some brand new research from Professor Carol Graham, Soumya Chattopadhyay, and Mario Picon (all from the University of Maryland). Their objective was to better understand the effects of the US economic crisis on well-being and to determine if individuals adapt both to the bad news of the crisis and then to the good news of potential recovery.

Looking across time during the crisis, not surprisingly happiness levels decreased markedly at the start of the crisis, reaching their lowest levels early in 2009. They then followed an equally marked upward trend after April 2009. During the downward trend, happiness levels lag the stock market spikes, which makes intuitive sense.

But the most striking result is that happiness levels lead the stock market on the upward trend. What’s more, by July 2009 happiness levels were above those at the start of the crisis, even though the Dow Jones was only just starting to recover, having hit rock bottom.

For the full posting and to read all the comments, see Positive Psychology News Daily.

Image  courtesy of Scorpions and Centaurs

Rainbow of Books

Anyone who takes their positive psychology research seriously will know how difficult it is to get hold of quality academic papers if you don’t have access to a university library or piles of cash to pay for a journal subscription. Sometimes you can find stuff on the web (often the researcher’s website is a good place to start), but more often than not you can only read the abstract.

I’ve just come across this great new resource from Warren Davies, also from the UEL MAPP programme – it’s got some fabulous articles on positive psychology, as well as many other branches of psychology including cognitive, developmental and social psychology. Well worth exploring. Thanks Warren!

Image courtesy of Mind on Fire