The 5^th European Positive Psychology Conference took place June 23-26 in Copenhagen, Denmark. I’ve written three separate reviews, covering eleven Keynotes, invited speakers, and opening and closing presentations. To read the full reviews, take a look at Positive Psychology News Daily:  part 1, part 2 and part 3.

Part 1:

Keynote 1: Stopping the Insanity: Promoting Positive Mental Health is Sanity in a World Needing Better Mental Health - Corey Keyes, Associate Professor, Department of Sociology at Emory University, USA

Corey Keyes

Keynote 2: How Positive Emotions Work, and Why – Barbara Fredrickson, Distinguished Professor of Psychology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA.

Part 2

Keynote 1: Occupational Health Psychology: A European Perspective – Wilmar Schaufeli, Professor of Work and Organizational Psychology at Utrecht University in The Netherlands.

Creativity expert, Sir Ken Robinson, talks about the need for revolution in the education system.

“Very many people go through their whole lives having no real sense of what their talents may be, or if they have any to speak of. I meet all kinds of people who don’t think they’re really good at anything”, he says. This sounds very familiar to me – only today I was working with some public sector admin staff who had no idea of their strengths, or that there might be a role for them at work in which they could really flourish, rather than just survive the 9-5.  We focussed on ways to identify and apply their strengths in the workplace using the VIA-Inventory of Strengths* – and it was a real eye-opener for them.

Robinson talks about the need for an organic “agricultural model” of education, in which the conditions necessary for flourishing are created, rather than the linear, “manufacturing model”, which merely standardises everything, and squashes creativity and talent, as well as depleting our spirit and energy.

A brilliant short talk, which brings ideas such as strengths, flow, positive energy, flourishing, authenticity, meaning and spirituality to life, all without mentioning Positive Psychology once. An inspiration.

* You can do this inventory yourself for free here: it takes about 30 minutes to do, and you get an immediate report of your strengths in order. Well worth it.

Thanks to Morten Mortensen for the link.

Teaching at its best

Here’s a link to my article on Positive Psychology News Daily this month, about teachers’ wellbeing, and wellbeing in schools generally.

As usual, please feel free to add your thoughts and comments here, or on the PPND website.

Image: Thanks to Chicago 2016

Here’s a link to my posting to Positive Psychology News Daily this month, reviewing some of the keynotes at the recent CAPP conference at Warwick University:

• Well-Being and Behavioural Economics : David Willetts, MP, Shadow Secretary of State for Innovations, Skills and Universities, UK

• Half-Life – Education for Well-being : Anthony Seldon, Master, Wellington College, UK

• Positive Psychology as a Force for Social Change: Robert Biswas-Diener, Debasish Sen Sharma, and Alex Linley

If you’d like to comment or ask questions, you can do that here or on the PPND website.

For other reviews of the CAPP keynotes by my colleague Timothy So, click here.

As with any happiness or life satisfaction league table, who comes top depends on exactly what’s being measured and how. In this article by The Observer journalist John Carlin, Iceland is referred to as the happiest country in the world. How can this be? We all know that it’s Denmark!

Carlin’s conclusion is based on Iceland’s ranking in the Human Development Index (HDI), one of the four United Nations assessments of human potential – it measures three basic dimensions – a long and healthy life, education and a decent standard of living.

1. Health is measured by life expectancy at birth,
2. Education is measured by a combination of the adult literacy rate and the combined gross enrolment ratio in primary, secondary, and tertiary education,
3. Standard of living is measured by Purchasing Power Parity (PPP US$).

So the HDI isn’t actually quantifying either happiness or life satisfaction, and it’s questionable (in Positive Psychology terms) whether health, wealth and education significantly contribute to happiness anyway.

In fact there are some elements of Icelandic society which would contradict the conclusion that it’s one of the best countries in the world to live in, for example, the highest divorce rate in Europe. However, this doesn’t mean they have unhappy families – in fact writes Carlin, “The kids will be just fine, because the family will rally round them, and likely as not, the parents will continue to have a civilised relationship, based on the usually automatic understanding that custody of the children will be shared”.

The article provides further insights into those character traits which might explain why Icelanders are generally happy people (if not the happiest), for example, optimism, resilience, self-confidence and a can-do attitude. That said, if we follow Lyubomirsky’s “Happiness Pie” model, after genes (50%), what we chose to do with our time is the largest contributor (40%) to our happiness – do we have any readers who could comment on how the average happy Icelander spends his/her time?

Whether or not it’s the happiest country, Iceland takes first place in the 2007/08 HDI, followed by Norway, Australia, Canada and Ireland. The USA is in 12th position, Denmark 14th and the UK 16th. At the bottom , not surprisingly are the West African countries of Guinea (175th), Burkina Faso (176th) and Sierra Leone (177th). For the full list, see here.

Image: Gúnna