Daniel Kahneman (Nobel prize winner and Professor of Psychology and Public Affairs Emeritus at the Woodrow Wilson School as well as the Eugene Higgins Professor of Psychology Emeritus at Princeton University) talks about the complexity of happiness and how it is different for the ‘experiencing self’ and the ‘remembering self’. With the aid of a story about colonoscopy, he explains why the way events or experiences  end is so important to happiness.  He also reminds us that the money-doesn’t-make-you-happy argument is not as straightforward as many Positive Psychologists believe.

Thanks to Yechezkel Zilber for the link

Here’s a link to a US radio show ‘To the point’, featuring Barbara Ehrenreich, author of  ‘Bright-sided: How the relentless promotion of positive thinking has undermined America‘ and Robert Biswas-Diener, a psychology instructor at Portland State University; they discuss the connections between Positive Psychology, happiness and positive thinking and health and the economy (you need to wind forward to 30 minutes to hear this part of the programme, although I recommend you listen to all of it if you have time).

I’m astonished that Ehrenreich links the current economic crisis to positive thinking; what about the role played by good old fashioned greed? Or lack of effective financial regulation? Or technology, which has enabled high-frequency trading (aka casino banking). Surely these are far more likely culprits. By blaming positive thinking we’re unlikely to take the action necessary to avoid the same thing happening again in the future.

There’s been a lot of negative press in positive psychology circles about Ehrenreich’s criticisms of positive psychology, but what I hadn’t appreciated until now was her suggestion that the provision of a welfare state in Scandinavian countries (and presumably also the UK) might be due to pessimistic thinking. And there was I thinking it was because we cared about our fellow beings.

And whilst I agree with her that the US should think long and hard about being 22nd on the list of happy countries, what she doesn’t then question is how this can be the case if America IS the land of positive thinking that she claims it is.

Thanks to Robert Biswas Diener for the link.

Here’s a link to my posting to Positive Psychology News Daily this month, in which I discuss ways of applying Fredrickson’s “Broaden and Build” theory of positive emotions in ways that organisations will find acceptable, as well as useful.

Your comments and thoughts are welcome here, and on the PPND website.

Image: Thanks to Joe Shlabotnik

If you liked the ‘We Feel Fine’ idea, then you’ll love Twistori. Brilliant!

Thanks to Neil Ashley for the link.

Image: Matthew Oliphant

Recently several of my close friends have lost their jobs or are in the painful process of redundancy consultation with their employers, so my posting on Positive Psychology News Daily this month focuses on what positive psychology can tell us about human reactions to imposed (negative) change.

I had to include the good old Change Curve model (it explains the emotional roller coaster we experience as a result of change we didn’t expect or didn’t want) which you may already be familiar with.

There are various practical steps that we can take to increase our ability to manage negative change more effectively; I’ve suggested three activities here. I’m sure you can think of many others – please share them with us in your comments. To paraphrase Darwin, it isn’t the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most