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.

Family Meal

Here’s a link to my article on Positive Psychology News Daily this month, about  the benefits associated with eating together.

If you’d like to comment, feel free to do that here or on the PPND website.

Thanks!

Image: courtesy of sunface13

Yes, great news just in is that, like colds, happiness is catching.  Interestingly, it’s not just your immediate circle of family and friends that you can ‘infect’, and who can ‘infect’ you, but also your friends of friends.

US research reported in the British Medical Journal has found that cohabitees who become happy increase the likelihood of their partner becoming happy by 8%. The likelihood of siblings who live near by becoming happy is increased by 14% and neighbours by 34%. The article doesn’t explain why neighbours (who persumably know you less well) are more likely to become happy than your loved-ones (who presumably do), or why work-colleagues seem to be exempt -  If anyone knows the answer let me know!

Also of interest is that physical proximity matters – it seems that the closer you live to your happy friends the better. And, as we already know, happiness does indeed lead to better physical health.

Maybe social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace could include an application which enables you to make friends with happy people, or track down the nearest ones so that you could pay them a visit for a quick “happiness boost”.

….On the downside, presumably unhappiness is also catching?….

Reference: Fowler, J.H. & Christakis, N.A. (2008). Dynamic spread of happiness in a large social network:longitudinal nalaysis of the Framlington Heart Study social network. BMJ 337:a2338.

Thanks to Janice Mount for the BMJ article

Image: Mussels

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

How does your business define employee well-being? Perhaps you think of it in terms of physical health, providing healthy menus in your staff restaurant, health screening or private health insurance. Or maybe you help employees manage stress or give up smoking? These types of support are common in many larger organisations, and for many HR and OD managers, this is what employee well-being is all about.

But what about the importance of psychological well-being or mental health in the work-place? In their recently published Change Agenda – What’s happening with well-being at work?, the CIPD’s examples of mental health at work are: work-life balance targets, conflict resolution training and relaxation techniques (p7). I think this is really missing the point.

The CIPD’s definition of well-being is ‘creating an environment to promote a state of contentment which allows an employee to flourish and achieve their full potential for the benefit of themselves and their organisation’. The question we need to answer is whether work-life balance targets, conflict resolution training or relaxation techniques really achieve this.

I would suggest that they are only half the story. Research shows that psychological well-being can be enabled through developing traits like resilience, optimism and self-awareness in employees, focussing on strengths and through fostering meaning at work, for example by building new organisational communities through volunteering programmes. What is essential for employees to flourish is an organisational culture which actively and positively promotes it.

I think it would be beneficial for organisations to view employee well-being in terms of an integrated model, which not only takes into account physical, psychological and spiritual well-being, but which places specific emphasis on developing the positives. I’ll be returning to this integrated model and the importance of a positive focus in later posts.