Tal Ben-Shahar, Psychology Lecturer at Harvard University talks about how organisations can use Positive Psychology to improve motivation, creativity and loyalty, and ultimately productivity (2.37 mins).

Thanks to bigthink.com

It’s not often that you get something for nothing, particularly top quality scientific papers. However, you can now download ten Dec 2009 papers from some of the best-known Positive Psychology researchers including Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Ed Diener, Antonella Della Fave and the UK’s Stephen Joseph. See the Table of Contents below. Thanks to Ingrid Brdar for the link.

Thanks to http://twitter.com/dannyfine for the link

Can you change people’s behaviour for the better by making tasks more enjoyable? Car manufacturer Volkswagen seems to think so - they’ve been running a competition looking for new designs or inventions which prove the ‘Fun Theory‘, i.e. that having fun is the easiest way to get people to do the right thing. Examples include  the bottle bank arcade machine,  the world’s deepest dustbin, and the piano staircase, which is my favourite.

I don’t know what the positive psychology theory is behind behaviour change and having fun (perhaps linked to Fredrickson’s broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions?) but on the basis it’s worked with the majority of kids since time began, there’s no reason why it shouldn’t work with the majority of adults too.

The competition closes on 15th December, so if you want to enter your idea, and have the chance of winning 2500 euros, you need to get your skates on.

Thanks to Neil Ashley 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.