Ice-cold beer - one of life's small pleasures

Another new study (Quoidbach et al, 2010 – see details below) has been published on the topic of money and well-being, specifically, whether being wealthy enough to access the best things in life affects your ability to savour small pleasures.

The research suggests that wealthier individuals report lower savoring ability, and even being reminded of wealth produces the same negative impact on savoring as actual wealth. In fact, you don’t actually need to enjoy any peak experiences (such as spending time on a tropical beach holiday) for your savoring ability to be impaired – simply knowing that these peak experiences are readily available may increase your tendency to take life’s small pleasures for granted.

For a full review of the research and its implications, see Positive Psychology News Daily.

Reference:

Quoidbach, J., Dunn, E.W., Petrides, K.V. & Mikolajczak, M. (2010). Money giveth, money taketh away: The dual effect if wealth on happiness. Psychological Science 21 (6), 759-763.

Image:

Cold beer courtesy of niel schubert

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.

Here’s a link to my December contribution to Positive Psychology New Daily – given that 2010 is nearly here, it seemed appropriate to write about ‘future mental time travel’ (MTT). This particular research suggests that practising future MTT every day can increase your level of happiness if you focus on positive events.

If you can’t think of any positive future events to savour, even thinking about neutral events in the future can be beneficial, by reducing your level of anxiety. So as you start planning for 2010, why not try your own experiment, and see if future MTT works for you?

As usual your thoughts and comments are welcome here and on the PPND site!

Image: thanks to lepiaf.geo

Working Together

Here’s a link to my posting to Positive Psychology News Daily this month, called      ‘Creating Strong Bonds in the Workplace’, which gives you some of the major theories and practical applications of positive psychology for developing positive relationships at work.

As usual, feel free to leave your thoughts and comment here, or on the PPND website.

Image: thanks to enfad

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