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In this month’s posting for Positive Psychology News Daily, I reviewed some brand new research from Professor Carol Graham, Soumya Chattopadhyay, and Mario Picon (all from the University of Maryland). Their objective was to better understand the effects of the US economic crisis on well-being and to determine if individuals adapt both to the bad [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

We were talking about this just the other day: so here’s an uplifting tale from the States (where else?) on the positive after-effects of losing your job. The moral of the story? Write a best-seller about your experience, and sell the film rights! Thanks to Caroline Rivka for the link Image: Alex Cheek, reused under [...]

Here’s my latest article on Positive Psychology News Daily on that age-old subject of wealth and happiness. It seems to have caused a bit of a stir with some readers, judging from the number of comments (32 as of today), although maybe not for the right reasons! Never mind, I’m sure you’ll find the recent [...]

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 [...]

I really liked this article from Australia’s Herald Sun yesterday, about the relationship between money and happiness. As you’d expect from that part of the world, it gets straight to the point; over a certain amount, money doesn’t make you happier. The article suggests that what people who work hard really want is more time, [...]

In this article last year I mentioned that the tiny Himalayan country of Bhutan pioneered the measurement of well-being with its Gross National Happiness index. Now Bhutan is in the news again because tomorrow it will hold its first-ever democratic elections. This could be seen as a test of how serious the two main political [...]

Can Gross National Happiness ever be an accepted substitute for GDP? The Kingdom of Bhutan, a predominantly Buddhist country of approximately 750,000 inhabitants in the Eastern Himalayas, has been measuring Gross National Happiness since the late ’80s. The King, Jigme Singye Wangchuk, was concerned about the sorts of issues affecting countries which focussed only on [...]

You’ll be interested to know that in July, the independent think-tank the New Economics Foundation (NEF) published the European Happy Planet Index of carbon efficiency and well-being in the EU. It reveals that Europe is less carbon-efficient at delivering well-being (measured in terms of the happy, long lives of its citizens) than it was over [...]

Maybe it’s the traditional British reserve but whenever I mention that I’m interested in the subject of happiness, people tend to raise their eyebrows and look a little bemused. Very often they say ‘that’s simple, if I had more money I’d be happy’, or at this time of year in particular, ‘if I lost a [...]