United States Gross Domestic Product vs. Gross National Happiness
I recently read this blog post by Justin Wolfers defending the use of United States gross domestic product rather than measures of subjective well being (e.g. gross national happiness) to measure how well our country is doing. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this debate, you can see this below video or this link to the Sarkozy Commission [...]
What the positive psychology approach can learn from Barbara Ehrenreich’s Bright-Sided
As a liberal social psychologist who has helped create a science of positive psychology course at the University of Southern California, I could not help but be interested in Barbara Ehrenreich’s new book, Bright-Sided, which states how the positive psychology approach (in academia, business, health, and economics) has undermined America. First, I would think we [...]
Gratitude Video from Conan O’Brien and Louis CK
People who study happiness can be annoying in their pollyannish prescriptions to just look on the bright side of life. Just ask Barbara Ehrenreich, who wrote Bright-sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America. So it’s always refreshing to see someone put basic research findings (being grateful is important) into more common [...]
Facebook Launches Gross National Happiness Index
Facebook just launched a gross national happiness index which uses analysis of words used in Facebook posts to measure the country’s mood. I’m sure those who study the taxonomy of emotion would love to see more complex measures included. However, this is a potentially wonderful tool and the fact that Facebook is willing to publish [...]
France to consider measures of gross national “bonheur” (happiness)
It looks like the government of France is following in the footsteps of Bhutan and the United Kingdom and is taking the idea of using happiness as a national indicator more seriously.
The article from the Telegraph is consistent with a growing drumbeat among academics and politicians to consider national indicators of well being. The challenge is to [...]
Feeling positive towards others makes you happier….unless you’re a Libertarian
Some of the group that run yourmorals.org are considering writing a paper focusing on Libertarians and so I’ve been looking at the data for triends. One consistent pattern we have found is that Libertarians (unsuprisingly) are more self rather than other oriented. They aren’t just extreme conservatives, but are qualitatively different. They seem to moralize [...]
The Serial Comma » Gross National Happiness
I am just getting back from the Gallup Positive Psychology conference where we talk a lot about measuring happiness and well being rather than GDP to inform policy. In case anyone wonders what some of my posts on happiness have to do with public policy, here is a tidbit I recently came across.
The basic [...]
Armando Galarraga demonstrates the relationship between happiness and forgiveness
Watching baseball can be a frivolous pursuit and a distraction from psychology research, but last night something happened which demonstrated a psychological finding far more effectively than any study or paper.
Armando Galarraga, a pitcher for the Detroit Tigers, was very close to pitching a perfect game. For non-baseball fans, its a very rare occurrence, comparable [...]