I am amongst other things the Secretary of the Howard League in Scotland. John Howard was the 18th century founder of the penal reform movement: between 1775 and 1790 he toured Europe seeking humane forms of penal provision and promoting these in Britain. In 1921, under the guidance of Margery Fry, the Howard Association […]

“The best moments usually occur when a person’s body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile.”
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
A birthday is a special day for many of us. We all make wishes on our birthdays. Yet it seems that this is more of a ritual as most […]

Sleep Deprivation is rapidly becoming a major health issue for many adolescents. The adolescent sleep research is now telling us that teens ought to be getting 8-9 hours of sleep, while we know that many have habituated themselves into 4-6 hour bouts of shut-eye. There are a variety of factors responsible for this behavior. […]

 Let Positive Triggers Turn on Your Best Self ©                                         by David J. Pollay   
A few years ago I was sitting in my office, by myself, and I wasn’t feeling good.  Yes, it’s true.  I research, write and speak about Positive Psychology, but I admit it, I wasn’t having a good day. 
So, here’s my first question:  Where do […]

TODAY

By Dave Shearon
One of the great things about blogging or having a personal web site is that I can look back and find things I wrote years ago and still agree with. (The opposite is also true, though not as frequent for me, but that’s a subject for another post!)
One such post is this one […]

Social contagion is a term for moods spreading from person to person. We are physically constructed to make this possible. Daniel Goleman in Social Intelligence (2007) writes about mirror neurons that fire in response to observing behavior or emotions in others. “For instance, when volunteers lay in an fMRI watching a video showing someone […]

 
One of the most exciting aspects of positive psychology is its scope for application – not only is it appropriate in therapy, counselling and coaching, it’s relevant in fields as diverse as architecture, design, art, economics, politics, business, linguistics, religion, education, philosophy …..It seems that the more you look for it, the more you’ll […]

By Margaret Greenberg
Earlier this month I attended a women’s leadership conference sponsored by The George Washington University (GWU) in DC. I didn’t go to the conference with the intention of writing a Positive Psychology News Daily article – I went simply to recharge my batteries, learn something new, and of course support my daughter […]

“[Appreciative Inquiry] deliberately seeks to discover people’s exceptionality – their unique gifts, strengths, and qualities. It actively searches and recognizes people for their specialties – their essential contributions and achievements. And it is based on principles of equality of voice – everyone is asked to speak about their vision of the true, the good, and […]