Positive Psychology Detractor Exorcised by Big Leap
In his new book Against Happiness: In Praise of Melancholia, Eric G. Wilson blends his experience as a sufferer of chronic sadness and as a scholar of the Romantic period and comes up with “proof” that negative emotions and experience lead to creativity. That is quite a leap!! This […]

In the mid-1980’s, Howard Jones crooned on the radio: “What is love anyway? Does anybody love anybody anyway?” Here, two days before Valentine’s Day, I thought I would explore the idea of love a little more fully. I think it seems safe to answer Jones’ second questions with a resounding yes. […]

Imagine this: A corporate billionaire and a working class mechanic have nothing in common until they share a hospital room and realize that they both share a burning desire to spend the time that they do have left to accomplish unfulfilled dreams until they “kick the bucket.” Together they embark on the road trip of […]

What can Positive Psychology say about being happy at work?  No, really, what can Positive Psychology definitively say about happiness at work?  For example:

Are there some people for whom happiness at work is easier?
Are there actual ways to increase happiness at work?
What if you’re too busy at work working to have time to worry about employee […]

Jeff Peters “has been engaged in as many schemes for making money as there are recipes for cooking rice in Charleston, S.C.” When told by a constable that the next place on his hit list “won’t allow no fake doctors to practice in town,” Jeff replies proudly, “I don’t practice medicine. I’ve got a state […]

Watching television is probably the most common pastime in the world. On average Americans spend about five hours per day watching TV, while Europeans are glued to the box for over three and a half hours daily.

But not without a little guilt. Most of us realize that the good life doesn’t involve daily doses of Big Brother. Now University of Zurich researcher Bruno Frey has confirmed that sneaking suspicion: watching TV makes us less happy.

Drug companies are used to telling consumers about side effects—the headache, nausea, and mild genital swelling that can ensue from that ubiquitous antacid. We all know that traditional advertising media (TV, radio, newspapers), as well as non-traditional advertising media (blogs, coffee sleeves, and tattoos), present startling disclosures about pharmaceutical side effect risks. Americans are barraged […]

 The pervasive belief in American society is that money is the answer to all of our prayers.  Most Americans believe that if they only had money, they would be able to resolve all of their stress and worries. Most believe the result of obtaining wealth is a life of pure and unending happiness and satisfaction. […]

It has been called a “marketer’s dream” and “just reformulations of the platitudes you’d gather if you spent a half-hour reading bumper stickers in the Whole Foods parking lot”  (See Boston Magazine’s September 2006 issue: Happiness Is…None of the Above).
It has been portrayed by the media as a cult, as a “so-called science”, as merely a […]

I’ve just returned from my zillionth med school interview. And, for the zillionth time, I’ve tried to convince some hardcore basic scientist that positive psychology isn’t fluff. Try explaining positive psych to a genomics professor. Not easy.
Many genomics professors, surgeons, hematologists, and the like are not so into social science. A lot of them think […]