Comments on: Measuring the Value of a Dollar

By: " Musings - ‘Finding Your Voice’ " on Positive Psychology News Daily

" Musings - ‘Finding Your Voice’ " on Positive Psychology News Daily — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 20:27:06 +0000

[…] Muhammad Yunus is cited as an example of one who had channelled the use of his talents and passion to meet a sensed human need (poverty) in response to his own conscience when he first stood guarantor for micro-loans to the poor and later set up the Grameen Bank. (More about Muhammad Yunus in this article by Giselle Nicholson). […]

By: Website Templates and Web Design, Graphic Layouts

Website Templates and Web Design, Graphic Layouts — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 12:39:28 +0000

Website Templates and Web Design, Graphic Layouts…

Sorry, it just sounds like a crazy idea for me :)…

By: Positive Psychology News Daily » Three Lessons from the 1st Applied Positive Psychology Conference

Wed, 25 Apr 2007 21:30:08 +0000

[…] I have never seen a powerpoint presentation with so many great pictures as the one prepared by Robert Biswas-Diener about his experience traveling around the world and studying happiness, with pictures he took in Kenya, Greenland, and many other countries. Apart from appreciating his amusing presentation style, I enjoyed the meaning in his talk. I was inspired by the idea of developing cultural awareness of applied positive psychology, especially in developing/non-industrialized countries (as Giselle Nicholson writes about here and here). […]

By: Positive Psychology News Daily » Blog Archive » Calendar Cross Reference for February 2007

Fri, 23 Mar 2007 21:30:39 +0000

[…] Feb 13 Measuring the Value of a Dollar by Giselle Nicholson […]

By: Jeff

Jeff — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 23:49:32 +0000

That’s exciting. Speaking of microfinance, can I borrow five dollars?:shock:

Keep on spreading the word about Microfinance!

By: Giselle

Giselle — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 21:48:35 +0000

Hi Jeff,

Thanks for your interest. What an amazing opportunity to be able to meet those indigenous women in Ecuador! The power of microfinance cannot be truly understood until people have been able to experience it’s impact, as you have. I’m glad you brought up microfinance in the US - something people usually don’t expect to exist here, but it’s here! This is an interesting paper about microfinance in the US: http://ideas.repec.org/p/wpa/wuwpdc/0109002.html.

I look forward to sharing more with you as the research progresses,
giselle

By: Giselle

Giselle — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 21:41:27 +0000

Hi Senia,

Thanks for your interesting comments. I’m so interested in the relationship between happiness and entrepreneurial success, so I am including a lot of different measures of happiness to tease apart what might be related to business growth and the building of entrepreneurial skills. One component and contributor to greater happiness is definitely the empowerment these women develop throughout the loan process. This of course ties into self-confidence, which makes people better businesswomen - so I think that the links to happiness are definitely there, but are varied and complex…I’m eager to find out!

By: Dana

Dana — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 19:32:41 +0000

Great article Gig! I don’t have know much about microfinance, but from your article the application of Pos Psych in developing this field sounds extremely promising. It’s so great that you are involved in this growth. Love, Dana

By: Jeff

Jeff — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 17:36:36 +0000

The concept of microfinance has so much power (if assessed and applied well) to change lives around the globe. It is very honorable that you are researching this subject. Personally, I have met some indigenous women from Ecuador who lived in pretty much dire poverty, but were entrepreneurial in that they sold homemade crafts such as llama wool products to tourists. Often they told me that they would take a tiny loan from the local bank and then pay it back as they could do so.

So in that sense, Microfinance is alive and well. Also I think in the US with credit unions you can find microfinance of a different sort. While being poor in the US is different than elsewhere and has its own unique characteristics, the principles of the Grameen Bank and microfinance work here, too.

I am excited to hear more from your valuable research.

By: Senia.com - Positive Psychology Blog

Senia.com - Positive Psychology Blog — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 15:38:32 +0000

What an amazingly rich and wonderful article, Giselle. Thank you! Best of luck to you on your research. I’ve always really liked that positive psychology is about studying how people can be happier, more productive, more successful. It sounds like you’ll be looking at these things empirically. I also wonder:
a) whether happiness (SWB) relates at all to entrepreneurial success
b) whether you’re looking for (or even if you’re not, whether you still may find) that people tend to choose those techniques and tools that work best for them individually. This was one of the most interesting results from the MAPP program for me: there are a lot of positive psychology techniques, and different techniques may work best for different individual people. People need to find those techniques that work best for them individually (Jordan Silberman examined part of this topic in his capstone research).

Thank you, Giselle.