Positive Psychology
Lessons in Coping From a Teacher Who Rowed Across the Atlantic
In 2018, a biology teacher from Cincinnati named Bryce Carlson decided to row across the North Atlantic. That feat is about as difficult as it sounds. Carlson faced no shortage of obstacles on his journey, from a capsized boat to $85,000 in debt. But ultimately, he became the first American to row across the Atlantic…
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When You See Your Own Emotions in Other People’s Faces
Sometimes our perceptions of others tell us more about ourselves. That can be true in how we interpret other people’s motivations, for example, and a newly published study suggests it can even be true in how we read people’s facial expressions. In the study, researchers in Germany asked 50 participants to interpret pictures of people…
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What a Connection to Nature Means for Kids
It’s a common complaint that kids these days don’t get outside enough. There may be something to that claim, as well, with parents of 8 to 12 year olds saying in one survey that their children spent three times as much time playing on screens as playing outside. Intuitively, you might suspect that children who…
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The Demographics of Humor
Humor is a funny thing. Different people use it in different ways. I’ve touched on this topic in some previous blog posts. People with high self-esteem, for example, tend to use humor to build relationships with others. Undertakers, on the other hand, tend not to use it much at all. Now, a new study from…
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Happiness Is Possible With a History of Anxiety
Mental health conditions like anxiety can interfere in almost any aspect of people’s lives, with real consequences. And yet, in the long-run, that doesn’t mean happiness is unobtainable. I’m not saying that to provide words of inspiration. I’m saying it because a newly published study suggests it’s true. The study surveyed 2,128 adults in Canada…
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Are Bad Memories Useful?
Our memories about our own lives are one of the primary ways we make sense of who we are and how the world works. As I’ve written about before, there are at least three ways people tend to make use of their autobiographical memories: Guiding future behavior by learning from the past Creating a sense…
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Not Judging Your Own Thoughts as an Element of Happiness
There’s no formula for happiness, but something that apparently helps is not being too judgmental toward your own thoughts and feelings. A recent study from researchers in Spain highlights the role that this kind of acceptance plays in overall happiness. The study surveyed 589 participants, asking about several different personality traits and about their self-rated…
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Developing a Sense of Purpose in High School
With a strong sense of purpose in life tend to come a range of cognitive, mental health, and possibly even physical health benefits, as I’ve written about before. A more complex question is how a strong sense of purpose arises. Although it’s reasonable to expect that a sense of purpose would be something that develops…
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What Friendships Can Do for Mental Health in Old Age
It seems self-evident that having rewarding social connections should be able to help with healthy aging, but framing that intuition in a scientific way turns out to be surprisingly complicated. There are a couple reasons why that’s the case. The first is that loneliness influences and is influenced by other aspects of our behavior in…
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Friends Cooperate More Efficiently After Exchanging Gifts
As I’ve written about before, people give gifts for a range of reasons – sometimes simply to do something nice, sometimes because they want to influence others. A new study from researchers in Italy sheds light on another function gifts can serve: increasing teamwork and cooperative performance. In the study, 32 pairs of close friends…
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