THRIVE Blog

Articles, videos, and research on what makes life worth living. What it means to thrive is different for everyone so AllPsych's Thrive Blog is designed to help you understand the foundations of what it means and what it takes to thrive so you can begin applying them to your own life. Make sure to check out our THRIVE Courses where you can add action to your knowledge and start improving your well-being.

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 ...
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March 18, 2020 / Neil Petersen / Behavioral Psychology, Humor, Politics, Positive Psychology,

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 ...
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March 17, 2020 / Neil Petersen / Anxiety, Clinical Psychology, Happiness, Positive Psychology

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 ...
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March 6, 2020 / Neil Petersen / Cognitive Psychology, Memory, Positive Psychology

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 ...
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February 18, 2020 / Neil Petersen / Cognitive Psychology, Emotion-Affective Psychology, Happiness, Positive Psychology

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 ...
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February 13, 2020 / Neil Petersen / Meaning, Positive Psychology, Teens

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 ...
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February 5, 2020 / Neil Petersen / Clinical Psychology, Developmental Psychology, Friendships, Older Adults, Positive Psychology

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 ...
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January 30, 2020 / Neil Petersen / Cognitive Psychology, Friendships, Gratitude, Positive Psychology,

Why Gun Owners Are Happier (Hint: It’s Probably Not the Guns)

Decades of psychology researchers has converged on the conclusion that the key to happiness is … owning a gun? Not quite. But as the authors of a new study on happiness and ...
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January 24, 2020 / Neil Petersen / Behavioral Psychology, Happiness, Positive Psychology

The Dietary Habits of Optimists

It’s solidly established that there appears to be a link between optimism and physical health. This can be seen, for example, from the fact that people with higher levels of optimism tend ...
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January 22, 2020 / Neil Petersen / Behavioral Psychology, Health Psychology, Nutrition, optimism, Positive Psychology

Hungry Kids Don’t Like to Share

It’s hard to be concerned with lofty philosophical principles when you’re hungry. A new study from researchers at University of Chicago underscores this point in the context of an ethical dilemma that ...
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January 17, 2020 / Neil Petersen / Behavioral Psychology, Children, Gratitude, Nutrition, Positive Psychology, , Teens