Nobel Prize-winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman studied what makes people happy. He asked thousands of subjects to keep a journal of moments in their day when they felt happy.
According to his studies, intimate relations along with socializing ranked high on the happiness chart, while watching television and spending time with children ranked low. Causes of unhappiness included commuting to work and lack of sleep.
It just goes to show the importance of human connection in maintaining one’s well being.
When psychologist Ben Sharar started teaching “Happiness 101” a course in positive psychology, 854 students enrolled. It was the largest enrollment of any course offered at Harvard in 2006.
Positive psychology focuses on resilience, on conditions that improve mental health as opposed to concentrating only on the causes of mental illness. Studies and experiments in positive psychology are designed to discover paths for developing love, forgiveness, creativity and other positive strengths to combat mental health disorders.
In a 1998 presidential address to the American Psychological Association, professor and psychologist Martin Seligman said psychology needs to “turn toward understanding and building the human strengths to complement our emphasis on healing damage.” Arguably, this speech caused a turning point in the history of psychology, the birth of positive psychology. (more…)