The Declaration of Independence states that our inalienable rights include “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Life and liberty are easy to understand, but that last phrase is less intuitive. How can people have a right to strive for happiness?
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Uniting to Fight Poverty: A TED Talk
How do we solve problems like poverty with so much political polarization?
Welcome to the Pursuit
To pursue our happiness, to achieve our liberty, and indeed to find fulfillment in our lives, we must start with a moral consensus, a fundamental truth around which we all revolve. Think of an atom. The outer field of electrons is full of chaotic activity. Electrons are rapidly orbiting and moving in a constant buzz. What contains that chaos and gives it structure? The fact that the whole chaotic cloud orbits one central nucleus.
Vivienne Harr’s lemonade stand story a movie
When Eric Harr was a kid, he made $9 one day from selling lemonade. He thought that was totally cool. Thirty years later, his daughter Vivienne set up a lemonade stand in Fairfax and did considerably better. Over 173 consecutive days, she took in...
read moreThe affective profiles in the USA: happiness, depression, life satisfaction, and happiness-increasing strategies
The affective profiles model categorizes individuals as self-fulfilling (high positive affect, low negative affect), high affective (high positive affect, high negative affect), low affective (low positive affect, low negative affect), and self-destructive (low...
read moreHappiness is overrated: It’s better to be right, study finds
It is better to be right than to be happy – at least for one husband on the cutting edge of science. As part of an unusual experiment, the husband was instructed to “agree with his wife’s every opinion and request without complaint,” and to continue doing so even if...
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High flyer
To enter the Alice in Wonderland-like existence of Audette Exel, you could do worse than go down the rabbit hole and poke your head up into the ancient former kingdom of Nepal. Weddings are erupting around the capital, Kathmandu, with flourishes of trumpets and...
read moreIs self-esteem a cause or consequence of social support? A 4-year longitudinal study
Considerable research has been devoted to examining the relations between self-esteem and social support. However, the exact nature and direction of these relations are not well understood. … Self-esteem reliably predicted increasing levels of social support...
read moreCan we make ourselves happier?
Can we make ourselves happier? According to studies from all over the globe collated by the World Happiness Database in Rotterdam, we can. But the path to happiness may not be where we are looking for it.
read moreThe Ten Commandments: Why the Decalogue Matters
The biblical book of Genesis presents the story of how God’s new way for humankind finds its first adherent in a single individual—Abraham, a man out of Mesopotamia—and how that way survives through three generations in the troubled households of Abraham, his son...
read moreRaising money for food banks: Carolee Hazard
“Am feeling both good and a little stupid.” This is the comment Carolee Hazard posted on Facebook after a woman ahead of her in the grocery line said she’d lost her wallet. The woman was so upset that Hazard paid her $207 grocery bill “and just asked her to send me a...
read moreSpending money on others promotes happiness
Although much research has examined the effect of income on happiness, we suggest that how people spend their money may be at least as important as how much money they earn. Specifically, we hypothesized that spending money on other people may have a more...
read moreThe hidden side of happiness
Hurricanes, house fires, cancer, white-water rafting accidents, plane crashes, vicious attacks in dark alleyways. Nobody asks for any of it. But to their surprise, many people find that enduring such a harrowing ordeal ultimately changes them for the better.
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